August 12, 2017
Nakhon Si Thammarat: Work and sight seeing
Yesterday's urgent work was finally completed this morning and what sleep I got was not long enough nor restful. Once we had made sure that the client was back on an even keel we went off to the Wat Phra Mahathat.
On the way we stopped off some satays and sticky rice - not the worst breakfast.
The Wat itself was only three kilometers from our hotel. Unfortunately, the chedi or stupa (built in the 13th century CE) was under repair and there was a lot of restoration work being done of various parts of the temple complex. The museum was pointless, mainly because of the lack of context due to there being very few English descriptions - if you can read Thai it might be quite different. Wat Phra Mahathat means Temple of the Relic and Nakhon Si Thammarat's Wat apparently has one of the Gautama Buddha's teeth.
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The cloister surrounding the stupa was lined with various Buddha statues, mostly in the position of suppressing Mara.
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One of the monks, whose chanting we stopped to appreciate, came and chatted to us. I think he was keen to practice his English, which was pretty good. We were also accosted by a Thai Tourism intern and persuaded to fill in a questionnaire, much of which wasn't really relevant to cycle tourists. The main vihear, or meeting hall, was my favourite - home to an enormous Buddha statue and with a high ceiling and sloping pillars.
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After that it was back to our hotel room so I could get some sleep.
Today's ride: 6 km (4 miles)
Total: 4,150 km (2,577 miles)
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