Si Satchanalai

I caught a couple of buses from Old Sukothai to Sawankalok, arriving in the heat of the day. I had been told that this was the nearest place to Si Satchanalai where I could stay the night. No one spoke English and I could not see any hotels, hostels or guest houses. Eventually I found a westerner who gave me directions to a hotel. I walked a long way until it began to look as if I was leaving town. I stopped at a motor spare parts shop, where a man said "I am the owner of that hotel. This man will drive you there, free of charge." I was delivered to the door of a proper hotel, where I had to pay five pounds for a room (a bit above my budget) with clean sheets, hot shower, toilet, towels, soap, TV, room service and free wifi. Too hot to go out, I switched on the fan and finished reading the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Next day I woke up at seven and set off to Si Satchanalai. I found the unofficial bus stop outside the police hut. The police told me the bus went at nine and offered me a stool to sit on. I decided not to wait and set off along the road to hitch a ride. An electrician stopped, picked me up and drove all the way to the historic park, where he dropped me. What a kind man! I hired a bicycle and set off to explore the ruins in this calm and peaceful park. Thousands of birds flew about in the sky and called to each other from the trees. Apart from the birds I was alone in the park.

People were already living at Si Satchanalai in the ninth century, then in the 12th century the Khmers took over. In the 13th century the Siamese leaders King Bangklanghao and King Pha Mueng established Sukothai Kingdom and made Sukothai and Si Satchanalai both capitals.

By the 14th century Si Satchanalai had become the biggest ceramic producing site in the whole of South East Asia. They had hundreds of kilns and exported ceramics to Japan, Indonesia and the Phillippines. In the 15th century, the Ayuthaya kingdom, seeing this, conquered Si Satchanalai and it became part of the Ayuthaya kingdom, until 1767, when the Burmese sacked Ayuthaya. Si Satchanalai went into a decline and was eventually abandoned.

Archeologists excavated Si Satchanalai, uncovering 186 kilns. The earliest were underground bank kilns, basically a round hole dug into a river bank, exiting through the top of the bank. Later they built brick kilns on the ground. They made glazed stoneware ceramics in muted colours and elegant designs.

The historical park has wide expanses of grass. A Chedi with tranquil meditating Buddhas seated high up in alcoves appears between spreading trees. A multitude of birds sit in the trees, each making their different call. 144 laterite steps lead up to a Wat. Storks have nested precariously in the uppermost twigs of the trees lining the steps, covering the black laterite stones with white droppings. There is a potent smell as I walk up the steps. Whole groups of birds make their nests so close together that they are almost touching. They stand, sentinel like, in their nests.

A wall was built in the 15th century round the ancient city, running along a raised bank beside the river. The wall on this side of the city is about six metres high in places and three or four metres wide: an impressive, solid structure. In places trees have grown down from the top of the wall, their roots penetrating between the laterite bricks,  forcing them apart until the wall starts to crack and crumble. On the uppermost wall there were gun fire niches and side walks for soldiers on guard duty. There were seven gateways and forts.

The temples and monasteries were built in black laterite and plastered with lime. Then the lime was sculpted with delicate patterns, showing Chinese, Khmer style and Ayuthaya style influence. Tantalisingly few vestiges of these beautiful patterns remain. People leave offerings, woven out of banana leaves, lotus buds, ribbons and incense.

There is a Wat outside the city walls, where local people have put up a volleyball net within the walled grounds of the ruined wat. I discovered that there are several places to stay near the historical park.
Si Satchanali Homestay 04190 084 0488595 is right near the entrance to the park, run by an artist and his wife. The walls of the house are decorated with his paintings. On shelves in the entrance are a collection of old stoneware shards, bronze statues of elephants, Buddhas and Hindu gods, teapots, articulated wooden snakes, parasols, paper fans, miniature ceramic animals and two old mento liptus tablet tins. Since neither the artist, nor his wife spoke English, it was not clear whether these were for decoration or for sale.

I rode my bicycle through a village of wooden houses on stilts (where more homestays were advertised) to Chaliang, where there is a very fine Khmer Prang with restored plasterwork. Vestiges of the old sculpted decoration remain around the entrance, showing nagas (river snake gods). The battery in my camera has given out so no photo of the Prang I am afraid.