All good things come to an end... but will have a sequel!

The 'Big Buddha' of Wat Huay Mongkol

The last few days in Thailand ended with a bit of a bummer.  There is currently a destructive tyfoon going on above Vietnam and that has its consequences on the weather here in the Gulf of Thailand.  The weather is very stormy here, lots of wind, some rain, clouds and no sunshine.  Temperatures are as low as 25°C instead of the usual 32°C.  It actually feels cold due to the wind.

I wanted to visit the Pa La U waterfall near the Myanmarese border, but I'll have to postpone that to a next trip.  The weather is too bad to go up into the mountains and the national park is probably closed for tourists.  My last 2 days I spent driving around a lot.  I drove to Wat Huay Mongkol with my family to do some praying and meditating at the temple.  Wat Huay Mongkol is a temple complex with a very big statue of a praying monk.  The statue was built on demand of Queen Sirikit by my late stepgrandfather (I never knew him, but he's got his own mausoleum on the premises).

Feeding the fish at the floating market

After prayers and meditation we continued to the floating market.  Well... floating market... let's call it shops around an artificial pond.  There's actually nothing much too see, it's a tourist trap.  Except for the boat ride and the "train" ride, there is nothing mind-blowing going on there.  Many of the shops are even empty or just closed.  But my stepsister likes it a lot, because she can feed the goats and fishes there.

Thai boats

The next day I drove all the way down the coast towards Prachuap Khiri Khan, the capital of the province ("changwat").  I found that this part of Thailand isn't as developed for tourists yet as other parts, but development is slowly going on and soon this part will also be under influence of tourism in Hua Hin.  I drove up to a river mouth, which was a natural harbour for fishing boats.  Thai fishing boats are quite nice to look at, they're very colourful.

My last day I did a few things I haven't done yet: I had my stepmom's delicious som tam (spicy papaya salad) on the beach and we had moo ta ka in the evening (Thai barbecue).  Eating moo ka ta was a feast for all, my father, who doesn't like Thai food that much, really appreciated it, my little sister Kai-Mook loved it and it is one of my stepmom's favourite meals.  Thai barbecue is a very simple concept: hot charcoal is placed in a pot in the middle of the table, on top of it they place a kind of lid with holes in it surrounded by a 'gutter'.  Through the holes the hot air escapes, it is there that the meat-baking happens.  The gutter is filled with broth in which vegetables, noodles, seafood, eggs and tofu can be boiled.  They serve it with a variety of spicy and less spicy sauces.  The place where we had it this time is the best place where I ever ate moo ka ta.  Instead of giving a plate with a standard assortment, we were allowed to choose ourselves what we wanted to eat from a buffet, the meat and seafood were then weighed and billed at 300 baht per kilo (7,5 euro for 1 kilo).  This price also included a separate plate with an assortment of vegetables and noodles.

Thai roads

This was a very good way to end my last day in Pran Buri.  Tomorrow I'll be driving back to Bangkok for my afternoon flight to Abu Dhabi.  About that driving, I love driving in Thailand, at first it was a bit stressful driving at the left side of the road in busy traffic with different habits as in Europe, but after a few minutes I really started enjoying driving here.  Most roads are actually in a pretty good state and highways are very straight with almost no curves, gasoline is not so expensive as in Europe.  I actually drove 1343 km here in Thailand, whereas the last year in Belgium I only drove 195 km with my car-sharing programme.  This journey now comes to an end, but I'm already planning a road trip through Thailand next year, after my February trip through Vietnam.

Ready for an enjoyable flight back home (in an almost empty aircraft)