Sukhothai and Nong Khai

So I haven't posted for a while, for two main reasons: 1. we were in the small and sleepy town of Nong Khai, and not doing much post-worthy stuff (most of the days were passed reading books, playing chess, and eating) and 2. I sadly lost my charger for my camera battery so I haven't been able to take any pictures-boooo. Luckily, I'm on the trip with an awesomely talented photo major so when I make my scrapbook I plan to steal her beautiful photos.

Anyway, two weeks ago we visited the ancient capital city, called Sukkhothai. There's not much to the modern town, but we toured the ancient ruins of hundreds of temples (called wats) on bicycles. Inside the walls of the ancient city, mostly everything looked the same, but our group got outside the city walls to the less-beaten path and found some really cool temples. Here's some pictures to give you an idea what the ruins at Sukkhothai were like:

Oh, also the hotel we stayed at in Sukkhothai was really nice and so was the pool--many hours were spent playing in/lounging by the pool. I had just gotten my stitches from the motorbike crash out on thursday and we arrived on saturday, so i was ready to get wet!

After Sukkhothai we headed to Nong Khai, a small river town in Northeastern Thailand just accross the Maekong River from Laos. We stayed at a beautiful little guesthouse right on the river, called the MutMee--and the best part was that it was owned by a European so there was actually good Euro/American food! After four weeks of soup, noodles, rice, and vegetables, I was so happy to see things like sandwiches, garlic bread, salad, and spaghetti on the menu. I definitely ate way too much, but the comfort food was much needed. Here are some views from the MutMee.

My room and bathroom (cutest room so far):

View from my room:

Front porch and view from it:

After two weeks in Nong Khai we went to Laos for the weekend. We took a van from the Vientiene, where we crossed the border, up to a backpacker town called Vang Vieng. There, we had a crazy day floating the river on inner tubes, where we stopped at various bars, got free drinks, and jumped/slid/trapeezed off of various high obstacles. As playing in the water is one of my favorite activities, it was a ridiculously fun day! Even despite the material casualties (pretty much everyone lost their sunglasses and shoes, if not more). When we got back to Nong Khai we took an overnight train to Bangkok, where we are now. We're staying at a University Hotel on-campus that serves as a training center for tourism majors. It's really nice to have a flushing toilet again and the service here is great. The University, owned by the Royal Family, also has a beautiful campus, with ponds, trees and flowers everywhere. On our first day in the city we toured the canals in a boat and went to a huge, beautiful wat. I'm getting a much more positive picture of Bangkok than my first experience here. Next up, planning my travels for after the program ends! The only definites right now are the islands of Southern Thailand for lounging on the beach and some climbing, and seeing the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia--the rest is still being planned, needless to say I'm stoked!