Over dinner at a roadside food stall, we decide to walk to another guesthouse and book it for the next night (if we like the looks of it) - the Honey Inn, it seems, has changed owners since it was last reviewed for the guidebook and it's pretty ramshackle (at least our room is). But, before we walk over to the P. California Guesthouse to check it out, we have a date with a hot chili: Pierre accidentally manages to get a julienned papaya from his papaya salad (doused in super hot chili oil) under the splash-guard of his glasses. We set up an impromptu eye flush station with a bottle of drinking water, and after 5 or 6 flushes, we're good to go.
The other guesthouse we see that night is exactly what we're looking for, so we arrange to go back the next morning to drop off our stuff and pick up a rental for the day. We decide to go with a truck (a standard with non-power steering) for our first rental, rather than a scooter.
The roads run opposite here to Canada, UK-style I guess you could say, so my key job in the rumble seat is to remind Pierre to keep left after making turns, and to say "500 baht" in Thai to the gas attendant when we fill up (and then "100 baht" again later when we drive back after a few minutes to buy a bit more, just in case.)
Our goal today is to hit a couple of key ruins that you can't easily reach without your own wheels. Our host has set us up with a homemade map of the area (there aren't many official ones, it seems) and has recommended taking the back roads, so we do. We pass a lot of scenic rice fields in mid-harvest, and drive over lots and lots of potholes - most are empty, while others are filled with hay (not so effective). Still, the backroads have some great views.
The first place we hit is Wat Kao Angkhan ("watt cow ANG can") - it's pretty deserted on this particular Monday, with only a bunch of stray/temple dogs hanging around the grounds and a huge reclining Buddha statue:
Next, we hit Prasat Meung Tam ("Meung" sounds like a cross between the "u" in "mung" and the "oo" in "book"). It's my favourite temple of the day. We're fairly close to the Cambodian border history-wise (about 80 km) so the architecture is more Cambodian/Khmer than Thai, and gives us a good idea of what we'll see on the Cambodia portion of the trip. The stone used to build this temple is surprisingly colourful, and in general the place is very well-restored:
A group of young monks pop in for a visit, which adds a splash of colour to the scene:
They're young and full of beans, punching each other in the shoulders, hopping up and down stairs and laughing like teenage boys on a school trip, which is what they are.
Later, we drive up to Phanom Rung ("pa-NOM rung") which is The Temple To See in the area. It sits on top of an extinct volcano which, after 900,000 years looks like a tall hill, and not at all like the volcano I had pictured. (Pierre would like to add here that a satellite picture of the area that we see later makes the former volcano-ness of the mountain/hill much more obvious.)
At Phanom Rung I have a Canadian moment as I imagine a Rick Mercer man-on-the-street interview skit where he drums up support for a petition to protect a volcano in danger of extinction...
The Phanom Rung complex has a long promenade leading up to the temple:
...and inside are the restored ruins:
Everythere, there are signs like this one ("please don't sit"):
Please don't sit on the 1000-year-old statue's back. Please don't sit on the 1000-year-old railing. Please don't sit on Buddha's lap. There's a certain polite exasperation in the endless "please don't sit" signs we run into, not only here but at all of the other historic sites we've visited here in thailand. Please stop sitting on our history.
photo credits: D, D, D, D, P, P, P, P, P, P, P, P, D
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