ipondonline: Thong Pa Phum / Pi lok Village / Sangklaburi

A weekend escape to Am Phur Thong Pa Phum / Pi lok Village / Am Phur Sangklaburi (Thai-Burmese border)

Travel date: 14- 15 June 2014

Location: Western Thailand, Kanchanaburi

Day 1: Am Phur Thong Pa Phum

Am Phur Thong Pa Phum is a part of Kanchanaburi province. The province has its fame for mountains, hills, a long history of the death railway. As mentioned, this province is located close to Thai-Burmese border. I and Nhong started our journey at 4 am from Bangkok. It took us roughly 4 hours to Thong Pa Phum. We stopped by at the main market in Thong Pa Phum for brunch. The market has two sides; one is a very peaceful river and another side is a main road that goes towards Pi lok village and Vajiralonkorn dam. We made our way to the river for some photo opportunity. The river sits within mountains. The scenery is beyond perfect. Nobody was there except us two. Colour of the water was green. There is a small beach, a deposit of soil from upstream. The river bed is laid with mainly brown medium-sized rocks. It is just perfect for a walk. The stream isn't too strong to walk through. We basically forgot that we were hungry then because of the view.

Brunch was Ka nom jean. It is fundamentally curry with rice noodles. I had my good-old green curry and Burmese treat. We call it Kanom Tang Take (ขนมถังแตก). I am not sure how it is made or what is made of. Surely it was delicious. We have a similar type of treat in Bangkok but it is slightly different. The one we had is more Burmese style. The market offers a lot of goods such as fresh vegetables, fresh fish, wild honey as well as fruits. We bought a big fish and released it into the river as a part of merit making.

After brunch, we made our way to the resort. Surprisingly, I don't recall the name. Well, the resort sits beside Vajiralongkorn dam. We had a perfect view of green grassland along the dam. Not long after checking in, we went straight to a village called Pi Lok. It is an old mining village up in the mountains. This place is my favourite. In fact, the whole trip was again my favourites. I suppose I have a lot of favourites LoL. The village is fairly small but it has the best spot up in the mountain called ด่านช้างศึก. Up there, you are on the same level on the clouds. You can see the clouds moving and revolving around you. It was so foggy and just majestic. There is a word to describe but I am not the best in doing so. Pictures could describe it by themselves.We spent hours on the mountain, walking around, taking pictures, jumping around, being extremely and annoying happy. The road up to this village is actually a nightmare. With our city car, it took us a lot longer than it should be to get there. It was worth the trip though.

We got back to the resort around 7 pm. Went to the main market in Thong Pa phum for dinner then straight back to bed, rainy night.

Day 2: Am Phur Sangklaburi

This district is also located in Kanchanaburi province. A drive from the resort is a lot different than the drive to Pilok Village. The road is more smooth but it is still steep. Towards the destination, there is a junction where we could take to the Mong-Khmer village or to 3 pagodas. We went to the 3 pagodos, which eventually took us to the Thai-Burmese border. With no hesitation, we had our papers submitted; this includes the car license papers and the ID cad. We crossed the border to Burma. We first went to a market to window shop and then temples to make merits. We spent a few hours in Burma, had cup of jasmine tea before heading back to Thailand. We made a few stops along the way down to Thong Pa Thum to stretch. A friend of mine recommended a place called Bamboo hut for dinner. It is a restaurant by waterfalls. It was really really really nice. After dinner, we reached home by 11 pm. Just perfect timing to sleep and go back to work on the next day.

Pictures below;