ipondonline: Am phur Suanpheung + Am phur Bo Nam Pu Ron (Thai-Burma border)

A day trip to Am phur Suanpheung + Am phur Bo Nam Pu Ron (Thai-Burma border)

Travel date: 8 June 2014

Location: Western Thailand

Bangkok has a lot to offer. Though for a person who was born and has been living in Bangkok, I am kind of fed up with the life in this big city. According to Wikipedia, Wanderlust is a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world. In this case, wanderlust includes even just a day trip outside Bangkok. Purposes? to breath fresh air, exercise your legs in natural treadmills and swimming in natural ponds.

Big thanks to my travel buddy, Nhong for this spontaneous escape. We leave the big smoke by 8:30 am so that we could get to Suanpheung before midday for lunch. Suanpheung is an amphur, in English means district. It is a part of Ratchaburi province, a few hours from Bangkok. A few websites such as chillpainai and paiduaykan suggest a day trip to Suanpheung with some places to visit. I and Nhong decided to do that itinerary. A day trip Sunpheung by Chillpainai

The first place we wanted to go was La Toscana resort. The resort was built to resemble a town in Italy. Unfortunately, we got lost along the way and didn’t make it to that. We also wanted to visit Alcapa hills farm. We skipped that bit and drove further towards Thai-Burma border. Deep down, we wanted to cross the border expected to see a fresh market with cheap avocardo grown in Burma. Funny enough, there was no market and yeah we didn’t get to cross the border.

We had lunch at a local restaurant near the border and spoke to a Thai lady who works for a cultural exchange program center about crossing the border. The border is opening its door to tourists to travel to Burma by land. However, we would need a car with a Burmese license plate to get through. For Thai nationals, we can apply for a border pass, which allows us to stay in Burma for a tourism purpose maximum of 7 days. The lady showed us pictures of her trip to Burma via land. She described the country and the way of living as 30 years behind Thailand. It basically means the country is just opening up and everything feels like Thailand 30 years ago. We agreed to exchange numbers and she said she would give us a call when she goes over the border again + we can go along with her. This will be a good opportunity for us to do so. Fingers crossed for that.

A long trip didn’t disappoint us though; we made our way through a farm and found perfect scenery. Another place we stopped by was a temple up in the hills. It is called Watthum pu wha.“วัดถ้ำพุหว้า”A link to Watthum Pu Wha. The temple is set in a limestone cave. It must have recently been renovated because it was so clean and well-maintained. It is the place for medication. Further up the hills, There is another Chinese temple being builted. We decided to have a look & what we found was really disappointing. There was a warehouse full of large logs. Later discovered, the logs are there to be engraved with Chinese gods’ images. The temple is surely built for a commercial purpose. I don’t suggest anyone to go there. The name isn’t mentioned here. From the location, it should be easy to locate where it is.

We started driving back about 6 pm towards Nakornpathom for dinner. Nhong used to go to Nakornpathom quite often so she knows her way around. We ended up having dinner at a food street near a main temple. The food was fantastic. The street has variety of food, made-to-order meals, suki yaki, smoothies, desert and so..on. You can find pretty much all types of dinner here with local price. The trip was a success. Sometimes I realized it is not about the destination but it is more about the companion as well as the drive. As goes the saying; “ there is a beauty in everything.”

Pictures below;