Day 4 Nong Khai Trip– on the way back

Sawadee Khrap

Now the last leg of the trip – leaving Loei we were very tired and took the faster side roads back to Uttaradit  – First about half-way from Loei along Highway 21 in Phu Ruea District IMG_4301IMG_4300is Wat Pa Non At and a interesting structure there. The “Monkey temple”.  Further down the road at the small town of Dan Sai , is home to the Phi Ta Khon (ghost mask) festival – held, I think, sometime in late June – that’s one IMG_4308festival and parade that I plan to go back and see.  Costumes and masks are beautiful. 

Approaching Den Chai is Wat Phra That Suthon Mongkol Kiree IMG_2875IMG_4316and across the highway a great place where they make wooden horse statues.   Coming into Lampang we stopped at Duo Mo Restaurant for a quick lunchIMG_4323IMG_4317.  Good food – seemed to be the local gay female hangout judging from the people there and the staff.

Back home at 2:30 PM and ready for a nap – Great trip, good images – but next time need to spend more time at each location – at least a day in each major city is needed to have time to take in more sites.  4 days and 3 nights did not allow sufficient time to visit all the attractions – but then there’s always another trip on the horizon.

Ciao

Day 3 Nong Kai Trip 2/23

Sawadee Khrap

IMG_4152Before we left the Paradise – Kay wanted to get some shots at the pool.IMG_3032   Next we headed for Nong Khai and  made our first stop at Sala Keoku – Wow – huge statues and displays – quite impressive – and then on to the crocodile farm, next door, for a quick visit.   It wasn’t open but Kay was invited in and took some photos of the tanks –   Then on to the IMG_3026Friendship Bridge – Nong Khai , I think there are 3 such bridges to Lao along the Mekong River boundary.  Here the river looked quite wide but further up the way, going to our next destination, Chiang Khan, we were shocked to see how low it actually was.IMG_4254-PanoIMG_3105IMG_4257  I’ve been reading about the furor over the Chinese blocking the river with their dams and causing many problems down stream.  The sign above, not too far out of Nong Khai,  is one of the places where Mekong Naga Fireballs can be seen.  Next we visited Chiang Khan, a historic little town that the Thai’s love.  Lots of Teak buildings – nice, quiet, rustic and friendly place – IMG_4276IMG_3109and then on to Loei where we stayed at the Loei Palace Hotel for the night –  I stayed here 8 years ago on my first trip to Nong Khai – nothing changed but they did replace the carpet with tile – much better.


P.S.  Couldn’t do anything because I was with Kay –  But on my phone I have Grinder and Hornet, the 2 most popular gay chat sites, from Khon Kaen to Loei, I received calls from more than 28 local guys – maybe next trip I’ll go alone – meet some new friends.  Devil 

Ciao

Day 2 Nong Kai Trip 2/22

Sawadee Khrap

Great breakfast at Anothai Hotel, on the road at 7AM – first stop – The IMG_2926 IMG_3792 Ancient City at Chum Phae – Interesting but leaves a lot to your imagination – they really don’t look like real bones,  I thought they looked IMG_3811-Panomore like reproductions but you can’t get close enough to really find out. The local area has no indication that any thing exist here and it’s hard to figure out how they knew how where to dig. –  you decide for yourself.

From here we headed to the King Cobra Village of Thailand past Khon Kaen on the way to Udon Thani.  Here’s where the Google Maps really helped – IMG_4111asked several locals for directions to the place and each sent us on a wild goose chase – they just didn’t know their own neighborhood.  They had IMG_4002IMG_4016boas and cobras and put on a hour free show, just asking for donations – nice.  Finally we stopped at the Paradise Hotel in Udon Thani.  We have been IMG_2998covering a lot of territory and so only stopped at a couple of venues – going off the main highways to get to these places takes a lot of time and I didn’t  want to drive at night but still make it fully around in the 4 days allotted.


Ciao