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| Charming riverside accommodation. |
I make my way south from Tak, continuing to follow the river of course - it still seems to be flowing quite quickly, I do wonder if the kayak plan would have basically worked had I stuck at it, but never mind. On the other hand I suspect I'd have had problems with some of the accommodation options I booked... next stop out of Tak is Kampaeng Pet, quite a way by river so I went with the furthest place upstream I could find, it is fully eight kilometres from the centre of town. Not exactly the middle of nowhere, but the nearby shops and restaurants are all of the typically Thai 'only open during daylight hours' variety. With my bicycle it is no huge problem, I can and do ride far enough away to find a 7-11 and a roadside noodle place, but if I'd arrived by boat I would have faced a fair old walk to get food.
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| Temple ruins in Kampaeng Pet. |
A nice place to stay anyway, right on the river. There doesn't seem to be much current here, I test this out by going for a little swim - turns out most of the river is only a foot or two deep, but there is a deeper channel on the far side, where there is also a fish farm. I have a day off here, there is yet another historical park here with old temples - I am quite close to Sukhothai here, at one point this would have been a satellite town, and later part of the Ayutthaya kingdom of course. The expansive ruins make for a very peaceful wander about, few tourists these days... somewhat interesting is that here, they've excavated several large 'pools' - these would be where the stone - laterite - used to build the temples was quarried. It is clearly not the best stone for building, I can see why it was never really used to build homes. A nice restful day anyway, and in the evening I manage to find a bar and even a rather nice pizza place, the decor is most authentic, the pizza somewhat less so. There is at least proper cheese, but thanks to the Thai sweet tooth, underneath that is something rather less like tomato sauce, and more like jam!
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| One last picture of the Ping. |
Onwards - a little way at least, I've booked a room just the other side of Kampaeng Pet, this would have been a short day even on the kayak, although as it turns out, it would have involved a lengthy walk carrying the thing. There is not a lot here, but at least there is a 7-11 so I can buy beer. Then off to Nakorn Sawan, again - a long ride, over a hundred kilometres, but I make it, and that is the end of the trip. Well, this worked nicely enough, but I'm still a bit sad that the kayaking didn't happen. One thing I definitely could have done would have been to get a train to here, and then paddle further down river as far as Ayutthaya - the old capital of Siam and currently top of my list of places to visit in Thailand. Not a very long way, and it seems that section of river is largely devoid of weirs and has many, many resorts for me to stay in. So maybe next year for that... I do still like the idea of the Chiang Mai - Nakorn Sawan route, but I think it is probably more like three weeks, and I would not be able to rely on booking hotels online - instead, I think I'd have to drive along the route in advance, locating riverside resorts (there are many that don't have an online presence), and getting a contact phone number for them. I think the wilderness section through the national park would likely take five days too - so for that, I would very much need a water filter at least. One day!
Photos to go with this post can be found here.
