Onwards and upwards.....Phi-lok & Sukhothai

And so we arrive in Bangkok - the lovely Bella Bella is full so we nip next door and take a cosy but slightly crammed room next door at The Mango Lagoon (still on Rambutri Soi). It's a tad more expensive (about ten pounds) so we all squeeze into one room, but there's a sofa, cable TV and air-conditioning (which makes us all feel too cold such have we adjusted to the heat now). It's a nice place to stay and we can still avail ourselves of Bella Bella's fab food next door and we get to watch movies all day.

After catching up with laundry, cash and storing the fins and snorkels, we take a train to Phitsanulok. Now this is somewhere I would highly recommend for children. It's a great town. For a start, we got two great rooms at the Petchpailyn Hotel. There is a fantastic park along the river (the street is aptly named Healthy Street). It has amazing equipment, from the usual swings and slides to climbing walls, cross-trainers and rowing machines. The children had a great time (as did we). There's even an outdoor arena where free aerobics classes are held. Talk about sport for all - very impressive. Further along the river there is a colourful and friendly night market (great quality cheap clothes and stuff), where you can see the 'flying vegetable' men at work (so called as they toss the veg high from their woks) and eat some of the best food we have ever tasted. My mouth was singing from the awesome flavours. The cafe owner was delighted to see two little 'farangs' scoffing his food - beancurd and vegetable soup, beancurd and chillis, stir fried vegetables and rice. A two course meal for four plus drinks cost us less than a quid each. We had to return the next evening for some more of the same. Its a beautiful evening walk too, as the river, bridges and tress are magnificantly lit - it was quite magical.

The next day, after another trip to the park, we visited Wat Yai, where the most revered Buddha image in Thailand is held. There were lots of visiting Thais and we met a friendly young lama who practised his English with us. We also got a blessing from one of the monks.

The following morning we took a local bus to Sukhothai's Old City. This is where I am writing from now. We opted to miss out the dull and unattractive new city and headed straight for the walled ruins where it's possible to stay in a nice guesthouse (we're at Vitoon) and there are plenty of cafes and a market. It was so hot by the afternoon we decided to eat early and go to bed in order to make a dawn start on bicycles around the park. This is the best move we could have made. Up at 5am, we hired our bikes from K's (80 baht for all of us and they have a bike for all, from toddler ones with stabilisers, junior, senior and even tandems). We were in the park by 5.30am and we had the place to ourselves. It was very atmospheric and quite spiritual to watch the sun rise above the old temples, Buddhas and ruins as we cycled happily around the well laid roads and paths. The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves although were a little wobbly at the start having not been on a bike for nearly six months. By 8.30am the sun was up and already starting to fry, as we watched large noisy groups of tourists bumble off their coaches to walk around the park with their very loud guides. It was time for us to leave now.

We have just checked out of our guesthouse and are waiting for the bus to take us to Mae Sot near the border with Myanmar. I am so glad we chose to come this way instead of heading straight to Chiang Mai. Both Phitsanulok and Sukhothai are well worth visiting - beautiful, educational and very family friendly.