I woke up nice and early at 5am. I got up, packed my bags, checked out and got a taxi to the Stray Office. This was where I would meet my new tour group. Altogether there were 13 of us and our guide Charly. We signed some papers and then got in several taxis to the train station. There we had about 45 minutes to wait. At 8 o'clock an officer or gaurd started blowing his whistle. Everyone stopped and stood up. Some music started playing, it was the National Anthem. Apparently it is played twice a day at 8am and 6pm. It is also played before each film at the cinema.

At 8:30 we got the train. The train journey was about 6 hours long. It was a bit of a rickety old train but they did bring us drinks and a meal which none of us were expecting. When we got there we still had another hours journey by road. This time we were traveling in a tuk-tuk bus. It was a bit like an animal truck, it had bars on the side with 2 benches sat facing each other. We squeezed in and it was a crazy ride. We eventually arrived in Sukhothai in the late afternoon.

We were staying in the old city in a very nice guesthouse. I was sharing a room with an Australian girl called Pip. We checked in and hired some bicycles. We cycled around the park looking at the ruins of an old temple. There were still many Buddah statues there and some were really big. There were lots of orange flowers on sticks and offerings scattered around their feet. We then went to look at the new temple. We had to make sure we had our shoulders and thighs covered and take our shoes off if we wanted to go inside. We just had a quick look around the outside and then fed the catfish in the lake.

In the evening we all met for dinner to get to know each other better. There was Tim and Emma a married couple from New Zealand and Jim and Calum two students also from New Zealand. Brendan was from New Zealand but now lives in Darwin, Kenny a Sweedish guy now also living in Australia and Pip and actual Australian. Fabienne who I had also met in New Zealand was from France, Lizie from Ireland and Ben, Sarah and Freya from England. We had a nice meal and chat and then went off to bed. It had been a good first day.