I think it was about 5:30AM today when I was first woken up by the television in the police room I was sleeping in. Obviously the policeman had to get up. He left the TV on even though he must have left not long after he turned it on. I was tired enough to manage to sleep regardless. I woke up again at about 7:30. Nobody was there so I took some pictures of my “hotel room”, although I will not publish it here as they would surely not be happy about it.

In the evening I saw some lights of a building that looked interesting on the hill almost in the middle of the city. So this morning I went to check it out. It was “just another” temple and pagoda. The temple was under renovation. The thing that I could not see at night and that was interesting was a huge statue of Buddha reincarnation at the top of one of the buildings I ridden past yesterday night. It seems quite strange that they don’t have it lit at night as it would be quite a stunning thing to look at. This thing is much bigger than any of the buildings around. I could not find a way to get in front of it though. Sure, I wasn’t looking that hard, but it is obviously not a “tourist spot”.

After that I drove and drove, until I finally got to a little higher altitudes again. The road was winding very nicely and at the top was another temple (Wat Phra Bat Hvai Tom) that I decided to check out closer, mainly hoping to be able to see into the valley. The views were not as nice as I was hoping for, however, there were lots of people picking up rocks everywhere around the temple, which was very interesting. Although the temple was the standard Thai temple, of which I’ve already seen and photographed many times before, the surroundings were interesting and the sky blue with fluffy clouds so I took some pictures again as I thought it was worth it. They turned out quite nice as I expected.

Not far from there, just before Li, is Wat Phra Tat Ha Duang temple complex (N17.77981 E98.95486), which was excellent I thought. It features a few temples, one being built right now, from which the most interesting to me was the first entirely white and gold temple I’ve seen. It even had pure white roof. Behind its glass walls sits a gold statue of Buddha. This building is quite stunning, as are the others, even though it still follows the same classic Thai temple architecture. There must be some big gatherings happening there, as the whole perimeter of the complex is a roofed, mostly sitting area like at a stadium. The remaining corridors are empty with gold statues at the end of each of them.

As I continued I started feeling tired, hungry and sleepy. I decided to hold on until I would reach the Doi Tao Lake (Mae Tub Reservoir) at Doi Tao. When I reached it though, there was no water in it. The houseboats were sitting dry on the ground and I could not see any water for kilometers. I eventually found the river that must be feeding it. I only found it by chance. I just tried one of the interestingly looking narrow sand paths in  a small tree forest when I was going from the lake and there it was. On the way back from this tangle of narrow paths I appreciated my GPS again. I magnified the area and just followed the route I came from the road. If I didn’t do that I’m sure I would be lost there for a while as it was interweaved by many same looking paths.

The lake, even with no water, is obviously still producing fish ;-). In half of the stalls there they were selling several kinds of dried varieties. I also took some nice pictures as there was a storm not far from there which made the lighting conditions quite interesting.

After this it was a “rain escape ride” to the town of Hot, where I had quite a nice lunch (and dinner, as I had to ask for a doggy bag to take the rest with me since I couldn’t finish it thanks to how much I ordered [for 55 Baht this time with bottled water included]). Then I rode straight to to Mae Chaem.

There is nothing really interesting in Mae Chaem, including the temple that is very nice, but just another one of the many similar ones. I now stay at a guesthouse for 150 Baht with on-suite (N18.50221 E98.36104). (There is nothing cheaper on offer… J) On the way here I stopped at another wat, where I talked to a Buddhist woman for a while before she had to go to pray. She could speak some English, which she told me she learned at a hotel where she worked for years 15 years ago. She has been living in the wat for the past 6 years.

The landscape gets quite agricultural after this wat. All the hills as far as one can see are agricultural fields that have all just been ploughed up, probably in preparation for the rainy season. It was quite ugly, especially because you can still see tree stumps protruding out of the ground at many places – even totally rocky places where one can do nothing useful with. I was wondering why did they had to cut all those trees and felt a bit sorry for the mother nature there. Couldn’t they have left a few trees here and there and especially at places that are not otherwise usable anyway?

The rainy season must make quite a difference here as most of the hills have trees with no or only brown leaves. They probably get alive as soon as enough rain falls.

(521km)