Temples in Western Thailand

Tak is one of my favorite provinces. Initially we only drove through in December 2001 and had no time to visit anything but Ban Tak, the small village along the Ping River but in December 2005 we did an extensive tour to the western part of the Province to Mae Sot, the border markets, Mae Ramat and of course the City of Tak. The 226km trip from Mae Sot to Mae Sariang in Mae Hong Son is breathtaking and offers beautiful nature and great temples.

In December 2002 though we visited Phetchaburi and Prachuap Khiri Khan Provinces. I was very pleased with the trip to those provinces on the border with Myanmar because there were many temples, specially in the city of Phetchaburi, but also because it had many scenic or photogenic temples to offer. Also, not once did we get stopped by a police roadblock, which made me particularly happy. Not many temples can be visited in Kaeng Krachan National Park in the West and Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park along the coast but they offer beautiful nature, rainforest, mountains and empty beaches with spectacular rock formations. Cha-am is a beach town for Thai's and some people from the West, which seem to have been gone for a long time. Hua Hin on the other side is already visited by many farangs and my Thai friends still shake their heads in disbelieve when we see them walking around the city with their shirts off, exposing their fat bodies. The temples in Hua Hin also seemed to be a popular tourist site, vs. the ones in Cha-am or Phetchaburi, which were mostly visited by Thai worshippers, with the occasional Japanese bus tour stopping as well.

One of the best trips to Thailand was our visit to Kanchanaburi Province on the border with Myanmar in December 2003. Waterfalls, lakes, mountains, Mon villages and the three pagodas pass were some of the highlights besides seeing the famous bridge over the river Kwai and attending the annual light and sound show. Here are not that many temples but many caves and two temples which took several hours to visit - Wat Tham Seua and Wat Tham Khao Noi.

March 2005: We went back to the western Provinces of Phetchaburi and Phrachuap Khiri Khan again and stayed in Hua Hin, which offers better (but also more expensive) choices of Hotels and visited some of the villages and temples around Phetchaburi - Wat Khao Takhrao and Wat Ton Son. We also went back to the temples in Hua Hin, Wat Takiap and Wat Krailat and drove on further down south to the city of Phrachuap Khiri Khan and enjoyed picturesque beaches and fishing villages.

June 2005: Finally a trip to Ratchaburi. Not much tourism going on there and some temples were extremely hard to find. In fact, we were the only visitors in all of the four temples we visited at that time. Which was quite nice!

May 2006: We spent a week in Hua Hin to visit several temples, which we had not been to before, like Wat Phailom in Phetchaburi or Wat Buddha Chayo in Hua Hin. We also had some special ceremonies performed in two temples, which were closed on previous trips: Wat Tha Chaisiri and Wat Sa Bua in Phetchaburi. When in Phetchaburi we always stop in Wat Mahathat because it is such a wonderful and important temple and we went back to Wat Khao Tao to see all the new buildings, which were built here since our last visit.

November 2007: Finally we went over the mountain range from Mae Sot in the province of Tak to go to Umphang, probably the furthest point away from anywhere and a piece of Thailand where most people don't even speak Thai anymore. One of the best experiences in my life was Tee Lor Su Waterfall and the nature around it in the rainforest of Tak. Naturally we took another opportunity to see key temples like Wat Don Kaeo in Mae Ramat and Wat Thai Wattanaram in Mae Sot again.

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