On Monday, I had food poisoning. On Tuesday, I had dinner with a private arms dealer. On Saturday, I rode in a truck with a sweat-shop owner and visited a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The World Heritage Site wasn't part of my normal week, actually. Despite being tired from the long trip back from camp, I have decided to do some traveling at least once a month and get out of Mae Sot and see some of Thailand. This weekend I took a minibus up to Sukhothai. Sukhothai is one of Thailand ancient capitals, a walled city full of temples and Wats. Today it is a tourist park with crumbling stone ruins and manicured lawns. It's the perfect place for a relaxing weekend getaway.
I rented a bicycle for the day and cycled through the ruins, taking over a hundred pictures of the stone Buddhas. I took off my sandals with the Thai Buddhists and walked on the hot stone, kneeling before the incense under the hot sun. Outside the old city walls, I found a route alongside a small canal where women waded, fishing with large nets and boys splashed about in the shade. The ruins outside the walls are emptier, overgrown with weeds. Buddhas sitting in lotus positions in niches are missing heads or parts of their legs. Pigeons rise from deserted stone towers. On the horizon, the mountains are clearly visible, getting hazier and more indistinct and fading into the sky in the distance. One of them is said to look like a reclining Buddha, but I can't tell which one.
To the West of the old city, I make what the Rough Guide describes as "a long haul" out to another ruin site. This long haul is well sign posted, entirely flat and amidst beautiful rice paddies and fields. It takes fifteen minutes of lazy cycling. I am alone at the site as I climb the stone slabs that lead to the top of this hill where an ancient Buddha is waiting. The view from the top is green, all green. In the distance things dissolve into smoke, but the towers from the ancient Wats are still visible.
I spend my evening quietly, reading on the teak porch of the guesthouse in the shade and wandering through the night market. It is nice not to have to talk to anyone, a reprieve from the usual intense conversations of Mae Sot. It's nice to by anonymous. I sip an Oreo milkshake in the night market with a smile … this is a beautiful life to be living.
Buddha on the hill
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