2 days rolled up into 1.

On our final rest day in Nakhon Phanom we got up early and went for a ride into town to have a look at all the fancy Wats.  I did learn something interesting today about the Stupa inside a Wat.  People will come to a particular Wat and pay homage in some cases according to what day of the week they were born. 

I've put some photos of the Wats we visited yesterday below.

 Now this was an interesting sign on a tree in one of the many Wats we visited.

 In one of the Wats we got the chance to walk inside whilst the Monks were praying.  There was a small gathering who at times presented trays of food to each of the Monks.  Just to the left of the photo you can see a cat lurking around. It was really nice to watch the praying and the mostly elderly people praying with the Monks.

 That cat ended up finding some of the food and starting eating from the bowl.  The monks thought it was funny.  I thought the cat should have been sent to a new life on another planet if I had my way.

One Wat in particular had a statue of Budha in green.  Up until this stage of the holiday I've only seen Budha depicted in a gold colour.  It still looked impressive.

Above is one of those 'Stupa's' I referred to earlier.  This one in particular was very impressive with all the gold figurines of Budha.  This Wat was probably the most impressive of all the ones we've seen thus far.

The rest of the day was spent swimming and dozing on and off around the pool.  The pool needed a good clean.  Later in the day Len and I went across the road to where a market was setting up.  There were all sorts of stuff for sale, shirts, shorts, pants, home wares, food and more food.  The only thing I bought was a BBQ chicken to be washed down with a coke.  That was dinner.  This was the nice chap who cooked us our dinner. 

We headed back to the room to find the internet was still down.  For a flash looking hotel it certainly had seen better days.  Even last night when trying to sleep I could hear the person in the room above every time he decided to flush the toilet.  It sounded exactly the same as when you flush the toilet on a plane.  The only difference was it went on for about 2 minutes.  Not a happy camper when I woke up at 5.30am.

 Now for today's ride.  The photo above is Len planning the route for today.  He routes the trip on the internet and then downloads it to his garmin computer.  It takes us directly to the hotel.  Now that's a toy I haven't got yet.

We got on the road by about 6.45am for the long ride to Ban Phaeng.  Today's we rode 100ks with a maximum temperature of 43 degrees C, and an average of 34 degrees.  The majority of the ride today was on good roads, with some traffic and a good shoulder to ride on.  A lot of the way we were protected from the burning sun by the overhanging trees that followed us for a majority of the ride.

As we were riding along we kept seeing dinosaurs.  I couldn't work it out.  When we got about 35ks from the finish line we finally realised why so many dinosaurs were out in the paddocks.  It was in this area many millions of years ago the dinosaur roamed.  They roamed at the same time as the crocodiles.

We stopped in and had a look around.  We could see the dinosaur footprints but my shitty camera didn't do them justice therefore no photos of dinosaur footprints.  You have to take my word on that one.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, a bus load of children came running down the hill to see the footprints.  I'm sure they were impressed just like us.

With 35ks to go, we rolled along at a good speed.  At times we left the shelter of the overhanging trees to be punished by the sun.  The heat went up straight away.  We stopped again to refill the bottles but didn't take a long break.  It was hot and getter hotter.  We needed to end the day sooner rather than later. 

By the time we got to Ban Phaeng it was time to find the 7/11 and stop for a ice coffee.  They are magic.  We just sat around for half an hour bought some food for the hotel and starting searching for JB place. 

We found the hotel and was rather impressed by it's appearance.  For about 13 dollars we each got a room with a king size bed, air con, good WiFi and cable tv all in Thai.  I don't care about the TV. 

Tomorrow will be a ride of around 45ks  because of the long distances between some towns on the 212 highway.

Until tomorrow

Safe riding.