The rain finally stopped at five in the morning, but the air outside my guesthouse room is thick enough to drink. I lie on the bed for a while, listening to the water drip from the roof edge onto the pavement below, a steady, unhurried percussion. Today is my last full day in Phitsanulok, and I want to spend it properly, not rushing from one sight to another but letting the city leave its mark on me.
I get up, pull on my walking sandals, and slip out before the guesthouse owner even opens the coffee machine. The streets are still damp and strangely quiet, the only sounds the soft sweep of a broom and the distant rumble of an early songthaew making its rounds. I head straight for Wat Yai, the temple I have visited nearly every day this week, to see it one final time in the soft, grey morning light.
The Phra Buddha Chinnarat is as striking as ever. I take my shoes off at the entrance to the main chapel, the marble floor cool under my feet, and sit on the floor for a long while among the other early worshippers. The gold leaf on the image glows even without direct sunlight, and the mother-of-pearl inlaid doors behind me are a masterpiece I notice something new in each time. A monk shuffles past with a soft smile, and I bow my head in return. This place, more than any other in the city, feels like the heart of Phitsanulok.
After I leave the chapel, I walk through the grounds to the Phuttha Chinnarat National Museum, which sits right there on the temple property. It is a modest museum, but it holds a fine collection of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya bronzes, many of them unearthed in the region. The entry fee is about fifty baht, a dollar and a half, and for that you get a quiet, air-conditioned hour surrounded by centuries of careful craftsmanship. I pause in front of a slender walking Buddha, his fingers elongated and elegant, and think about the generations of sculptors who passed their skills down from father to son, right here in this city.
From the museum, I stroll back to Wisut Kasat Road and the Buranathai Buddha Casting Foundry. That is the place, Cha Thavi, where they still pour large bronze Buddha images the old way. I watched a pour a few days ago and it was ferocious, a river of orange metal that made the air itself shimmer. Today the foundry is quieter, but I can see the broken moulds stacked in the corner and hear the faint tap of a hammer from the workshop behind. Even on a slow day, you can sense the scale of what happens here. This foundry has been making sacred images for decades, and there is something grounding about seeing a Buddha statue not as a finished icon but as a thing that was once a vat of molten bronze and a pile of clay.
By mid-morning, the sky has turned a bruised, dark grey and the first heavy drops begin to fall. I take shelter under the awning of a small drinks stall and watch the street transform. Scooters pull over, riders pulling on plastic ponchos, and vendors cover their fruit with blue tarpaulins. Within ten minutes, the gutters are running with brown water and the rain is drumming so hard on the metal roof above me that I can barely hear myself think. This is the monsoon in full voice, and it is exactly what Phitsanulok has felt like all week.
I decide to make my way to Krua Nannum Phitsanulok for a late lunch. It is a proper local place, nothing fancy, and it has been my go-to for a home-cooked style meal. I order a plate of stir-fried morning glory and a portion of fish-maw noodle soup, the signature dish of this river city. The soup is warm and rich, the fish maw soft and spongey, and it costs me about seventy baht in total, two dollars. The rain hammers against the corrugated iron roof as I eat, and a small dog curls up under my chair, seeking shelter from the storm. It is a simple, perfect meal.
After lunch, the rain eases to a fine drizzle. I walk south along the Nan River, past the Chom Nan Park, where the lawns are sodden and a few brave joggers are out despite the weather. The river itself is running high and brown, swollen by weeks of steady rain and the runoff from the hills. I watch a long wooden boat chug upstream against the current, its engine labouring, and I remember what I was told about the flash-flood warnings that hit this province earlier in August. A friend here told me that some low-lying neighbourhoods near the Fia waterway were fully inundated for a couple of days, with rescue boats coming in to move people out. The river looks calm right where I am standing, but I can see how easily it could overstep its banks.
The riverfront path takes me past a row of old wooden houses raised high on stilts, their ground floors cluttered with potted plants and stacks of firewood. An old woman sits on her porch, fanning herself with a palm leaf, and waves at me as I pass. I wave back and stop for a moment to look at the river through the gap in the houses. This is the working river rhythm of Phitsanulok, not the resort-style riverfront you find in Chiang Mai or Bangkok. Here, the river is a highway for fishermen and a washing line for the neighbourhood, and the city lives with its back to it as much as its face.
By late afternoon, the clouds have broken up and a weak, watery sun is trying to get through. I decide to spend my last evening at the Phitsanulok Night Bazaar, a place I have grown fond of over the past week. I wander through the stalls, past racks of cheap shirts and phone cases, until I find what I came for: the stall that does the flying water spinach noodle performance. The cook grabs a handful of morning glory, tosses it high into the air, and catches it in a blazing wok, the flames leaping up briefly before dying down. It is part cooking, part street theatre, and the crowd of tourists, some smelling of expensive sunscreen, looks thoroughly amused.
I buy a small bowl of the noodles, about thirty baht, and stand by the river railing to eat them. The sun is finally breaking through the clouds, turning the water of the Nan a coppery gold, and the breeze is warm and damp. A group of university students from Naresuan University sits nearby, laughing loudly over shared plates of som tam and grilled chicken. The sour, spicy smell of papaya salad carries across the night market, mingling with the charcoal smoke from the grilled pork skewers. This is the sanuk of it all, the fun, the lightness of being out together on a Thursday night.
After finishing my noodles, I take one last walk along the riverfront path. The lights of the night market reflect in the dark water, and the sound of a guitar drifts from a small bar further along the bank. I think about what this week in Phitsanulok has meant. On the surface, it is a provincial city, a university town, a railway junction. But dig a little deeper and you find a place with a deep sense of its own history, from the Ayutthaya-era capital of King Borommatrailokanat to the birthplace of King Naresuan the Great. It is a city that works hard, cast bronze, and fills your belly for almost nothing.
Before I head back to the guesthouse, I stop at Finally Coffee Co. for a last iced latte, about sixty baht, and sit at a table by the window. The barista, a young man with a faded band t-shirt, asks me where I am off to tomorrow. I tell him I am catching the train further north, toward Uttaradit, and from there into the hills. He nods and says I should bring a jacket, that the mountains get cold at night. I thank him and sip my coffee, watching the city go about its evening.
Back at my guesthouse, I pack my bag. It is mostly the same ritual as always: mosquito repellent, a book, the small notebook I have filled with words and prices and little sketches. I fold my rain jacket on top and check my train ticket for the morning. I have a small window before the 9 am departure to grab a final bowl of boat noodles at the station, a local tradition for a railway town like this.
Phitsanulok has been everything I needed it to be: cheap, honest, and full of the undeniable rhythms of a real working Thai city. It has given me cheap boat noodles at twenty baht a bowl, a temple so beautiful it makes you hold your breath, and a river that tells you its mood every single day. I am ready to move on, but I will miss this place, and I say that without any trip-adjective flourish.
I will keep you posted in the next episode, and everything I have talked about today is in the notes.
Tomorrow, I ride the rails into the green mountains.