Ancient Cities

On my way south I made a few stop-overs in the cultural parts of Thailand, Sukothai and Ayuthaya, the ancient capitals of Thailand. Both of these sites were ruins of the former capitals of the country. Many of the brick structures here were slowly crumbling under their own weight and age. The structures weren't nearly as impressive as the modern day Wats that are so ornately decorated but the history behind it all is fascinating. The Thai language, arts, and culture were largely created at these sites and the fact that they were built centuries before North America discovered by Columbus made them all the more impressive.

I generally preferred the atmosphere of Sukothai a bit more as it was a historic park that was quite well maintained. You got around via bicycles to all of the crumpling Wats. A few of the sites had very beautiful Buddha statues still standing.

One of the most interesting parts of this leg of the trip was the bus ride between the 2 sites (about a 5 hour ride). I got to sit next to a monk and had an interesting conversation with him for most of it. Granted his english was very broken and I know virtually no Thai so asking questions and getting answers was extremely difficult, but I learned that only about 20% of people who become monks actually stick with it throughout their lives. But my favorite fact had to be that most monks don't even understand the mantras that they say when they pray. The mantras, or chants, that the monks speak are written in a dead language, so most of the younger monks don't really know what they are saying but are simply trained to say it. This brought a chuckle out of the monk I was speaking with, I was very lucky to stumble across the opportunity.