Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

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Nereus
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Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Nereus »

I have not attempted this before, so please bear with me.
This report will not have the same high standard of commentary that Big Boy posts!
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Over the years I have made endless road trips to Phrae Province. My normal route from my Condo in Bangkok is via the eastern ring road (9) motorway to the Hwy 1 / Phahonyothin interchange, highway 32 to Nakhon Sawan, highway 117 to Phitsanulok, highway 11 to Uttaradit and Den Chai, then on to highway 101 to Phrae. Door to door this is 550 Km and takes 8 hours with stops, or 7 hours if I am alone.
The bolt hole in a small Village outside of Phrae City.
The bolt hole in a small Village outside of Phrae City.
Phrae house 1.jpg (63.94 KiB) Viewed 996 times
Phrae house 2.jpg
Phrae house 2.jpg (57.24 KiB) Viewed 996 times
My normal return route is the reverse of the above. As a side note the 50 odd Km of highway from Den Chai to Uttaradit, that for years was a horror section, has now been rebuilt into a 4-lane dual carriageway. The highway winds through a section of hilly country, with many bends and curves, which must be a dream on a good motorbike!

Having deposited my Granddaughter with her Grandmother in the Village for the school holidays, I decided to return to Bangkok via some new scenery, and take in the Historical Park at Sukhothai.
Old teak "house" in Phrae City.
Old teak "house" in Phrae City.
My Granddaughter checking out the old tree.
My Granddaughter checking out the old tree.
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Reached the photo limit it appears!
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Re: Road tri[p Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Big Boy »

Keep it coming Nereus - looking good :D
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Re: Road tri[p Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Nereus »

continued:
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Ornate ceiling in the old house in Phrae.
Ornate ceiling in the old house in Phrae.
Also along the way is Si Satchanalai Historical Park, supposedly on provincial highway #101. This road runs north and south parallel with highway # 11 from Den Chai, but further to the west, and east of the Yom River for the most part.
Despite, or maybe because of, my GPS combined with misleading road signs, I missed this park. I did see many road signs about it, but ended up passing it somehow!
This place is just past Den Chai on Hwy #101. Not sure what it is.
This place is just past Den Chai on Hwy #101. Not sure what it is.
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The Sukhothai Park is much better sign posted, and I arrived there around lunch time. I parked where some tour buses were parked, at what appeared to be close to the entrance gate. I hobbled over to the “gate” to find that a ticket needed to be purchased from what turned out to be the main entrance office and gate a couple of hundred metres away! Somchai manning the “gate” took pity on me and waved me and my walking stick through without argument or ticket!

This “gate” opened on to a narrow paved area with food stalls down one side and tourist tak stalls down the other side, about 100 metres or so long. As I hobbled along towards the park proper one of the “ladies” manning a food stall called out in English offering lunch. I told her I would return shortly and walked to the end of the section which stopped at a road. There were cars and bicyles passing by, and then an open type tourist “tram” with a running Thai comentary. Some of the old ruins could be seen from this point, but it then became clear that private cars and bicyles were entering the park from the main gate area, and also the “tram” type tours originated there.

So I hobbled back to the food stall, told the “lady” what I wanted, sat down and waited, and waited, and waited at least 20 minutes. During this time she served several other people, but was not what could in any way be called busy. She eventually came to where I was sitting and says; “wot you want?”
WTF you think I want! Despite by now needing some lunch I just got up and walked out before I boiled over altogether!

The next food stall was a lot quicker with the service, in fact none of them were busy as it was a weekday. But again the “Thai way” came through! When I sat down the serving girl switched on a fan and directed it at me. There were dozens of fans, some mounted on a pole, but most just free standing. About half way through eating my meal a group of 6 or 7 seven Thais came in and sat down at a table near me. Along comes Miss Thailand serving girl, picked up the fan near me and started to take it away for the new arrivals! I guess the flames and smoke coming from me quickly convinced her to think about it and she put it back down where it had been rather smartly! There were plenty of free fans, but the one near me was the nearest.

