Suphanburi - Buffalo Village

The Buffalo Village is located at Sri Prachant District in Suphanburi Province - it is approx. 110 km from Bangkok and is a theme park allowing visitors a taste of how traditional rural life was.

They have many water buffaloes there, including pygmy and albino water buffaloes as well as ones deformed at birth, e.g. having five legs.Visitors can pat and touch some of the gentle animals and ex-farmers are on hand to tell you (in Thai) all about the water buffaloes and how they were used in farming.

Rice growing is another main attraction at the Buffalo Village. The farmers and workers are regularly out in the rice fields tending to the rice with their buffaloes. During planting times, they let the visitors go out into the fields and try their hand at planting rice themselves. Harvest time is also interesting when you can see them go through the harvest process using traditional farming tools.

The aim of the Buffalo Village is not only to raise awareness of the important role the buffaloes have played, but also to help conserve the dwindling breeding stock.Farming life in Thailand has been modernized and "mechanized" so the Buffalo Village offers an opportunity to see how things were done in the not so distant past.

It was not really until during my year in northern Vietnam (where things are still done in the old-fashioned way) I realized how labor intensive rice farming was. But then again, knowing agricultural history in Europe, it is also worth noting that it was not until the mid-1960s that the number of tractors exceed the number of horses. So, horses were actually an important farm animal in Western Europe up until around 1970. That I don't think anybody in Europe considers when looking down on the "third world countries".

All season long, you can hop into the back of a buffalo cart and take a ride around one of the rice fields, but most importantly, there are a number of daily buffalo shows where they sometimes have local children perform some traditional Thai skits and songs.

The main show features about 10-15 water buffaloes doing some simple tricks. It is all narrated in Thai of course. The shows are at 11 a.m and 3 p.m. during the week and 11 a.m., 2.30 p.m. and 4 p.m. on weekends.

Other highlights of the Buffalo Village are the group of traditional Thai style houses and the "resort" where people can rent a simple room for the night.

The major drawback of the Buffalo Village is the dual pricing that is applied. Although the show is only in Thai language, they have decided, for some reason, to charge foreigners a higher price. Full price, including entrance, show and buffalo cart ride is 300 baht for foreigners and 60 baht for Thais. Foreign children are 210 baht and Thai children only 10 baht.

Despite this, I still recommend the Buffalo Village as a destination for a weekend excursion. 

There are also sights to be seen in Suphanburi city - some built with pork-barrel funds from Bangkok secured by Banharn Silpa-archa (former Thai PM) and his daughter. Examples of these sights are the Chalermpatara Park (with a small water-fun-park, an impressive fountain, and the infamous "Banharn Tower" with views of Suphanburi city) and the "museum for the Dragon People" where Silpa-archa celebrates his Chinese heritage. Interestingly, there are three price tiers for entering this private sector "museum". Caucasians are charged an arm and a foot while Thais (and other non-Chinese Asians) merely are fleeced. People of Chinese lineage can get in cheaply. 

To me, the memorial and museum for King Naruesan (king of Ayutthaya for 15 years until his death in 1605) surely beat Banharn's celebration of the Dragon People. 

Samut Prakarn - Wat Khun Samut Jeen

Wat Khun Samut Jeen is a temple in Samut Prakarn Province that due to erosion of the coast line has ended up being inundated by the ocean. On the Google Earth shot below, the temple is the cluster of trees at the bottom of the picture (taken at high tide).

Wat Khun Samut Jeen is located near Ban Sakhla (drive towards Chulachomklao Fort and turn right a few kilometers before the entrance to the fort), but can only be reached by boat. The area is very low-lying – probably under sea level – so the main activities are shrimp farming and fishing. 

Along the road to Ban Sakhla, long-tail boats can be rented to bring you to your destination anywhere in the expansive network of canals.

A one-way trip to Wat Khun Samut Jeen cost 40 baht per person, but maximum 100 baht if three people or more travel in the same boat. 

You’ll be heading down a canal lined with short stumpy nipa palms and electricity poles. Some houses along their canal can be reached by motorcycle or foot on elevated concrete pathways, but the houses furthest away from the road can only be reached by boat.

