The sun was shining again this morning as I headed to the office. I was having a meeting with the 2 supervisors to give a heads up to Jim who was taking over and a last look to Spencer who was leaving. It was just after 10 before they were free so I had time to knock up a couple of flow charts and a summary document that I’d hand written about 5-30 this morning. Sometimes it easiest to do whatever you are thinking about that just toss and turn. At least once it’s done there’s some hope of getting back to sleep.
My Driver Pairot picked me up about 11-30 and I found my lunch had been delivered to the office already. I took it back to the hotel and ate it there. Narwin, one of the locals from the office had mentioned the night before that he had a map of the tourist attractions in the mountains. I hadn’t realised that he and his girlfriend (I think) Pairor were also coming. The four of us headed back to Petchabun and then a bit further North before turning West into he Khao Kho area, “The Switzerland of Thailand”.
By this time it was drizzling on and off and some of the mountain tops were shrouded in mist. The road was as steep as the mountains we saw yesterday, which were to the East of Petchabun. In many cases the driver was using second gear both to go up and come down the hills and occasionally shifted to 4 wheel drive.
The first stop was the Royal Palace, one of many through the country. This is a set of modern buildings covering ¾ of a circle with a rose garden and a tall flagpole in the centre. There entire area was filled with plants that fortunately had little signs telling us what they were. A couple of times I read the Thai names only to find they were just transliterations of the English name. It started to rain heavily just after we arrived but it cleared up and the sun shone through by the time these shots were taken.
The next stop was the Weapons Museum, set on an old firing range control area. There were a number of vehicles and weapons in the open air including 2 helicopters and some bunkers with displays in them. They also had a plant stall. It was a bit weird seeing someone dressed in Khakis selling pot plants to my 2 companions.
A bit further up the road on the crest of the hill is the war memorial, a tall obelisk in a garden setting. The views were quite spectacular with mountains and farmland. We continued north passing a Wat. This was mainly white and more in the style of those in Cambodia than the usual colourful ones seen here.
Our last tourist spot was the waterfalls. There was a row of a couple of dozen stalls lining the path from the car park to the falls but only a couple were in use. I guess it is not the busy tourist season. There wasn’t even anybody in the ticket booth to collect the entrance fee. We walked through some bamboo groves to the top of the falls area. After viewing the falls from the top, we climbed down the path and across a small wooden bridge to some rocks where we could see the falls from the lower level.
From there, we basically headed back, with a brief stop at Lotus and the petrol station on the way, getting home a bit before 7.
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