Today we were back on the road, leaving Udon Thani to Se Ka, a town a few hours away. Time is probably a more accurate measure, because your rate of speed on Thailand’s motorways/backroads, really varies!
Before we left, we spent some time at the Good Days Cafe, which became one of my favourites on my last stay in Udon Thani. The prices are good and the food is great! The coffee is really good too.
We ended up spending an extra half hour chatting with a friendly expat from the UK who quizzed us about where we were from, and he told us his story too. It was fun to chat with him.
We’ve actually found Udon Thani to be a friendly place overall, between this trip and my previous one. Haven’t seen much of the area, but we like the vibe here.
Off we went, and it was a generally boring trip on the four lane highway. We made good time, and encountered few issues.
The police have been manning checkpoints in an effort to improve road safety, and we have been through a few. During one stop on the freeway, Crystal opened the passenger window, and the officer was shocked that we were farang (Thai word for foreigner).
He asked where we were from, so Crystal said we were Canadian but lived in Bangkok, and he said to have a good day. We got a chuckle out of that.
Later on in the trip, another checkpoint. This time the officer only spoke Thai, and said a bunch of things I didn’t understand. He continued. I said I don’t speak Thai. His response was to wave his hand in the direction we were travelling, and he spoke what may be the only English word he knows: “GO!”
We had a good laugh about that one. Our dealings with police here have generally been positive, and today was no different.
The drivers on the two lane roads were rather impatient, and repeatedly passing head on in unsafe areas. Checkpoints don’t catch that sort of stuff.
We reached our hotel in Seka intact, and set off to find lunch. In small towns it can be tough to find something to our taste, and style. We eventually found a place on one street where they were serving wonton noodles with BBQ pork. We both had the same thing, and with a bottle of Coke it came to 95 Baht, but we gave him the extra 5 Baht ($3.91 Cdn).
At the hotel we decided that instead of taking the afternoon to climb Wat Phu Tok, or go to Three Whale Rock, we would go to some local waterfalls.
Meeting monks at an out-of-the-way temple
It became an adventure, because we couldn’t find either falls. The first one we had to hire a boat to even get to them, and I just didn’t feel like doing that at that point. The second one, Google indicated we could drive to it, but the road was not made for cars like ours. I could have gone a long way down it, but I don’t know if we would have come back. I turned around in the midst of a rubber plantation, so we got out and checked the latex pouring into the black pots attached to the trees. A short way along and we had to wait for some cows being herded along.
We had spotted a white temple on a nearby mountain, so with some quick investigative work, we figured out where it was. The drive up the mountain to get to it was some of the steepest terrain we’ve encountered. Fortunately it was paved, but not evenly! We encountered rusty red bedrock in several places as well. We later discovered the name of the temple is Wat Tham Khong.
The final section was just not possible for us in our car. It was mostly wavy bedrock, some gravel, some sand. I wasn’t sure our car was high enough to do it, so we walked up the hill. It was a warm, dry day, so the walk up was not easy. At the top we encountered a monk, but not in the orange robes we’re used to. She was in burgundy robes.
We greeted her and she began talking to us. We managed well, and her English was passable. At the top we saw the Wat, unfortunately closed, but that’s okay. The monk guided us along to meet another monk there, and we began talking to him too. His English was okay. We had some difficulty understanding but were able to piece things together.
If I remember correctly, he had been a Thai monk and decided to become a Tibetan monk instead. We all traded stories about where we were from, and they were very curious about us. They set out a couple of mats and shared a drink with us. The male monk had tea, and the lady monk made us a drink called Nesvita. We saw it in the grocery store later. It was interesting, kind of like very thin cream of wheat, but tasty.
We had a good time chatting and they guided us up to the top of the mountain. The bedrock was rather fascinating. It was as what I would imagine dragon skin to be like. Obviously of volcanic origin, some other parts of the bedrock were like elephant skin. The view from the top was breathtaking! We took some pictures. Took pictures of us with the monks, and had a good time chatting.
We could see the mountains of nearby Laos, the rubber plantations where the leaves of the trees were turning brown, and various geographic features off in the distance.
It was an unexpected but pleasant encounter with the monks. We did not expect anyone to be at the Wat, and I am glad they were. These sorts of things are what keeps us travelling. We have met so many nice and interesting people on this trip, and it only reinforces our decision to move here.
Eventually we made our way back down to the car, escorted by our new friends. We said goodbye, and travelled back to Seka, where we found a restaurant populated by a number of expats, including the owner. The chicken steak, fries, and salad was some of the best we’ve had here!
Back at the hotel, we settled in for the night, but soon discovered our room was infested with these very small ants we call sugar ants. We contacted a staff member and were moved right away. They are a problem in Thailand, and normally when you do see them, they are only in the bathroom, and not too bad. In this case they were in the bed, the desk, bathroom, night stand, etc
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