This morning as I was about to leave my room I had to make a quick about face to get my sunglasses. After 3 or 4 days of rain and clouds it was a lovely clear and sunny day.
I had breakfast and headed for the office for a few hours. I had some ideas about recording and calculating tests for multiple zone wells that I crystallised and also had time to check my email, fix a bug in one of the systems used back home and call Mum and Dad using Skype.
About 10 my driver was called and he took me back to the hotel to drop of my PC then to a Wat near town. This seemed to be devoted, if that’s the right word, to animals and especially chickens, but to a lesser extent elephants and horses. The temple was surrounded by statues of the aforementioned animals, with a particularly large collection just outside the grounds. There must literally hundreds of statuettes ranging from about 1 ft upwards in size.
We then headed back past the office to Sri Thet, where there is a historical park. There are a number of ruins of approximately 11th century buildings and a large mound akin to a pyramid. In addition, about 20 years ago they found remains of a number of bodies as well as implements and jewellery dating back 2000 years.
We headed back to Wichian Buri and, since it was about 12-30 or so, we stopped at the office again where our lunches were waiting for us. Some crumbed fish and a tuna salad today.
About an hour later we were heading for Pretchabun, the nearest city of any size and about 100km away to the North. We past the hotel again to get back to the main highway, where we travelled at speeds of up to 130kph. Technically we would have been hooning if we were in WA since the limit according to signs, was 90kph for cars. Most of the way was on dual lane highway scarrying very little traffic o it wasn't actually dangerous.We travelled along a mostly flat plain, often seeming to head for the mountains but always turning before we reached them. It reminded me to some extent of New Zealand, since the mountains were steep and jagged and rose suddenly from the flat. Of course, there were no sheep to be seen. We passed through a couple of sizeable towns and many smaller ones. Many of the larger towns have these archways over the road. These were built to celebrate the King’s 80th Birthday and/or 60 years on the throne, both of which occurred in the last 2 years.
Eventually we reached the outskirts of the city and saw a Lotus and a Big C (I though the driver was saying “Pixie”) next to one another. I opted for the Lotus shopping centre and bought a power board that would take Australian plugs (as well as most others) for $3.30, a bedside lamp for $10, a phone charger for $4 and some food and drink. Although I have a converter plug for my Australian power board that I brought with me, I can’t fit it into the wall socket without unplugging the fridge, because it’s too big.
We then went into the city proper and visited one of the larger temple areas. As well as several temples there is a school for monks and other buildings, all of them very colourful.
I then wanted to see the mountains, since Spencer said the scenery was spectacular. We had passed a sign to some waterfalls so headed for them. Eventually we turned of the main road onto a road leading up the mountain. The sign said it was about 20km to the falls. The road was very steep and we seemed to not be doing more than 30 or 40 so its was looking like a long trip. We reached some checkpoint and after the driver a conversation with the man there headed off on a side road. This took us, including a 1 km section of dirt road before reaching another sealed section, to the top of the mountain where it ended. On one side you could see the plains all the way to the far mountain range and on the other just mountains receding into the distance. Unfortunately it was quite hazy so the photos don’t really reflect the view very well. We headed back down that steep road to the checkpoint and turned back to town. I was told the road to the falls wasn’t in good condition.
It was nearly 6-30 when we got home, so that was late enough. During the trip I practiced my Thai with short and stilted conversations with the driver and by trying to read various signs. I practice by reading street signs as we pass them and I am still struggling to read more than the first 2-4 characters.
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