I had lunch at the café near the pro shop again and afterwards was wondering what to do for the next 2 hours when I saw my driver arriving early. Since I had nothing else to do, I checked out and we were on out way by 3. I asked to stop at a Lotus or similar somewhere on the way. We headed back to the Bangkok highway the same way we came in. Again we passed a multitude of places selling the bone reliquaries, as they are called, and after many attempts I finally got a couple of photos that weren’t blurred or out of focus or badly framed. We also passed a dozen or so Chinese temples as well as the usual number of Thai (Buddhist) ones.
The other things we passed a lot of were those huge buses. I kept having to revise how many we saw but I suspect it was 60 or more. Most of them are painted in bright colours with cartoon characters being a popular theme, both Disney and manga.
We skipped the turn off to Pretchabun and headed into Saraburi and a Lotus. I bought some needed deodorant and some less needed soft drink and chocolates. I was thinking of a few other things but it was so busy I decided to give them a miss. WE came out the back of the Lotus parking area and travelled down one of the main streets. It had these poles down the middle with the interesting figurines aat the top and an ornate clock also in the median strip.
Back on the road again we soon met up with the usual North bound highway and sped home. About 5 o’clock the rains just pelted down. It has of course rained very heavily on a number of occasions since I’ve been here but this was the first time I was actually in a car during a rainstorm. Even my driver reacted by slowing down to within 30 kph of the speed limit. I pitied the many people on scooters or in the back of pickups that were on the road at that time.
It did clear up and we eventually came to the white Wat on the hillside I’d noticed on the first trip up. I had since been told that Pan Orient had donated time and money towards this building and the driver again mentioned it. We decide to have a closer look and headed up the mountain in 4 wheel drive. The building is still under construction and this is much more apparent close up. Still needs painting for example. My driver pointed to the tiles on the steps saying Pan Orient and also that he’d actually helped build them. They also paid for the inside tiling. We climbed right to the top where they have 3 copies of the Emerald Buddha, one in each of the 3 costumes for the 3 seasons. The original is in Bangkok and I couldn’t get to see it when I was there a few years ago as the temple was closed for a visit by the prince. The king or his representative changes the cloths on the real statue at the start of each season.
The view from the top of the wat is commanding, as the whole plain can be viewed and I took a movie as well as some still shots. Some times you just can’t fit in the width in a photo without giving up all details.
We headed back to the main road and shortly it was raining again. In the end, with the diversions it was about 3 hours to get back – longer than my round of golf that morning.
Today I got stuck into the main daily report and have more or less finished it, although there will be some fine tuning I expect. I also was given a CD with the standard monthly reports which I will get the program to create if possible. A busy few days still to come if I want to leave by Friday.
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