Phitsanulok Trip: A Break From Upcountry Life

After 2 days of staying in Khirimat town, Sukhothai province, the idea of going away on the weekends popped up in our heads. Since some friends of ours are doing internship in Phitsanulok by the Naresuan University, why don’t we just go visit them?? It’s only 1 hour bus ride from Sukhothai city to Phitsanulok anyway!

On a bus to Phitsanulok, yay!!

It was a great relief to be out of the boring town. We were so excited to go to Phitsanulok. The bus from Sukhothai Bus Terminal to Phitsanulok is leaving every 30 minutes, so it wasn’t bad at all. The ticket for Sukhothai-Phitsanulok bus is 39 Baht, air-con ;)

Still, no matter how happy and relieved I was, I couldn’t help noticing and feeling irritated with the upcountry people again. Why? My friend and I arrived the bus terminal around 5.40pm or so, I asked the ticket seller, or people from the bus company or whatever what time would the bus to Phitsanulok arrive. And they were all like, “It’s coming soon!” I was like, “around what time?” They replied, “soon soon.” Goddd so irritating, the reason I asked was that I wanna know when so I could just prepare for it, u know? Maybe I’d go look around first and come back for the bus or something. But people here are so no care about the time at all. They just basically expect u to keep on waiting and waiting? Well, I guess I should be thankful enough that they still have clocks on the wall that still working…

You wouldn’t believe how 2 provinces next to each other could be so different. Sukhothai is just so boring and upcountry while Phitsanulok is …civilized! We were excited just to see 7-11 shop and malls! The pizza company restaurant!! OMG Sukhothai just made us appreciate these little simple things in life!
Anyway, our friends went to meet us at the bus terminal in Phitsanulok. We went to dinner at a nice restaurant by Nan River, it was great. Then we went to the night bazaar. Yes, yes, I know the night bazaar is nothing and just same old same old stuff but hey! I was in the upcountry Khirimat town for a week, remember? SO this is quite a treatment for my culture shock, hehe.

The night bazaar in Phits, not much different from the other ones really...

Apart from the stuffs sold at the night bazaar there, the price was also not different from the ones in Bangkok, so I wasn’t that impressed and didn’t buy anything but a pair of earrings, hehe.

Me and my gals at the night bazaar :P

My friends, Ning & Nu on a trishaw:)

It was quite late by the time we finished the night bazaar tour. Well, it was around 9pm and I think it’s late by rural standard because the city buses were out. So we had to get a tuk-tuk taxi from Phits city to Naresuan University, the campus that is an hour away from the city.

My friends are having internship there at a pharmacy store. Their accommodation was nice, just like normal apartments provided for students in the university. There was lots of food to eat, internet shops, 3 convenient stores that open 24 hour including 7-11. The apartment my friends stayed was like all-girl apartment sort of place. Air-con, TV with cable, normal shower and…BED!! Ohh I missed sleeping on the bed!!

It was even pleasant to just stay there and relax. I got up, watched TV, went down to the internet shop so I could update my blog, checking emails and so many food selections to eat. In the evening my friend’s parents drove from Bangkok to Phits becoz they missed their daughter so much that she was away for a week and having a hard life in Sukhothai. Which was really cool to me so they could drove us back to Sukhothai and we wouldn’t have to deal with the bus back.

On Sunday before going back to Sukhothai, we stopped by at the famous temple in Phitsanulok called Wat Phra Si Mahathat aka Wat Yai. It has the famous Buddha statue, Phra Phutthachinnarat.

Outside the chapel..

Wat Yai is located at the foot of Naresuan Bridge on the city side of the river. This temple was built in 1357, during the reign of Phra Maha Thamma Racha I or Phraya Lithai.

Phra Phutthachinnarat is considered the most beautiful Buddha image in Thailand. The unique feature of the statue is the flame-like halo, a symbol of spiritual radiance. It was a bronze statue when it was made and in 1931, King Ekatotsarot (King Naresuan’s younger brother) commanded a gold coating of the image, making it very outstanding against the dark background.

There is a saying that your trip to Phitsanulok will not be completed without visiting this temple to pay respect to Phra Phutthacinnarat. So if you are interested in visiting beautiful temples in Thailand, you definitely should not miss this one.

