From Phuket to northern Thailand by scooter: Ayutthaya, Chiang Mai, and a geyser

In the summer of 2015 we were traveling around Southeast Asia on our own scooter — we bought it in Phuket, and we told how that happened in the post “Buying and selling a scooter in Thailand.” At the end of July we rode it across the whole country to the north, to Chiang Mai, and from there to the border with Laos.

588 kilometers

On July 25 we returned to Phuket for a couple of days, and then headed north. On July 27 we stopped in the town of Prachuap Khiri Khan: in one day we covered 588 kilometers and made only two or three stops along the way. We rode with pillows under us — and they came in handy. We found our way with Google Maps on the phone, and where there was no internet, with the maps.me offline maps.

The next day the distance was shorter, but for some reason the ride took longer. We wanted to stop in Bangkok, rode into it, sat in a traffic jam, and changed our minds — and spent the night a little farther north, in Ayutthaya.

Ayutthaya

Ayutthaya was one of the first Thai states, and its capital had the same name. In 1767 the city was destroyed by the Burmese. On the morning of July 29, before riding on north, we walked among the ruins of the old capital.

There we also saw the Buddha head in the roots of a tree. It had fallen from a statue and was placed in a bodhi tree, and the tree grew its roots around it.

That same day we got to the town of Tak and stayed there in a small hotel.

Chiang Mai

On July 30 we finally reached Chiang Mai and went straight to the post office: we were hoping the parts for our tent were waiting for us there. Because of the holidays, that day and the next the post office was open only from 9 to 12, and we didn't make it in time. The weather, on the other hand, was good.

The next day we picked up the parts at the post office and finally repaired the tent. Then we saw a couple of temples and the zoo. By the way, they let us into the zoo at the local price thanks to our Thai driver's licenses — we wrote about that in the post “Driver's licenses in Thailand.”

Figures of little monks with bowls collect donations.

In the second temple complex, Pavel especially liked the dragon on the stair railing.

Of everything we had seen in Thailand by then, we liked the temples most — they were the most beautiful and interesting. On August 1 we went around temples again.

The geyser and Chiang Rai

On August 2 we arrived in Chiang Rai — it is closer to the border with Laos. On the way we stopped at a geyser.

It was rainy in Chiang Rai. We checked in for two days and planned to leave for Laos on August 4. How our first day there went is in the story “Our first night in Laos.”