Tuesday, July 29, 2008

And Then There Are Places of Poetry

[Sukhothai Historical Place, Thailand, another postcard]

The lily pond.
The taste of water in that thick opaque air.
The whispers among the Buddhas sitting in repose.
The echoes of chants, bells, steps of wild animals, the serpentine crawls of reptiles, amid the crumbling, leaning, exquisitely shaped stone places.

What wild gorgeous running dreams would I have if I slept overnight in a world like this?

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from an Internet Search: Sukhothai Historical Park
Sukhothai is the first unified kingdom of Thais.
It's located 440km north of Bangkok, around the middle of Chiang Mai and Bangkok.
(It takes half a day by car from Bangkok.)

The Sukhothai kingdom had flourished for about 200 years until it became a vassal state of the Ayutthaya kingdom in 1378.

After the Ayutthaya kingdom, Sukhothai was left alone in the jungle and became an abandoned place, but it was restored with the support of UNESCO in 1960's and registered as a World Heritage site.

By the way, " Sukhothai " means " The Dawn of Happiness ".

The capital of Thailand’s first Kingdom (founded in 1238), Sukothai has considerable historical significance and is a pleasure to visit. There the original city was surrounded by walls with 4 city gates. Today the walls house a number of sites worthy to visit. These include:

• The Royal Palace
• Wat Mahathat,
• The Ramkhamhaeng National Museum
• The Ramkhamhaeng Monument
• Wat Si Sawai
• Wat Traphang Ngoen
• Wat Traphang Thong
• Wat Chana Songkhram,
• Wat Sa Si
• Wat Mai
• San Ta Pha Daeng (the Deity Shrine)

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