Water, water everywhere

Now that's what I call rain... at a local town festival in Sukhotai last night when the wind started blowing and the Thais started packing up their things. Really should have known what was coming from that but just ambled along as I generally do round here; few spots of rain, then without further warning the heavens just opened. 'Torrential' doesn't do it justice. This was pisstake rain: like someone had just up-ended the sea on my head...lightning flashing every few seconds, and thunder like God revving His Harley. Amazing - within about 5 seconds I might as well have jumped in a swimming pool I was so soaked; wandered down the street laughing, beer still in hand, Thais sheltering at the roadside looking at me as if I were insane. Classic.

In other news, first day in Sukhotai started out frustrating, got worse, then got amazing: got to the historical park near the city, guy offered to rent me a bike - thought 'No, every time anyone's offered me anything here they've been trying to con me' - so I walked, and walked, and walked, realised the place was actually massive and I'd need a bike if I was going to see anything, walked all the way back for about half an hour to sheepishly say yes I would like a bike, and then the fun really began. Rode off and saw a couple of quite nice ruins, and then apparently nothing. Thought this was a bit strange, consulted map, didn't seem to conform to any of the roads I was seeing, rode around a bit more, still couldn't see anything, rode around a bit longer, realised I was back at the first ruin I'd seen, rode on... this went on for about 2 1/2 hours, during which time I was beginnning to curse sodding stupid ruins, Thailand, bicycles and most of all my own ever-reliable lack of any sense of direction, and was heading back in a state of total disgust to hand the bike back and go home, when there it was - right over the ****ing road from the bike shop, big fat ruins literally 30 yards away. Even by my standards that was blind.

And then everything got better: the next 90 minutes the best in my whole time here so far. Ruins just gorgeous, and as in Lop Buri I virtually had the place to myself apart from the staff and stray dogs (all over the place here). Sat on a mini-pier, dangled my feet in the water, looked at Wat Sa Si over the lake (I've uploaded the pics, click either of the links in the previous posts) and felt pretty blissful. When I got back to Sukhotai found the festival going on (same one I went to last night) in honour of the rains (it's a Buddhist event as well). They had long-boat racing on the river, about 30 blokes to a boat, at night and going like the clappers, pretty thrilling; they also had a load of food stalls featuring dishes from the town's local producers, get in! Stuffed myself silly of course. Firework display finished things off in style.

Yesterday went to Si Satchanalai historical park, about 60km from Sukhotai - not as spectacular but still interesting, when it's dry the place will be really good but as it is the ground's so damp you can't go far from the road. That's one of the reasons people don't come so much now - I'd still say off-season is better (the lack of other tourists really makes a difference to these places, to see them crawling all over the ruins would be dispiriting) but obviously it has disadvantages too. Another is the roads: some out of Sukhotai were washed out - the driver today had to try 3 different routes before we managed to get out - although it did make for an interesting bus ride to the ruins: getting splashed by the bow wave from another bus as it passed us, seeing kids swimming at the side of the road (it was that deep), thinking this ain't quite the 358 to Bromley...

So to today: finally got to Chiang Mai, gonna check out a couple more temples tomorrow and maybe attend a lecture in the evening if it's on and I'm feeling cultural. And no, no more disasters or near ones recently... I'll try to keep it that way. OK my stomach's rumbling and there's gotta be a curry round here with my name on it, speak again soon.