2 Best Sights in Northern Thailand, Thailand

This fascinating museum of traditional tools, cooking utensils, animal traps, and handicrafts alone would justify a visit to Phitsanulok. In the early 1980s, Sergeant-Major Khun Thawee traveled to small villages, collecting rapidly disappearing objects of everyday life. He crammed them into a traditional house and barn, and for a decade nothing was properly documented. Visitors stumbled around tiger traps and cooking pots, with little to help them decipher what they were looking at. But Khun Thawee's daughter came to the rescue, and now the marvelous artifacts are systematically laid out, all 10,000 of them. You can now understand the use of everything on display, from the simple wood pipes hunters played to lure their prey, to elaborate rat guillotines. Thawee was honored with two university doctorates for his work in preserving such rare items. He also took over a historic foundry, which casts brass Buddhas and temple bells. The museum is a 15-minute walk south of the railway station, on the east side of the tracks, and the foundry is directly opposite.

Commonly known as Wat Yai (the Great Temple), this mid-14th century temple developed into a large monastery with typical ornamentation. Particularly noteworthy are the viharn's wooden doors, inlaid with mother-of-pearl in 1756 at the behest of King Boromkot. Behind the viharn is a 100-foot corn-cob-style prang with a vault containing Buddha relics. Many religious souvenir stands make it hard to gain a good view of the complex, but the bot, or chapel, is a fine example of the traditional three-tier roof with low sweeping eaves, designed to diminish the size of the walls, accentuate the nave, and emphasize the image of the Buddha.

Within the viharn is what many consider the world's most beautiful image of the Buddha, Phra Buddha Chinnarat. It was probably cast in the 14th century, during the late Sukhothai period. Its mesmerizing beauty and the mystical powers ascribed to it draw streams of pilgrims—among the most notable of them was the Sukhothai's King Eka Thossarot, who journeyed here in 1631. According to folklore, the king applied with his own hands the gold leaf that covers the Buddha. Many copies of the image have been made, the best-known one residing in Bangkok's Marble Temple.