My latest unseen Thailand trip found us exploring old Phetchaburi, riding on the Mahachai to Mae Klong commuter line as well as visiting a little known human imagery museum as we sought out places of interest that barely get a mention in the average guide book.
Its been a hectic few days in which we have covered nearly 1000km, but nonetheless very rewarding. On the journey we also managed to pull in a few more familiar sights and visit Duen’s family too.
Day one of the trip to discover some unseen Thailand started with a drive north on Highway 4 to Phetchaburi, the capital of the province that joins Prachuap Kiri Khan as you head towards Bangkok.
We took lunch in the old town and then visited a couple of its very famous temples(there are 30 odd in the town). My main target was Wat Mahathat but I was also on the lookout for examples of Khmer architecture, since Phetchaburi is believed to represent the southern boundary of that empire. You can read about this and the other temples I visited during this trip over on my Wat Thai Temple blog. They will all be appearing over the next few weeks.
After staying overnight in Samut Sakhon we got up early on day two to attend a family remembrance service at a local temple since it is a year since Duen’s father died.
That took most of the morning but left ample time to travel to Ban Laem station on Tha Chalom for the highlight(for me) of the trip. Here we caught the 1330 train that travels along the little known Mahachai-Mae Klong commuter railway. It was clear not many foreigners travel along the railway as I was the subject of quite a few discreet stares and eventually some typical probing Thai questions.
The Thailand Railways staff were extremely friendly and let me ride on the footplate of the train as we arrived through the market at Samut Songkhram(Mae Klong). I managed to shot a low resolution video on my old camera of the last 500 meters of track through the market as we pulled into Mae-Klong station.
You can preview the video here if you don’t want to wait for the post on the Mahachai-Mae Klong railway. Since we had an hour before the return trip we also found time to visit the market and a nearby temple. The return journey was perhaps more interesting for a number of reasons but more of that on another day.
Day three once again found us on the road by 8am as we headed North West towards Nakhon Pathom and its famous huge chedi. Along the way we visited another temple with some unique architecture and as it happened a gathering of hundreds of Buddhist monks who had come to take some exams. After some frustrating driving in heavy traffic and getting lost, we finally found the Thai Human Imagery Museum which is about 20km from Nakhon Pathom. Here we spent a very pleasant hour viewing the extremely life like exhibits.
Arriving in Nakhon Pathom in time for lunch we then spent a couple of hours visiting the Phra Pathom Chedi. A truly spectacular site which as luck would have it was covered in scaffolding as workers carried out maintenance. That said the area around the chedi is fully of interesting stuff and probably needs a half day visit to view everything.
The journey home was long and tiring not helped by some really heavy rain around Pranburi. However I think everyone really enjoyed the trip, I know I did and once again got to see and experience some things that in the main remain part of unseen Thailand for most visitors.
Related posts:
Pingback: Thai Lottery Lucky Numbers
Pingback: Buddha Reflection | My Thai Photo Blog