I think Thailand is one of the oddest shaped countries in the world. After leaving Kanchanaburi I made a hard right turn and now I’m heading south down the thin sliver of land between the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand, the Malay Peninsula. My first stop on this part of the journey is the quiet town of Phetchaburi. There’s only a small handful of things I wanted to check out here, so let’s get started.

My hotel doesn’t have a motorbike to rent, but they have a bunch of bicycles I can use for free, so peddle power it is. First, a ride up the hill to Tham Khao Luang, a very famous cave temple. I had to walk up most of the hill. Not because of all the monkeys, because I just realized I haven’t been on a bike in over a decade.

The cave is impressive enough on its own. I’m just thankful that it’s cool inside because I’m really hot after riding/walking up that hill.

There are Buddha statues in just about every crevice of this cave. At certain times of the year the light streams down and lights up the main Buddha. Not this time of year, unfortunately, but the light was cool even if I only saw it light up the floor.

The ride down the hill after visiting the cave was heavenly. I was worried that I was gonna be too hot riding all over the city, but it turned out to not be bad at all. Actually it was pretty fun. Everything I read about Phetchaburi came with warnings about the monkeys. The monkeys are troublemakers, the monkeys steal your stuff, the monkeys are aggressive, beware of the monkeys, etc. But I honestly haven’t had any issues with them and I still think these signs are unfair.

Anyway, my next stop was Phra Nakhon Khiri Historical Park. This place was built in 1859 by King Rama IV to be a kind of vacation home from Bangkok. I parked my bike at the bottom of the hill, known as Palace Hill, and started walking the beautiful cobblestone paths among all of the super dangerous monkeys.

There’s basically three peaks. One has the kings palace and temple, another with a small temple complex, and the main peak with a big Buddhist stupa on it. From each peak I got pics of the other two.

Pretty much right in the center of the city is Wat Mahathat Worawihan. The views from down the street were really cool.

It’s not nearly as old as some other places I’ve visited, but the early 20th century murals inside the temple were really beautiful.

The big stark white stupa in the back is apparently a specialty of local artisans. I’m not sure when it was built, there was no information I could find, but it sure is… uh, white. It was so hard taking pictures of this bright white stupa in the bright sunlight. My retinas will never be the same.

Perhaps the oldest structures in town are these 13th century Khmer temples at Wat Kamphaeng Laeng. There wasn’t a whole lot of info about these either, but I had no idea the Khmer empire reached this far out.

Finally, a stop at Wat Yai Suwannaram. This temple was huge, but it’s wedged in the middle of the city so there was no way I was getting a pic of the whole thing. Trust me though, it was beautiful.

The reason I came to this temple, though was to check out the murals inside. They were painted around 1700, making them some of the oldest temple murals in Thailand.

Visiting all the temples in Phetchaburi was fun, but I really came here for the animals. Not too far away in the hills southwest is one of the most active animal sanctuaries in Thailand, Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand. I was able to book a full day tour.

The sanctuary takes in all sorts of injured, abused, or abandoned animals that can’t be released back into the wild. Most of them came from the illegal pet trade and aren’t even native to this part of the world. In the pics above are a very unusual pair of best friends, a spider monkey and an iguana, and a cassowary that should be in Australia.

They also have a small pack of rescue dogs that roam the the place freely. Sausage, the dog above, joined us for the whole day. He liked barking at the Asian bears.

The sanctuary has over 700 animals total from all over the world. These deer are native to Indonesia if I remember correctly, but I thought I was back in North America for a minute.

As you can imagine, they have about a million macaques, but since I see them everywhere I didn’t include any pics of them, but they also have about a million gibbons.

Part of the tour included a really good lunch. I got to watch some hefalumps roaming around while I ate. I think they said they have a total of fifty something hefalumps here. I saw a lot of hefalumps this day!

There’s also an associated big cat rescue that’s part of the sanctuary. I saw a lot of tigers this day too!

It wasn’t just tigers, though. They have a couple of leopards, a mountain lion, and a couple of small leopard cats.

This chimpanzee, the only one at the sanctuary, had a really heartbreaking story, but seems to be living a good life now, if a lonely one. They don’t want any animals at this place because if they do it means the animals were horribly mistreated or injured in some way, but I think they’re sort of hoping for another chimpanzee so he can have a friend.

The place is overflowing with gibbons. A lot of the gibbons and macaques here are missing limbs due to getting electrocuted in power lines. Gibbons mate for life, so they try to match up every gibbon in the sanctuary.

Another highlight was the small collection of otters. The guy in this first picture is a rare hairy nosed otter. They’re native to southeast Asia, but endangered. He’s one of only two hairy nosed otters legally held in captivity. The other is at a sanctuary in Cambodia.

The best part of the day came at the end where we got to feed these two old ladies watermelon. They’re together and best friends because they only have one eye between the two of them. One is blind in her left eye so you have to approach her from the right. The other is completely blind so you have to tap her on the trunk to let her know you’re there, then she curls up her trunk for you to hand her the watermelon. At one point I noticed everyone was feeding the elephant with one eye. They were all afraid of the blind one because her trunk is moving all over and probes around a lot more. Her bucket of watermelon was still almost full while the other one was already half gone. So I spent most of the time feeding the blind one on my own. I don’t mind getting smacked or felt up by a hefalump trunk, and I did. Ha! So much fun!

Phetchaburi was a fun stop overall. I always love good animal encounters. Next up, I’m going from this quiet little town to one of Thailands more popular and busy stops. Until the next post…