Lovely New Year period. Out with 2014 and in with 2015.

I took the bike and drove up to Khon Kaen and Ban Muang to our house. Took me about 6 hours. Not to much traffic and where the cars were stacked up I managed to take the side lane and keep going. Fortunately there was no rain. 6 hours seated on a bike does give a sore backside no matter what you may think. Still it was worth it for the fun of the trip.
We had friends staying so the holiday was a chance to show them around and make us do a few things. Otherwise I think we would have sat down and used up four days planning what to do next !

That said the plan was for me to drive up and then have 4 days relaxing with Wanna and friends. Rene and O. It was their first time up with us. And the family was holding a new years eve party at Wanna’s Brothers place. Small family affair which we went along to. Lot of fun and everyone enjoyed. Music, Karaoke and some dancing. Wanna organized a raffle. Finally got some sleep around 3.00am…..

The remained of the days were spend lazing around with one night up to Pu Rua ( ภูเรือ ) for camping.  We did go into town and had the famous all you can eat steaks and salads, visited a night market and of course got in a game of pool.  Also visited an old ruin outside town. I’d been before but this time it took some finding, they had not moved it just me having a very bad memory on its location. Rene kindly forwarded me the coordinates for the next time!   Old Temple near Ban Muang
No doubt we will go again as it is an interesting place built in the 1300’s and sort of different to the usual tourist attractions.  In fact I’ve posted on this before but never mind. Always interesting to see things a second time around. Quite some amazing brick work and some of the joining is very clever and precise. Google Street View of Temple

As for the camping. We set off planning on going straight to the camp site stopping along the way to eat, have some coffees  etc. 

Well we got as far as Loei and decided on a small diversion and take in a visit to Chiang Khan.

Chiang Khan is an old town located on the Mekong River. It is a boarder town as the Mekong River is the international separation between Thailand and Laos. SO as you can imagine quite a busy little place. Lots of old wooden building and now of course full of traders selling “t” shirts ad various souvenirs of the place. WE got our compulsory “T” shirts with Chiang Khan stamped all over it…. Just all a bit to much for me. To busy for all the wrong reasons. Yes a good place to see and the river does look good. Would I go back ? Not in any hurry to do so.

So Chiang Khan got “ticked” off and then back on the road to the camp site. We eventually got there after sitting in a traffic jam for 1 hour and arrived in the dark….

It was full, in fact very over crowded to be more correct. This I suppose was to be expected, given it was the main annual holiday. But we found a big concrete area which must have at one time had a chalet on it. Seems everyone thought it was not an allowable camping spot, but we used it ! Had running water and was about 50 meters to showers and toilets etc. (No I did not use the shower. It got down to about 12^oC during the night. So no way was I going to ruin my evening with cold showers).

Had a Bar B Q dinner and lovely campfire coffee in the morning. Managed to get my shadow across the stove in the morning picture ! Never mind. All in all a good time had by all.

Now its back to work and reality.

Thai New Year 13th April 2013

Yesterday was a Thai New Year which as you can imagine is a time for a lot of celebrations. Police out in full force this year to keep down drink driving. Major problem with youngsters running round of the little scooters etc. Death toll is horrendous at this time. Last year 26,000 people were killed on Thai roads. Making it the 6th highest in the world. So best to stay home around this time...

It is also a family time when all the family show respect and thanks to the elders of the family. In this case it was by the children of Wanna parents. Covering the 'Olds' with water, symbolic of life and it is believed that doing this will bring good luck and prosperity for the New Year. And it is a tradition which I've tried to capture on a small slide show. First up is spilling of some water on the foot of the Buddha statues and then on the parents. Kids love it as they get to play with lots of water, splashing and spraying everyone in sight!!!

Later we went to play snooker at a local play.  Good fun. Would you believe it I met another foreigner there who came from Norwich in Norfolk!!!  Small world.  Then came back home to do some netting of fish for dinner.  Caught a big Mekong Cat fish, one which we had put in there a year or so back. (It was much smaller then....) I can confirm it tasted good !!! 

All in all a very good day..