Sports and Sukhothai

Being the lucky ducks that we are, Cyrus and I got a 2 week break from school.  They told us it was something about a sports week and midterms at school.  All we know is that we don't need to be back until the 17th.  Jackpot! 

After our New Years trip to Bangkok and Koh Sichang, we hung out in Suphan for a few days to get ourselves together.  Our coordinator told us that we should try to go the opening ceremony for the Sports Week, which was at the soccer stadium in town.  Since we were in Suphan, we decided to show some school spirit and go check it out.  We expected it to be a little performance by the school, maybe some songs, and a few track and field races or something.  Well, it went down a little differently.  Sports week is actually called the "OPEC Games" and schools from all over Thailand come to compete in a week long tournament of all different sports.  The opening ceremony was seriously like watching the Olympics.  We saw first class marching bands, choreographed dances with hundreds of kids, fireworks, the lighting of the torch, and the procession of all the different school teams.  And we are talking about elementary to high school kids...in public schools.  For a seemingly poor country, they know how to celebrate sports. 

Students from our school performing:

During the procession of the schools:

The lighting of the torch!

After being in Suphan for a few days, we packed our bags for Sukhothai.  It's about 6 hours north of Bangkok and is known for it's ancient ruins from the kingdom of Siam, and fun fact: it's also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ruins were built around the 1200s and I'm not too well informed on the history, but they were really beautiful.  It was around the time when Theravada Buddhism became the official religion of Thailand, so there were a lot of huge statues of Buddha.  Obviously I'm not Buddhist, but there's something about the statues that makes you feel relaxed and kind of spiritual.

  

The ruins are contained in the Sukhothai Historical park, which covers a pretty big area.  We rented bikes to ride around to all the different temples, and because the complex is so big there were a lot of times when we were the only people at a site, which made it a lot more authentic.  Also, please note the artistry that went into taking some of these pics.

If only we were as good at using the camera timer as my mom is....

Just cruising...

A friend of Cyrus' from Kalamazoo teaches in Taiwan, and is coming to visit Thailand this week.  So we'll spend the rest of our break hanging out with him and his girlfriend in Bangkok and showing them around Suphan.

Paige and Cyrus