The stalls on the road are the same as hundreds of others present in any town or village: a cart to carry by hand or using a scooter, a large shelf on which are set in various containers with food freshly cooked, sweet or savory, a cylinder to feed the stove and some pots in which to pour the required ingredients. Along with traditional dishes such as pad thai and kha phrao  moo there are some other a little strange. We are in Phitsanulok, the city of fried insects and on the trays are shown itself locusts, cockroaches, worms, maggots and cockroaches: everything look crispy!

But we do not find the courage to try them and so, after inspecting the goods for a while and be convinced to buy a few insects, we find the excuse of the price, considering too high the minimum cost required of 20 baht (0.50 €).

Phitsanulok is a small provincial town of the central plains of Thailand and in addition to being quite busy is the site of the temple Wat Se Phra Mahathat that has a statue of the Buddha, crowned by a gilded wooden ornamentation particularly valuable. Our visit happens on Saturday and we find all the Thai faith gathered in prayer. The temple is worth a visit as well as Wat Ratburana where you can see the boat of King Rama V, but we are in the area to visit the historical park of Sukhothai, about sixty kilometers to the west.

Got on the bikes we get lost in the streets of Phitsanulok and over another junction we get by a sing-song voice of a prayer invoked through a loudspeaker attached to a car. Not far away we see an orange procession advancing door to door in bare feet: they are passing monks asking for the offers paid in their brass or iron jars by the people waiting by the side of the house or shop. The particularity of this procession, a bit messy, is in the age of its components: the monks dressed in their traditional flamboyant sarong are small children, the oldest being at most 10 years old.

In contrast to the quiet and sleepy modern city, the ancient city of Sukhothai must have been lively and vibrant. To remind the splendor in the park also honored by the inclusion in the UNESCO list of cultural heritage remains the vastness of the sacred complex. Several large temples with stupa and Buddha images cover an area of many acres and once again the bike proves to be the ideal way to visit the area. Between a temple and the next we have the opportunity to eat fried bananas purchased along the way, sweeteing our exploration culminating in a chat made with Eva and Mike, two Germans cyclo-travelers who are walking the streets of South-East Asia riding a bike and a recumbent. (this is their website). We say each other we'll see again in Laos for Christmas and with this promise we salute them and the plains in Thailand.