Sukhotai

Erm, there's not really a great deal to be said about Sukhothai really. The town itself is a bit grim and only livened up by the fact that the river was the highest it had been for 30 years and was about to burst it's banks. Incidentally we decided to stay in the guest house which was right next to the river and situated a good deal lover than the artificial concrete wall which held it back. As you do.

It was a lovely guest house but one did wonder why it needed so many staff (apart from to pile up the sandbags which they were busy doing as we arrived). Just as is the case virtually everywhere in Thailand, there was a ratio of about 3 staff members to one customer. It was a family run affair so I suppose they just wanted to make everyone feel valued by giving them a title, but I do feel that placing a snapshot of each family member alongside their job title on the back of the breakfast menu was a little bit over the top. My particular favourite was the title bestowed upon Grandma: 'Manager of Textile Purification'. To give some credit where it's due though she did tackle our laundry and to get THOSE clothes THAT clean is something that only a grandmother could ever do. (Mental note: must find out why that is).

Although Sukhothai wasn't exactly a hip hop happening place, we did actually have quite a good time there. We visited the historical park (i.e. a load of old Temples) which I would have found exceptionally boring if it were not for the fact a) we hired bikes and b) I discovered a hill to climb. There was only another temple at the top of the hill but the view was magnificent. It was without a word of a lie the exact view as the Cheshire Plain as seen from Beeston Castle but without the hedgerows. And it was sunnier. And about 40oC.

I love hiring bikes when you're on holiday, it's always so much fun. (Although I am still scarred from Lucy's experience in Amsterdam: "Look there's a real life nun!" *Bumpf* there goes Lucy's tooth as she hits said nun). We did get a bit lost on the bikes - not best when it's 40oC and the water situation's becoming a bit grim - but it was cool to a bit of exploring around Thailand's agricultural country ("Look there's a cow! Finally!" (I named her Daisy Chain the 2nd)).

We also came up with the highly amusing game of shouting "what what" in a circa 1920s British voice every time we went past a wat ( a wat being a temple by the way). A typical conversation would be "Look there's a wat old chap", "what what", "a wat", "what wat", "that wat you fool". Ah, endless hours of fun.

The only other moderately interesting thing that happened in Sukhotai was whilst trying to get home from the historical park. True to form we'd all got a little giddy over the prospect of a visit to KFC & the Big C supermarket we'd passed on the way. Unfortunately this did require getting off the last bus and we were a long way from home. Our failed attempts to hitch a lift back were noticed by a pair of lovely young teenage girls on a motorbike who had taken quite a shine to Jamie (who was quite popular amongst the ladies it has to be said). When they equally failed to procure us a lift, they called upon their brother for help who duly turned up with his van to take us home. It was not until back at the guest house when the owner ran out to check that we were ok did we realise that the 'rescue van' was actually the one they use the take the bloody dead bodies away from the scene of accidents! I was just glad that we didn't find this out before we got in the van because I think we would have continued to try to hitch hike.