Day 32 – Sukhothai
Sukhothai Historic Park
Today we left Hotel de’Peal into another sunny Sukhothai day. We had breakfast along the way and stocked up some water and snacks at 7/11. On this 15 minute walk, we saw another two 7/11 stores. They are everywhere in Bangkok too.
Once we reached the main / Central bit of the park, we purchased the ticket for 100 Baht / $4.25 AUD per ticket which comes with a Map of the site. For an extra 10 Baht / $0.43 AUD you can take in a bicycle. The park is split into 5 sites (Central, North, West, East and South), with the Central site being the main one. Each site needs a separate ticket which costs the same regardless of site.
If you want to do all 5 sites, I would recommend hiring a bike which can be done close to the central site, for around 30 Baht / $1.25 AUD. We decided to do the Central and Northern sites with the possibility of doing the Western if time permitted. We read online that the Western, Eastern and Southern parks don’t have much to see. Therefore, we didn’t get a bike.
Central Site
The Central Site, is probably the largest concentration of all the temples and well worth a walk around. There is information in English. It was cool to see that the building style of influenced by Sri Lankan Buddhism.
While taking photos at Wat Sa Si, we were stopped by Tourist Police who came on a golf buggie. Wondering what we did wrong, we responded to their questions, and probably noticing we were a bit unsettled, they told us it was their job to protect us and then asked for a photo with us!
We left the central site, which took us around 3 hours and had lunch at Say Hi 2, which is very close to the Central Site and the food was tasty and cheap.
Northern Site
Leaving the cafe we walked towards the Northern Site. Along the way we saw Wat Sorasak which is not actually part of any site but looks very cool with all the guardian elephants surrounding the building.
At the Northern Site after paying again, there are two main drawcards which are Wat Phrapai Luang and the Wat Si Chum (J’s favourite of all the sites).
Western Site
We went towards the Western Site and as the roads got quieter we started getting nervous about dog attacks. However we were able to go Wat Mangkorn which is one of the two draw cards for the Western Site. We had actually gone through the back end, and therefore we didn’t have to pay entrance fee, because no one was around. That being said Wat Mangkorn wasn’t worth the hike in my opinion. We met some other tourists who cycled there and they didn’t think it was worth it either.
We decided to walk back towards the Central Site as our hotel was on the other side. Google Maps was showing a path through the Central Site, but once we got there we found out it was a military barracks or something similar. As we were walking around the side of the Central site, we tried our luck with the ticket inspector, showing our already stamped ticket for the Central Site. He let us into the Park, so we could save around 15 minutes of walking!!
Once we got into the Central Park, it was close to sunset and the atmosphere was completely different. Locals were running through the park for exercise.
We started walking towards the hotel when another Tourist Police officer came out, had a conversation, took a selfie and then told us to go to the market close by. We went to the market not wanting to mess with the fuzz.
For dinner we went across the road again to Sinvana, which was a very chill vibe and excellent food.