After about ten minutes in the boat, I reached a small jetty where the boatman told me that I had to disembark. I had to continue the remainder of the way on foot. He gave me his mobile phone number and said that I should ring him when I was ready to return.

The small jetty was surrounded by shrimp farms - long narrow man-made ponds with embankments in-between them - as far as they eye could see in all directions. To get to temple, I had to walk on these embankments although work on an elevated concrete pathway had started.

After walking for about ten minutes, I reached the first house of Ban Khun Samut Jeen. There were some pictures and maps that indicated that over the last 20 years or so, the sea had encroached on the land by about one kilometer. 

Walking down the track, I came to a bright red building housing a Chinese shrine. An elderly woman was trotting along and she said the shrine was called Noom Noi Loi Chai and it was worshipped by local fishermen. Apparently, this shrine had already been moved once due to land erosion.

I offered to carry her bag with groceries and walking further along the shrimp fields, we passed a number of wooden shacks until we reached the woman’s home. I was enjoying the cold water offered in return for my beast of burden services, when a neighbor came running. His old mother was under the weather and he was looking for herbal medicine to remedy her illness as the nearest medical clinic was many kilometers away.

About another ten minutes of walking, after leaving the shacks behind, I finally emerged at the edge of the Gulf of Thailand.

Straight ahead was a concrete raised walkway with the temple in the distance surrounded by trees. As I arrived at the temple the first structures, I passed were the kutis, the accommodation for the five resident monks. These were built on stilts in order to stay above high tide. A bit further were the crematorium, the open sala, and the temple.

The kutis were rebuilt on stilts, but the temple building itself couldn’t be raised. So, they raised the level of the floor by over a meter thus blocking the lower half of the windows. So, to look out of the window, you have to sit down on the floor.

Evidence of the land erosion could be clearly seen by looking out into the Gulf of Thailand. A line of electricity pylons stood testament that there was once a thriving community under there waters.

The abbot, Phra Somnuk, was sitting in the sala and he briefly described how the monks and the temple had been close to disaster during a big storm in 2003. Although a few articles ran in the local press, the outside world did not really take notice of the temple’s plight until a bilingual website was created in 2007. Since then, donations have enabled the temple to build elevated concrete walkways as well as a breakwater wall intended to stop erosion and give mangrove saplings a chance to root and spread.

However, the abbot was quite stoic about the fact that nature is likely to prevail over man and said that things are actually only bad during big storms, which inevitably will happen once every two or three years.

P. S.

There is a public boat to Ban Khun Samut Jeen leaving the pier at the Paknam Market in Samut Prakarn’s Amphoe Muang every day at about 9.00 am. The boat returns to Paknam at 3 pm.

Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi Province has many sights. Of course there is the infamous bridge, waterfalls, caves, and temples. I will cover a few other sights.

Close to Sai Yok Noi waterfall is the Muang Singh Historical Park. The park features the remains of two Khmer temples dating back to the 12 or 13th century. The southern wall runs parallel with the River Kwai.

The main temple is at the centre of the park, next to the remains of the second ruin, with the lesser monuments scattered around.
The Hellfire Pass was known by the Imperial Japanese Army as the "Konyu Cutting". Allied POWs were forced to cut through solid rock, sometimes for days at a time with little or no food and rest.

The most famous stretch of the Thai-Burma Death Railway can easily be reached on foot from the Australian-sponsored museum. Although the tracks have long since disappeared, the route of the cutting can be clearly seen.

The more adventurous can trek along the route for kilometers - or get to the other end of the route by a gravel road starting a few kilometers from the museum.

A further few kilometers up the road (130 km from Kanchanaburi on Highway 323 in direction Sangkhlaburi) is the Hin Dad hot spring, where one can frolic in hot water and then cool off in the adjacent river. It is a well of natural hot water of 45 – 55 degrees Celsius believed to have a healing property for various ailments such as rheumatism.

Kanchanaburi - Off the Beaten Track

Kanchanaburi has some wonderful natural sights to behold and some large natural parks to cross.

When I went to Three Pagoda Pass, I was quite disappointed - the pagodas were ridiculously small while the area near the border post was full of tacky shops selling souvenirs and wooden furniture. Not much of interest there.

