Early morning for Sukhothai

resdents is ow ushered in after the wholesale market for farmers and gardeners begins to be quiet. The sun peeps out from the horizon, spraying golden and silvery rays in the sky. Retailers who are mostly woman villagers arrive carrying their local vegetables and soon the short strip of roadway and narrow space adjacent to the wall of Wat Ratchathani by the Yom River has turned into fresh market. Red tricycles that used to ply the street fully loaded with farm produce to be loaded onto trucks now  change their function to serve as vehicles carrying Sukhothai people living in the neighbourhood to come shopping at the market.
Long lines of monks and novices walk serenely out of the gate of their monasteries to accept alms from market vendors who, despite their being busy with their sales, still find time to make merits in the bright morning. Push-carts from which coffee is sold are crowded with customers, likewise are the rice and curry stalls. An old grandma from Si Samrong sits beside her basket containing sun-dried and finely-chopped tobacco leaves. She carries it on her hip while looking quietly for prospective buyers in buses parked near the pier at Pha Muang Road. Her manner is different from that of the vendor of boiled pig's head and banana with a stall near the dike, who keeps on shouting, and calling for customers.
 when the sun has finally come out in full, shop-houses located along the road selling all kinds of goods take in the bustling atmosphere of the morning market, open their shop fronts and call out to passer by to stop and browse, whether at ready made clothes, bags, medicine or foodstuffs. Although not many customers venture inside the shops, still the day's business can be called to order.
 Besides the fresh market by the Yom River and the nearby shops that are open to meet the new day since the sky is still dark, the two municipal markets located not very far away of Sukhothai, the traffic begins to roll. Of particular in terest are buses with old style wooden bodies which are specially conserved in Sukhothai. This major mode of mass transport here is patronized mainly by school and college students. Man-pro-pelled tricycles are parked in groups waiting for customers while people walk unhurriedly by.