Piang Luang Trip

Sawadee Khrap

This will be the first in a series of posts to cover my recent trip to the Wat Fa Wiang Inn Temple at Piang Luang and the Thai Yai refugee camp at Lak Tran not far from the Burmese border.

Dr Saneh and fellow monkI was invited by Phra Saneh Dhammavaro, Director of Academic Affairs, Mahachulalongkron Buddhist University at Wat Suan Dok to go with them as they visited the local temple and the refugee camp nearby. 

We traveled North to Chiang Dao and then West toward the Burmese border past Wiang Haeng village to the much smaller Piang Luang village.  This route is 72 km, almost all climbing over the steep mountains – it put quite a strain on my little Mira car but she made it fine.  The views were spectacular but I didn’t get any shots on the trip there, but the next post has some panoramic taken at the camp.

IMG_4772  We had a choice to stay at the temple or in the village guest-house – I choose the guest-house – but that even proved to be very rustic.  The room had a water-heater for the shower but I was told that the gas ran out about 3 years ago and so I was left to take a cold shower in the morning – Oh well it was only for one night.  At least it had some mosquito netting on the windows so it was fairly safe.

The next morning I got up about 6 Am and went out to the road and got some shots of the locals going to school, work or just starting their day. (see the slideshow)

IMG_4773 IMG_4778  Here is a shot of the Dr. Phra Saneh and  Phra Sinlapachai Santikaro and the two young daughters of the owner of the guest-house – these were really great girls – they showed me to my room and brought water and what I needed for the night —– the other shot is the truck load of items the Dr. brought for the temple and area locals to share.

The next post will cover the trip to the temple and the third will cover the trip to the refugee camp.

I have also created a Slide Show of the remaining photos for this leg of the trip.  Please enjoy and leave a comment if you like this kind of presentation.

Ciao