Apart from the rule that you can’t wear shorts to visit temples in Thailand (at least), this place has another particular rule which is that you are not allowed to take the photos of this statue while standing inside the chapel. You can only do it while sitting inside or standing from the outside.

Kate’s mom, Kate and me in the chapel...

Usually when u go visit the temple, there’s no fee or anything, only boxes that would accept the donation from visitors but check this photo below, it quite surprised me that for Thai people, you can donate as much as you like but for foreigners, you gotta pay..

It might seem normal for you guys, but it’s quite strange for me becoz, even though, I don’t go to temples that often, but the other temples don’t have this admission fee I think..(except the Emerald Buddha?)

I guess this temple is quite tourists oriented, according to the admission fee, the ‘monk chat centre’ and soooooo many souvenir shops..hehe.

The souvenir shops in the temple area

The stuffs you’ll find at the souvenir shops are mostly the same stuff for tourists you can find anywhere. Lots of shop selling wooden toys and decorating stuff and a few shops selling food product type of souvenirs..

As for myself, there was a wooden toy that interested me. It was a cubic type of toy. It’s quite different from what you had in mind that was popular years ago, though! Let’s see…

The wooden cubic toy when I first got it. Still in the plastic wrap, see??

When you play; take it apart like this…then try to put it back in a cubic shape again!

After hours of struggling…I gave up...

But don’t worry! They have the answer paper for you, even though it’s quite difficult to read.

This is an amulet shop…

Are you interested in this amulet?? It’s 500,000 Baht!!!

A scenery you can enjoy while driving back to Sukhothai..

Before going back to the hospital, we stopped by in Sukhothai city to have lunch first. This restaurant is by the road to the historical park, it has noodles and pork satay and the name is “Jay Hae”

The sign of JayHae, a restaurant selling “Sukhothai Noodles”

This restaurant is quite cute becoz the decoration is Thai-styled wooden house. Too bad the food was so-so, nothing memorable…

Kuay Tiew Tom Yum (Spicy soup noodles)

The Pork Satay Stand…

So that was our first time to Phitsanulok..we went back there again to visit our friends on the next weekend..but this time we had to take a bus back..it was quite a bitch!
Since we were not keen to Phitsanulok (and still aren’t), we got to the bus terminal in order to catch a bus back to Sukhothai. The people (or touts rather) in the bus terminal were telling us that this bus would go to Sukhothai and was leaving soon…so we got on..

This time it’s a shitty non air-con bus..yikes!

And then again, they said the bus was leaving in 5 minutes…after we got on it….it took like 20 minutes to depart…typical…(and it was 28 Baht, in case you are interested…)

Check out how ghetto it is, hehe

We’ll try to survive on it, haha!

After what seemed to be like a life-long journey, we finally arrived at Sukhothai bus terminal…

Kate at Sukhothai Bus Terminal, all tired from that ghetto bus..

That ghetto bus wasn’t just enough yet for our trip back to our place. We had to catch a song-teaw from the terminal to the hospital, the Khirimat hospital. So we needed to take the Sukhothai-Kampaengpet Song Teaw and get off at Khirimat.

And the Song Teaw was just..worse…….after waiting and waiting even though the song teaw is full already..it took forever to depart..made me wonder if the driver was having a hard time taking shit in a toilet or something.

This is the upcountry Song-Teaw…

This is a view from the inside, it was dangerous!! People were packed in it and some standing at the edge…who would be responsible if accident occurs?? Aside from that, the girl sitting opposite to me, she seemed younger but she has a baby already, which is kinda normal for upcountry people actually, anyway, she was breastfeeding her baby right there on the Song-Teaw. I was quite amazed..not the breastfeeding part..but....with her..TITS!

I know it's normal that a breastfeeding mom has big tits..but the strange thing about hers was that the nipple area ..the darker color area of your skin around the nipples...was so huge!! It was around..2 inches diameter or something!! My friend and I were like...shy instead of her...I don't think we can breastfeed in public, especially with the tits she has, like that..

And no, guys, I couldn't take a photo of her and her tits! SORRY! DUHH!

So that was my bitchy ass Phitsanulok trip blog..thank you for reading this far :)