Links to other Thailand pages  Ko Samui  Nong Khai  The North

I left Samui in a similar fashion to how I'd arrived - share taxi, boat and bus. I then got on the overnight train to Bangkok. I was unsure where to go next.

A guard dog?

There was a third class train leaving for Nakhon Ratchasima about an hour after I arrived, so I booked a ticket for there. I was on a local train, so the journey was slow and long, but my traveling companions were mostly ordinary Thais rather than westerners, which made the journey more interesting as did the many small towns we stopped in. At each stop, food sellers would get on, selling fruit, plastic bags of ice and cola, or my favourite a chicken on a stick. This looked like part of a chicken with a stick inserted along the length of it's body, which had then been ridden over with a garden roller.

In Nakhon Ratchasima I found a hotel and went for a look around. This town has almost no westerners in it, apart from a few ex-GIs who came for the Vietnam war and never went home. Because of this it has a completely different feel to anywhere else I went. Strangely, in spite of the absence of farangs there was a branch of Boots there.

That evening I found a restaurant where one of the delights on the menu was cow's penis. I didn't have the courage to order it.

Phanom Rung

The pathway to the wat

I only had one full day in Nakhon Ratchasima, and I spent that going to Wat Phanon Rung. This involved a public bus journey to a nearby town, followed by a short, but not short enough, trip on the back of a motorcycle taxi up the hill to the wat. The wat was pretty impressive, and quite quiet so I spent a couple of relaxing hours their. One of the trainee tour guides, Sonya, was keen to practice her English, so she chatted for a while telling me about the place and asking about the west.

Links to other Thailand pages  Ko Samui  Nong Khai  The North

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Last modified on 22nd December 2007 3:31 PM EST

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