Thailand by train (day 6) – full day walking tour in Phitsanulok

Thursday 24th November 2022

We decided to give the breakfast at our hotel (Harmony Ville) a go, as it was included in our room rate. To be honest it was a bit disappointing – an uninspiring western style breakfast, that came with a pretty bland rice porridge.

The hotel is on the canal, which used to form part of the moat outside the old city walls. It was lovely to walk along.

Our first destination of the morning was Chan Royal Palace. Apparently Phitsanulok was briefly a capital city, and at the time the King of Sukhothai built Chan Palace as his residence. There’s a Historical Park just outside the palace, which contains the ruins of three ancient temples. There’s not a huge amount left of them, but they’re interesting enough to see and it’s easy to tell they must have been impressive sights before they fell into disrepair.

There’s even less to see of the Palace itself, only the remnants of the old foundations remain. However, there’s now a museum on the site, the Chan Royal Palace Historical Centre. The museum tells the story of the history of Phitsanulok, as well as the palace itself. Information is in both Thai and English, The English translation uses surprisingly flowery language (we had to look up what behoove meant!).

There was also an extremely enthusiastic guide, who seemed very excited to see us. Apparently her motivation for learning English is so she can sing Westlife songs. Pete looked less than impressed by this news!

A huge group of school kids arrived at the museum just as we’d finished, we obviously timed it well as they filled a good deal of the museum!

There’s very little to see of the Palace itself, just some ruins of the old foundations. Animal statues (mainly chickens of various sizes!) lined the footpaths, so that was quite cool to see. There’s also a shrine dedicated to King Naresuan the Great on the old Palace site.

We walked across the bridge over the river, and then continued along the river bank. We passed a very busy noodle bar, the Hoi Kha Rim Nan Noodle Restaurant, so decided to stop there for a bite to eat. You had to remove your shoes before entering the restaurant, and inside it had a very cool layout. You either sat crossed legged on the floor at low tables, or on bar style seating around the edge, dangling your legs down to the street below.

We ordered some pork wantons, pork cracking, and one portion of Tom Yum soup to share.

The food was good (the Tom Yum was much better than the one we’d tried in Chiang Mai), but not exceptional. The pork wantons could have done with more filling, the pork was a bit scant.

After lunch, we walked to the Wat Phra Si Rattana Mahathat Woramahawihan (which is also known as Wat-Phra-Sri or Wat Yai). It’s a very important Buddhist temple, which is apparently famous in Thailand. As we entered, we noticed the beautiful doors, inlaid with mother of pearl. Outside of the temple is a huge Buddha statue, in front of a a Khmer style prang.

However, the most famous part of the temple is the Phra Phuttha Chinnarat, which is considered one of the most beautiful Buddha images in the whole of Thailand. Interestingly it’s the only area of the temple where you’re required to wear a face mask to visit. They’re also very strict about covering up before the Buddha image, and have free sarongs outside for people to borrow if needed.

Our next temple stop was the nearby Wat Nang Phaya. The interior walls of this temple are decorated with paintings, and there are also some brightly coloured paintings in the galleries outside the temple.

At the back of the temple are some ancient looking stupas, which look a bit incongruent with the style of the main temple.

The final temple of our walking tour was Wat Ratchaburana, also called the Royal Pagoda. There’s a big wheel thing outside the front of the temple, which seemed to be something to do with fortune telling. Whatever it was, it looked very cool.

The temple itself is believed to date from the Sukhothai period and has a very impressive ancient chedi.

We stopped off at กรี่ กะหรี่ปั๊บ 25 ไส้ (handmepie) and bought a couple of local sweet pastries, one with a pineapple filling and one with pandan custard inside. They look a bit like miniature Cornish pasties, The pineapple one was a bit too sweet, but I quite liked the pandan custard (although Pete wasn’t too keen), and the pastry was very light, buttery, and flaky.

We continued walking until we reached the Clock Tower, which (like the one in Lampang) is in the centre of a roundabout.

Just round the corner from the Clock Tower is a small road with a bit of street art.

We continued to the Folk museum, and got their just in time. The heavens a couple of minutes later, and we were very glad to be in a dry museum!

The museum was apparently started by an eccentric old guy who liked to collect various objects. As well as his collection of weird and wonderful items, the museum also tells the story of various traditional arts and activities, including weaving, coconut grating, sugar making, and rice milling.

Just over the road from the Folk Museum is the Buddha making factory. It’s not a museum as such, but it’s open to the public so you wander around and observe the process.

We headed back towards the town centre and cam across a brightly coloured Chinese temple. It’s not one of the main sights, but I loved the dragons wrapped around the entrance pillars.

We walked back over the river, and stopped off for dinner at TonTan Thai Kitchen. It an extremely intense service experience! We walked in and were escorted to our table by three waitresses, who then stood extremely close to our table and hovered over us while we looked at the menu. It took quite a few attempts at asking for a bit of time, asking to read the menu, gesturing etc. before they finally took the hint and left us in peace. However, it seemed to require all three of them to take our order and bring anything out to us (including Petes can of coke, which needed one to carry the glass, one to carry the coke, and one to apparently supervise!) Despite the slightly overwhelming service, the food was very good. We shared a stir fried noodle dish and a spicy minced pork between us. It was slightly pricey for Thailand, but was worth the money.

It was now evening and had been a long day, so we walked back to our hotel. The bridge across the canal was beautifully lit up and looked very pretty.