Thailand
Laos
Cambodia
China
Vietnam
Philippines
עברית
Janurary 15, 2007
I woke up in the morning and remembered I have to go through the bank. $300 USD in travelers checks transfered to a couple of thousands bahts. The nice tuktuk driver (30 baht) waited patiently outside the bank until I came out and took me back to the hotel. On the same street where the hotel is located there are a couple of monuments so I went checking them by foot. I checked out from the hotel and left my large bag at the reception.
Khorat is a large city with a lot of traffic. The number of cars in comparison to Kanchanaburi is high. Despite of this I tried looking for an automatic motorcycle. Unfortunately I found out that in the entire city you cannot find a single automatic motorcycle. The attempts to explain to me how to operate the manual gear didn’t help so much. A city with so much traffic along with a two days experience of riding motorcycles on the road, not to mention it’s on the left side, are not a good recipe to learn something new. Perhaps at a later time.
Taking a walk in Khorat
At the center of the city there’s a temple, stores of all kinds, and in general it’s a city made for its citizens and less for its tourists. This way I was able to see a real normal Thai city without all the annoying touristic stuff. A long line of bird cages offered for sale on the street caught my eyes which was interesting. On the main road in front of the hotels in which I was staying there’s a long boulevard and in it there’s a a big monument. Later I found out it’s a significant symbol of the city Khorat.
I skipped the local museum and kept walking toward the horse races tracks at the other end of the boulevard. Sounds interesting. I arrived at an old stadium which was empty. I understood from a soldier who was stationed there and communicated with me using hand signals, that the place is active only at 5:30 PM. I planned going back later but I found out later that it’s probably active at 5:30 AM.
After the disappointment of the empty stadium, I continued walking toward the park located in the area. While walking an old woman passed by with two heavy baskets on her shoulders. When she saw I was trying to take her photo from the other side of the road, she stopped for a moment and smiled. A tuktuk-cycler driving people with the forces of his legs muscles made me stop for a moment. There are quite a few left in Thailand although most of them converted to a motorized tuktuk long ago.
Horse Washing in the lake
After ten minutes of walking I arrived at the entrance of a park. The park includes a large lake and that’s about it. From the entrance arrived people who led horses. I was positive they were race horses. They were well kept and impressive and were led to the other side of the road, outside the park. Since it was not one or two, but dozens of horses, I was curious to discover where the horses come from. I kept walking after the horse leaders and came to another lake in which a very special sight was seen. The leader of the horse took the horse to the lake, there he took almost all his clothes and enter the water with the horse. The ceremony of washing the horses lasted about fifteen minutes, during which the leader was encouraging the horse to swim to the middle of the lake, then he would washed him, brush his teeth and gives him a full service. After the wash, the horses were taken to the stables nearby. The sight of horse washing by itself marked Khorat as a worthwhile place to go to.
The Athletics Park
I continued walking toward the athletics park. It’s a nice park used for runners. In the center of it there’s an artificial lake. I planned on walking from there to the flowers market. According to my map it was supposed to be nearby.
I asked for directions in one of the restaurants and was told that the market was fifty kilometers away from the place I was at, so I skipped it. I wanted to go from there to Phimai, an antiquities site with Cambodian temples. It is located sixty kilometers away from Khorat so I had to get back to the central station (there are two of them).
Back to the Central Station
The way back was long. I’ve already seen all the attractions, a tuktuk was not seen in the horizon and it looked like I had another hour of walking. Suddenly a relatively luxurious vehicle turned from the corner of the street. The driver stopped and asked me where I’m going. I told him my destination and he asked me if I want a ride. I agreed. In the car there were two people. The driver whose name was Man, and his wife Bon. Even though Man was looking young, he already had white hairs and his age was getting close to fifty. He told me he works as an advertiser and even gave me a logo he designed. He gave me his cellphone number and I left him my email address. If I come back to Khorat one day, maybe I’ll give him a call. I offered to pay for the ride but he reuses. There are nice people in the Isan.
Phimai Temples
After one hour drive in a local bus I arrived in Phimai. The site is very close to the bus station, a three minutes walk away. The place itself is well kept and beautiful. It’s a real gem in the middle of nowhere. At last I saw some tourists. There was a group of students from China, and one cute girl that I was not sure if she was one the students or teachers, asked me to take a photo with her. There was something strange about this group. They took a photo with everything including myself.
In the exit of the Phimai Temples, and elephant which was used as a tourists attraction walked around the parking lot. The elephant’s owner offered tourists to purchase food for him. It’s a cruel act because this way they withhold the food he really needs. You should not encourage this phenomenon and ignore their requests to purchase food for the elephant.
I stayed a little in an internet shop and went back to Khorat. That time I realized there will be no more horse racing today so I went to the train station to go to Laos.
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Night Train to Nong Khai
The train which leaves Bangkok goes through Khorat at about 11:00 PM and arrives at Nong Khai after six hours at around 5:00 AM. Unfortunately there was only a seat in second class (386 baht), so I had to pass the night while sitting. The second class includes a padded seat, air-conditioning and a blanket against the cold of the air-conditioning. During the ride and in the small hours of the night, the weather turned freezing.
Those who traveled in a third class seat on the train known that all the windows are open and the smoke is getting to the cars. That’s one of the only advantages of air-conditioning this time of year, when all windows are closed.
My special ear buds, which are designed like ear plugs, my eyes cover, and the fact I switched to short sleeves, sandals and brushed my teeth before the train left the station, helped me pass the time with more comfort, but to Nong Khai I came very tired at 5:00 AM in the morning. Everything was dark around the station and tuktuk drivers waited patiently.
This article was originally written in Hebrew. It was translated to English at a later time.
English
