Got in to Chiang Mai today. I love it despite the perpetually grey sky. I guess being by the ocean helps Bangkok.

Picking up from last time: Monk Bowl Village is where a half dozen families make bowls that monks traditionally use for collections the original way: 8 strips of metal hammered together with melted copper at the joints. Each bowl takes about a day to make. Some look very plain, others are more decorated, and they range from normal rice bowl size to serving bowl size.

We walked around the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew and a few other local wats. Amazingly elaborate and ornate temples and shrines. (Pictures will most likely be uploaded once I get back to the states.)

Around sunset we took a ferry along a canal to get back to the skytrain/our hostel. It sounds picturesque. However, the water was filthy, and there was a tarp on ropes that the passengers could raise or lower, and most had it up high to keep any splashes from getting on them. It was good to catch the little glimpses that I did of the slums along the canal to compare to other parts of Bangkok.

The next morning we took a regional train to Ayutthaya, the second capitol of Thailand. It was a huge area around 1700, and the ruins do give an idea of its past grandeur, but the town itself is possibly even more depressing. We got around by bike (pretty dangerous from where we were staying, apparently), and thought it would be a good idea to stop by the Ayutthaya Historical Study Center to get some perspective before viewing the ruins. The Japanese built the center, and apparently promptly abandoned it. We left pretty quickly too. We somehow navigated to the main attraction of the town: Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya (the actual ruins).

They were very impressive, and it was mind boggling to compare these ruins and buddha images to what we'd seen in Bangkok. They are what you see in movies or video games, but they don't do the scale justice.

The next day we went to Sukhothai, the original capitol of Thailand, before Ayutthaya. Old Sukhothai (where we were staying) is literally a one road town. Not only that, it is mostly one side of a road, as the other side is predominantly ruins and an active temple.

The Sukhothai Historical Park is incredible (I think I'm running out of synonyms). It covers a huge area, and while some parts are spread out, the ruins themselves convey more of an anciety city feel than Ayutthaya. One gets a much better perspective of what it would be like in its heyday. It was originally a walled town, and some remnants of the walls are still visible, but they mostly look like hills. Along one of the rural roads around the less dense parts we hit a rural traffic jam: about 20 head of cattle were being herded across the road.

The active monastery was interesting: it's surround by a moat thick with catfish and other fish. The monks sell fish food pellets to tourists, and it is disgusting how many writhe to the surface, sliding over each other, mouths gaping for food. As you can probable guess, nobody is allowed to fish from the moat. The fish must live a fat and happy life: many of them were at least 4 feet long.

The food in Old Sukhothai was pretty good and amazingly cheap. We had some incredible soup from a street vendor for 20 baht, and noddles for 10 baht ($1 USD = 35 baht).

As we bused from Sukhothai to Chiang Mai (this morning) the sky ominously turned grey and heavy. It is common to burn off trash, and the air feels thick with it, along with pollution from the buses, trucks, trains, cars, and motorbikes.

We have about 4 or 5 days in Chiang Mai, then we head to Chiang Rei and in to Laos.