Travels with rarecat: Sukhothai - "Dawn of Happiness"

Sukhothai is for me, one of the most beautiful ruins I've come across in Southeast Asia. There is something about the place, maybe it's even the lovely expressions on the buddhas' faces - everyone of them seemed to be smiling. They gave the ruins personality. There must be a good reason why it is named Sukhothai - "Dawn of Happiness".

The historical park is quite big, consisting of the ruins of the ancient city of Sukhothai from the 13th and 14th centuries. In the complex there were the remains of the royal palace and twenty-three temples. A shuttle took us to the different parts of the park where we spent the whole afternoon visiting the main temples, the biggest of which is Wat Mahathat, also the most beautiful, in my opinion.

On the road to Sukhothai we visited what looked like a theme park with a huge buddha dominating the landscape. There was a local market there and I found some delicious local longan fruit. I also encountered for the first time some red-faced muscovy ducks and some other local ducks and a pair of doves that I have yet to find the names for.

After visiting the historical park, we spent the night at a lovely renovated hotel that reminded me of a hacienda. There were exquisite lotus in the pond and orchids all around the corridors. The historical park had some lotus too but because it was late in the day, they were all closed up. I was lucky to see the ones at the hotel opened up in the morning.

Before we left Sukhothai in the morning, we visited a local school and spent some time with the young students. The rural school had no computers that we could see - our group donated some money to help out.

The landscape was changing as we drove into the northern highlands - mountains! We're moving on to our next stop, Chiang Rai.

Wat Mahathat and its buddha from different sides. The main stupa is in the graceful shape of a lotus flower - Lanna style.

This is my favourite view - we don't see the back view of the buddhas very often as they usually have something behind them. I was surprised to see this beautiful backview.

Main complex at Wat Mahathat

Ancient tree among the ruins

Standing Buddha image on each side of the main stupa

At the base of the main stupa are 168 stuccoed sculptings of buddhist disciples walking with their hands clasped together in salutation

One of many smiling buddhas

Wat Si Sawai - one of the oldest temples founded in late 12th century with three well-preserved prangs, representing the Hindu trinity.

Detail on the prangs

Wat Sa Si right on the lake with a beautiful Lanka styled stupa

The lake in the historical park with its own krathong for celebrating Loy Krathong, which actually originated from Sukhothai as the first capital of the country