On my way back to Kanchanaburi, I decided to go west to see a few mines and waterfalls. Located in Tambon Pilok (some 70 km. to the west of Amphoe Thong Pha Phum along Highway 3272) there are the remains of tin and wolfram mines. They are in the Tanao Si Range, which forms a natural boundary between Thailand and Myanmar. There are numerous picturesque waterfalls nearby which are accessible by foot such as Namtok Chokkadin and Namtok Chet Mit.

I then decided to get back from Thong Pha Phum to Kanchanaburi via Sri Nakharin. A detour indeed, but chosen because it would take me on gravel tracks and dirt roads across a national park.

What I had not counted on was:

1) the distance (partly because of lack of detailed maps and partly because of no road signs inside the park)

2) that I was low on fuel after having visited the mines

3) a total lack of gas stations within the national park

So, as the fuel gauge started to get precariously low, I had to make alternative plans. Fortunately, there are small farms within the national park so I could ask for directions. I was told about a ferry to Sri Sawat across the reservoir behind the Sri Nakharin Dam.

This turned out to be a real life saver although I missed the connection to Sri Sawat. After the on-board computer had indicated an empty tank for the past 15 kilometers, I decided to buy three liters of motorcycle gasoline in order to be able to limp to the next gas station.

That evening, it was pure bliss to watch the sunset over the reservoir from my house boat as the thought of potentially having to push the car along winding road had started to stress me out a bit.

Kanchanaburi - Sangkhlaburi 4WD

Many go there for the Three Pagoda Pass or for the Khao Laem Reservoir with its inundated temple. But Sangkhlaburi also offers some possibilities for great off-road driving. By that, I don’t mean ordinary dirt road driving, which most urban 4WD vehicles (like a Toyota Fortuner) can handle. By that, I mean rough tracks that are barely passable in the rainy season unless you have a modified 4WD and arrive with similarly equipped friends.

Most people having a 4WD vehicle never use the 4WD option or use it when it isn’t even necessary. In Kazakhstan, I saw what ordinary sedans could do on rough mountain roads as long as the driver was cautious. It is extremely rarely that I engage the 4WD when driving on dirt tracks, e.g., in Thai national parks. Unless the surface is slippery (mud, snow), 2WD will get you through most challenges – as long as your tires have grip, you normally won’t face problems as long as you have the necessary ground clearance.

In Sangkhlaburi, I hooked up with http://www.22nor4x4.com/2011/ to enter a national park. I soon got left behind. The Fortuner did not have the right tires, did not have sufficient ground clearance to leave me with a safety margin and with automatic gear shift it was difficult for me to control the torque.

Admittedly, it was during the rainy season, making conditions more muddy, more difficult, but I learned my lesson, admitted my defeat, and pulled out. Next time, I’ll use a proper 4WD vehicle.

A Fortuner is only suitable to cruise around Bangkok and to vist dry rice fields in Isan, but not for real off-road challenges

Samut Songhkram - Trains, Temples and Floating Markets

Whoever built the Mae Klong railway had a superb sense of whimsy. The tiny railway line—already one of the shortest in Thailand—is sliced in half by a very large river. For adventurers, it presents a day trip opportunity like no other.

The starting point is Thonburi’s little-known Wong Wian Yai railway station. As the funky little train leaves the station, it trundles past tiny stations, crosses canals and passes the beautiful Chinese-motif monastery, Wat Raja Oros, on the right.

Eventually, it emerges into lush countryside, and rolls past small villages, buffaloes grazing pastures, fishermen and farmers — the traditional bucolic scene which typifies rural Thailand.

The section from Ban Laem to Mae Klong (also known as Samut Songkram) is a charming journey through a quiet backwater. This train’s modest interior matches its leisurely pace.

The passengers are rural with the friendliness such settings imply. From their easy conversations, it is clear that they travel this route daily, taking fish and produce from their farms to the markets in Thonburi. 

Samut Songkram is just another fishing town. For the last few meters to the station, the rails run through a market. As the train approaches, watch how the previously hidden tracks appear as vendors rush with poles to raise awnings from the train’s path, lowering them once it has passed.

The picture shows the Mae Klong Market viewed from the terminus station.