TP Trails

1 Night in Ayutthaya and 2 Nights in Old Sukhothai (we loved Old Sukhothai!)

Ayutthaya

While staying in Bangkok, we decided explore northern Thailand next, saving the beaches in the south of Thailand for later in our trip. Having decided this, the next most obvious stop would be Chiang Mai, which is a home base for many travelers in northern Thailand. The most popular ways to travel from Bangkok to Chiang Mai are to fly, bus or take the train. Since we have quite a bit of time, we wanted to take a few days to get to Chiang Mai from Bangkok, and train would provide the most comfortable form of transport. Ayutthaya is about 50 miles north of Bangkok and was formally one of the world’s largest cities before it was attacked by the Burmese army in 1767. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Many people do this as a day trip from Bangkok, but we decided to spend a night here on our way to Chiang Mai. From our hotel (T2 Sathorn Residences), we took the subway from the Lumphini Station to the Hua Lamphong station (train station). Since Ayutthaya is so close to Bangkok, we took a local train (only 20 Baht per person, no assigned seats, no A/C) and purchased tickets that morning at 8:00 am for the 8:20 am train. We picked up a few croissants at the train station for breakfast and proceeded to track 11. At about 9:00 am, the train finally pulled up, and then left at 9:10 am (50 minutes after the scheduled time). Not a big deal for us since we had no hard plans, but something to keep in mind as we booked future travel. The train wasn’t uncomfortable but did get full (the number of tickets is not limited, so many people were standing as we made stops along the way). With the windows down, there was enough breeze to keep cool without A/C. Overall, definitely worth saving money by traveling on the local train rather than the rapid trains. We arrived in Ayutthaya around 10:45 am and then walked the 15 minutes to the hotel (Baan Baimai Boutique Room). Since walking doesn’t seem to be that common in Thailand, tuk tuks were constantly asking if we wanted a ride along the way.

Since we arrived early, our room wasn’t ready yet, so we dropped off our stuff and took a tuk tuk to one of the ancient temples in the old town. The women at the hotel were very helpful and provided us with maps and suggestions on where to go/what to see in Ayutthaya. They also arranged a boat tour for us in the afternoon/early evening to visit some of the temples on the outskirts of town (250 Baht each). Our first stop in the old town was Wat Maha That, which has the famous Buddha head in the tree roots as well as ancient wat ruins. There is an all-inclusive temple pass that you can buy to get you into all of the ancient temples (or at least most of them) for 220 Baht, whereas entrance into each individually could be 50-100 Baht per person. We figured we wouldn’t go to enough that day to make the pass worth it, so we purchased entry tickets as we went. From Wat Maha That, we walked to Wat Phra Si Sanphet, which has the famous three chedi ruins. The temple outside of this ancient wat is free to enter and holds a large restored Buddha. We also walked on the outside of Wat Ratchaburana, the Ancient Palace, and Phra Ram Park. It’s easy to walk between the ancient sites in Ayutthaya, and many were taking the tour on bicycles. On our walk, we passed a group of elephants that were being used for rides (which we don’t condone). It was our first sight of elephants in Thailand and was a bit unnerving as they walked past us. We took a tuk tuk back to our hotel for a quick 45-minute nap before starting our boat tour for the afternoon.

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There were 10 others on our boat trip, but that didn’t bother us. We stopped at three temples – Wat Phanan Choeng (20 Baht entry), Wat Phutthai Sawan (free entry, active temple), and Wat Chaiwatthanaram (50 Baht entry). The latter was timed as the sun was setting, so it was very picturesque. While we did enjoy the tour, it’s important to note that there were many other boats filled with tourists doing the exact same route at the exact same time. It did give us the opportunity for a boat ride and to see these temples efficiently. Our hotel also provided transportation to and from the boat dock, so we could just relax and enjoy.

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After the tour, we headed to the Bang Ian Road night market for dinner. We picked a spot that was serving hot pots, which I had been wanting to try. We got a large pot with a mix of pork, chicken, and seafood. The pot ended up sparking and burned a small hole into my shirt, so beware! It looked like many of the locals were adding the ingredients themselves, but one of the women working at the stand just dumped everything in for us (maybe she didn’t think we knew how to do it!). It was still delicious, and we would order it again, even though it was probably overpriced at 200 Baht. After dinner, we went back to the hotel to get some sleep before another travel day tomorrow.

