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…
It was a different sort of travel day from Lopburi to my next stop. It was time to turn in this, my third, rental car. So I drove due south past Ayutthaya straight to the Bangkok Airport where I turned in the car then I decided to have a little fun by riding the train back north to Ayutthaya. It was about a 45 minute trip and it cost me a whopping 11 baht (about 33 cents). The Ayutthaya kingdom…
My next stop in Lop Buri was a super short drive away, only about an hour and a half, so I spent the day driving around to some of the outer sites before making my way to my hotel. A little over half way between Khao Yai and Lop Buri is one of Thailands holiest places, Wat Phra Phutthabat. In 1624 they found a depression in the rock that resembled a foot which fit right in with the legend that…
Just a short drive west from Nang Rong is another of eastern Thailand’s big cities, Nakhon Ratchasima, or Khorat for short. After my run in with the angry Asian wasps and now with a busted camera lens, I went straight to one of Khorat’s shopping malls to see if I could find a new one. Shopping malls are all but dead in the States, but here in Thailand they are alive and thriving. I never thought I’d end up spending…
After zig zagging all over the Khmer temples to the northwest, I finally arrived at Ubon Ratchathani, the eastern most stop I’ll be making on this trip. Ubon Ratchathani, is like some of my other stops, just a very convenient and pleasant place to stay while I explore the area. I did of course take a day to explore the city, though. Thung Sri Mueng, seen above is pretty much the center of the city. It seems a bit out…
From Udon Thani it’s just a short drive south to another important northeastern Thailand city, Khon Kaen. I’ll have to turn in my rental car when I arrive and pick up another rental car when I leave (long story), so I’m going to spend the day seeing a few out of the way sites before losing the car and checking in at my hotel. I started with a cruise through Phu Wiang National Park and a quick hike to the…
The next stop of this trip was supposed to be Mae Sot and Um Phang way out west in remote Tak Province to see the tallest waterfall in Thailand. Unfortunately, the road going to the waterfall is inaccessible due to flooding and mud slides. And even if the road was clear it wouldn’t matter because the waterfall is overflowing so much that it completely destroyed its viewing platform and the nearby campground. So the government of Thailand closed off the…
My drive from Chiang Rai south was thankfully, uneventful. There were reports of flooding on part of my route through Phayao so I considered briefly taking the long way through Chiang Mai. Good thing I looked at the radar online though before leaving because Chiang Mai was getting pounded. I took my chances with my original plans and made it to Sukhothai with no problems. On the news were lots of pictures of Chiang Mai flooded with water and mud….
After exploring Chiang Saen basically as a couple of day trips from Chiang Rai, Now it’s time to explore Chiang Rai itself. I was the most worried about dealing with floods in Chiang Saen, but it turns out that Chiang Rai got flooded much worse. The water has receded and the city is mostly cleaned up, but the streets are very dusty and dirty with now dried mud and there are piles of mud on the sides of some streets…
The flooding danger seems to have gone away for now in the two stops I decided to skip. So, I’m going to attempt them now, starting in Chiang Saen. Chiang Saen never did flood, but it is one of the villages that they were most worried about since it’s located right on the bank of the Mekong River. And just as a precaution I decided not to sleep there and instead stay in Chiang Rai about an hour away. It’s…