Following lunch I went back to the car and moved it to outside the entrance office. Inside the office I found out that the entrance price was 100 Baht for me, and 50 Baht for my car if I wanted to take it inside the park. Now I do not know if the entrance price is Farang price or not, although the ticket was written in English. The ticket for the car was written in Thai, so maybe a difference. But either way, the prices are not excessive. But the monkey that follows me around was still at it! Coming out of the office I find that there is a disabled ramp along with the steps, that I had not noticed on the way in. So off I hobble down the ramp, only to be wacked in the head by a bloody great piece of wood that was holding up some advertising sign! Jeez!

Back to the steps and the car. And guess what? Some igorant Pr...K had double parked his car, on the road, alongside of mine, with other cars parked close both in front of and behind mine! I got into mine and started it up, not being sure just what to do except maybe blow the horn. Luckily for the owner, his passenger got out of the car and into the drivers side and moved it!
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more to follow...........................
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Big Boy »

:laugh: Glad I'm not the only one to hit those frustrations. Part of the fun (after the event) of traveling to new places. Still, never mind, we're happy when we're moaning :wink:

Nice photos by the way :D
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Nereus »

I have been to several old “parks” in Thailand, and I guess it is easy to get “parked out”, just as it is with Temples. But I have to say that this one is a lot different. There are several Kms of paved roads, endless shady trees to stop under, and despite a couple of side roads being barricaded off, there appears to be no restrictions on where you can go or stop. There are toilet facilities in a couple of places and everything is clean and orderly. It is a big park, so being able to drive around is the only way that I would be able to see more than a small part of it. For Thais, there is the “tram”, and for those inclined, the odd bicyle available for hire!
the odd bicyle for rent!
the odd bicyle for rent!
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more to follow........
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Nereus »

continued................
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This ruin is outside of the park. Strange looking structure?
This ruin is outside of the park. Strange looking structure?
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That is the end of the park, but once I recover from trying to keep this peddle powered laptop on line, there is some more of other places.
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Roel »

I think the pictures come pretty close to Big Boy-quality! Thanks for the reportage.
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Big Boy »

:agree: :-D
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Bamboo Grove »

Very nice, thank you Nereus. I just love those teak houses in Phrae. Also Sukhothai looks very nice. I've been there once but that was in 1989 when I had just arrived in Thailand and didn't know really much about the history of the area. Would be great to go there again.
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by PeteC »

Yes, great stuff. :thumb: I think 83 and 84 may be an ancient type of crematorium. They have some kind of light show and pageant at that historic park each year, or used to, and it was always televised. I want to say around Christmas/New Years but not sure. Pete
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Big Boy »

I'm planning a Northern tour early next year - I'm including Sukhothai in places to be visited based on what I've seen so far. :D
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by PeteC »

Here's more about the light show(s). Seems they're ongoing now, with the big one around Loy Krathong each year. Pete

http://www.tatnews.org/sukhothai-stagin ... september/
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by buksida »

Great report, thanks for sharing.
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Nereus »

I missed this bit on my "cheat sheet"!
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There are a lot of water features, some with walkways across them. I did not see a lot of signs describing the indivdidual ruins, but there may have been some up closer to the actual structures. There are also some ruins that are not actualy inside of the park.
The park has been Unesco World Heritage designated since 1991.
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Following on from Sukhothai it was about a one hour drive west to Tak, via highway #12. Only spent a little time here, but the Ping River is impressive.
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The Tessabahn building I believe.
The Tessabahn building I believe.
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Re: Road trip Phrae to Bangkok

Post by Nereus »

Big Boy, which photo shrink program are you using?
I used "Fotosizer" for most of these photos, but there are a few, namely the very first 2 of the "bolt hole" house in Phrae, that have been sized with "Shrinkpictures". There seems to be a big difference in the "copy" ones compared to the few done with Shrinkpictures. The photos were taken with a quality camera(Pentax) at around 3 Megapixels, and it just does not seem correct. :cheers:
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