Old Sukhothai

The hotel ordered us a tuk tuk to arrive at 9:20 am the next day (we had previously purchased tickets in Bangkok for the 9:48 am train to Phitsanulok). This time, the train was only 35 minutes late, arriving at 10:25 am. We used the extra time from the delayed train to purchase 2^nd class train tickets from Phitasanulok to Chiang Mai two days later. We ultimately decided to book the 1:22 pm train because we didn’t want to travel overnight (no sleeper seats were available). Plus, the 1:22 pm train gave us enough time to get from Sukhothai to Phitsanulok on the bus. The train from Ayutthaya to Phitsanulok took the scheduled amount of time, so we were only 35 minutes late from our scheduled arrival. From the train station in Phitsanulok, we took a tuk tuk to the bus station. At the bus station we booked the next bus to Sukhothai for 50 Baht each. The bus was generally on time and took about 1 hour and 15 minutes. While there was no A/C on the bus, the open windows and ceiling fans provided enough air flow to keep us cool. Also, there were very few people on the train, so Patrick and I each sat in our own row for a very comfortable ride. The bus station is located in new Sukhothai, which is about a 15-minute drive from old Sukhothai (the historic center of the city). We had booked a hotel in old Sukhothai since this is closer to the Sukhothai Historical Park (also a UNESCO World Heritage Site), so we took a tuk tuk to the Scent of Sukhothai resort for 150 Baht. For all of our types of travel, we were shocked by how smoothly our day went! We arrived at our resort around 4:30 pm. For dinner we walked into old Sukhothai to check out the night market. This market had less prepared food that we were used to, so we ended up finding a “restaurant” on the main street (called Sureerat Restaurant). Following dinner, we went back to the hotel and watched a movie (we brought along an iPad/iPhone-HDMI adapter to hook up to the television – this has come in handy since a lot of hotels don’t have English channels).

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The next day was our only full day in Sukhothai. We woke up around 8:30 and enjoyed the free breakfast at the hotel, which was a great Thai breakfast spread (fried eggs, rice soup with pork, noodle soup with pork and vegetables, toast, pancakes, donuts, spreads (jam, butter, etc.), juices, coffee, and tea). We relaxed for the rest of the morning by the pool at the hotel and tried to select a hotel for our next night in Chiang Mai. There are so many hotel options, which makes it hard to choose! We’ve told ourselves that we are only going to spend 15 minutes moving forward when selecting hotels so that we don’t waste time researching when we could be exploring/enjoying our current location. After our dip in the pool, we rented bikes from the hotel and spent the afternoon biking around the ancient ruins. There are two main parts to the Sukhothai Historical Park (both requiring separate entrance fees of 110/Baht per person including a bicycle). It was hot out, but otherwise weather conditions were perfect. There were practically no other tourists in the historical park, so our bike ride was very relaxed. We rode around and explored (sometimes getting off our bikes to walk around a few of the ancient sites) for about an hour and a half. Then, we headed over to Wat Saphan Hin, which is in the second part of the historical park. These ancient temple ruins are located on top of a hill which offers a nice view of Old Sukhothai. The roads in this area are essentially untraveled, so it makes for a very pleasant bike riding experience. Numerous other wat ruins are scattered about, a few more up on hills and many that you can see as you bike (or walk) past. We weaved our way back to the main center historical park. From here we decided to ride back along Route 12 towards Wat Saphan Hin again because we had initially passed a restaurant that caught our eye (Krua Tomyam, which you can find on google maps). We both ordered the famous Sukhothai noodles (thick noodles) with pork and it was delicious! We even asked if they were open for dinner because we would have gone back (unfortunately, we think they said they closed at 4 pm). After our noodles, we biked back to the hotel and took another dip in the pool (and made friends with the hotel cat) before showering for dinner. We walked back to the main street and picked another “restaurant” for dinner where it appeared locals were dining (and one that had been full yesterday). I’m not sure what it was called, but it had a yellow canopy. We ordered pork noodles and wonton noodle soup. Again, both were delicious (sensing a theme here in Thailand?). Beer was purchased from the stand next door (I think called The History Café & Guesthouse) to enjoy with our noodles. It was a great day of eating, that’s for sure! We headed back to our hotel after dinner for our last night in Sukhothai. We much preferred old Sukhothai to new Sukhothai as it was much calmer and more relaxed, plus closer to the historic sights that we came to visit.

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Another long day of travel had us up at 7:30 am to eat breakfast and pack up. Our tuk tuk arrived at 9:15 am to take us to the bus station in new Sukhothai, where we caught a bus to Phitsanulok (this time, only 42 Baht per person and for a bus with A/C – not sure why this was cheaper than our bus to Sukhothai??). We left ourselves plenty of time since we had pre-purchased train tickets from Phitsanulok to Chiang Mai that we did not want to miss. We ended up being about 2 hours early for our train in Phitsanulok, but better early than late! We just read and researched the next part of our trip during this time. We were again surprised by how well our transportation in Thailand was going. Our train from Phitsanulok to Chiang Mai was about 6 hours total. It would have been a perfectly pleasant train ride had it not been for about 6 people behind us who were blatantly drinking, playing loud music, and chatting the entire time. Note to all – bring headphones or something to block out unwanted noise! We arrived in Chiang Mai around 7:30, only 15-20 minutes behind schedule. It was only a 20-minute walk to our hotel in Chiang Mai (Riverside House Hotel), which was worth it to save on the tuk tuk cost (100 Baht). Overall, we had a very smooth journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai with a couple great stops along the way!