Pilok (ปิล็อก) About Time

I have some places I should have visited a long time ago but I just never get around to doing it. Pilok (ปิล็อก) is one of those places. I decided I need to get out and hit the road and enjoy a bit of the cooler weather that is so unusual in Thailand.

I hopped on the bike and headed in the direction of Thong Pha Phum (ท่าขนุน) where I planned to spend the night before visiting Pilok. On my way I first made a stop at Wat Phutakhian (วัดพุตะเคียน) and snapped a couple of pictures and then moved on up the road.

My next destination was the Thai-Burma Railway Memorial but I had a bit of a problem finding it. I followed google maps and found myself at a hotel or resort looking out over the River Khwae Noi. A really pretty setting and nice looking resort.

After wondering around the resort for awhile I decide I was not going to find the memorial so hopped on the bike and as I was riding out of the resort I saw a sign for the memorial. I think the memorial could use a lot of maintenance with a lot of the exhibits in very bad shape but I got a couple of pictures of the train that had grabbed my interest in visiting this site.

After leaving the memorial I rode past the entrance to Hellfire Pass. I am ashamed that after living in Kanchanaburi for over 2 years I have not visited this site but I was not ashamed enough to make me stop and visit it on this trip. I will visit it at some point but for now it will remain on my to do list of places to visit.

I continued on to Thong Pha Phum (ท่าขนุน) and found the hotel I planned to stay in for 2 nights. It being a Wednesday I didn't think there would be any problems getting a room for 2 nights and they did have a room for Wednesday but were fully booked for Thursday. This hotel was full of people on bicycles, there appeared to be about 2 bikes for every room in the hotel. I assumed I would be seeing a lot of riders the following day on the rode to Pilok but did not see a one.

Pilok (ปิล็อก) is a town in the mountains at the border of Myanmar and is surrounded by Thong Pha Phum National Park. I think of Pilok as a tourist town but think it is also one of those places that fits the saying "It is not the destination but the journey that matters". I think most people that visit Pilok do it more for the 67 kilometer drive from Thong Pha Phum with it's 399 curves than for the town of Pilok itself.

I have considered riding from home to Pilok in one day and staying there but decided not to do this. I have heard it can be hard to get a room in Pilok and the town does not have power all the time. I have also looked online and the prices of rooms are about double what I pay in most of Thailand. I decided it would be better to just visit Pilok as a day trip from a cheaper hotel with power all the time.

I rode route 3272 with all it's curves stopping at a couple of viewpoints on the way.

Once in the Pilok area I rode up to the Nern Chang Suek Viewpoint (เนินช้างศึก) with the border of Myanmar above the parking area. The views and the pictures were not that great because of the haze which I believe is due to the start of the burning season in Southeast Asia.

My bike in the parking area at the viewpoint.

Following is my picture of the hotel area in Pilok.

After the return trip through the 399 curves I filled the tank and made a left heading north going to Sangklaburi (สังขละบุรี). I have been to Sangklaburi about 2 years ago and have seen most of the tourist attractions. I thought I would check into a hotel drop my bags and head to Three Pagodas Pass to buy some cheap booze but all the curves through the mountains had worn me out. I found a local market got something to eat and called it a night.

I didn't really have any plans of things to do or see in the Sangklaburi area but thought I could find something to do so asked if I could stay an addational night at the hotel in the morning. Unfortunately the hotel was fully booked for Friday so I would have to move to a differnt hotel if I was going to stay in the area. Since I didn't have anything specific to see or do I just rode over to spot where I could see the Mon Bridge and snapped a picture and headed home.

I rode back down route 323 that I had rode up the day before between Sangklaburi and Thong Pha Phum. This is a pretty ride and I think I enjoyed this road more than the road up and back to Pilok. It is a lot of curves but not as sharp and it ride this road a higher speed so was a fun ride.

Route 323 goes all the way to my home town but when I got to Thong Pha Phum I stopped for a cup of coffee and decided I wanted to get off the highway and try a different route. I found route 3089 on the west side of the river where 323 was on the east side. I decided to give this a try and google maps kept wanting me to take 323. I ended up adding stops to my route every 20 kilometers or so to stay on route 3089.

I enjoyed riding on route 3089. Not much traffic and a few pretty views from the road. I did have to make a lot of stops to remove stops and added a few in as well. I crossed over the river at Mae Nam Noi Bridge and it had a really pretty view down at the water. I really should have stopped and taken a picture from the bridge but didn't. I also didn't know that I had saved this bridge in my google maps until later when I was retracing my route.

I took a couple of more detours on the route to get home and arrived home about 7 hours after leaving my hotel in Sangklaburi. It was a good day on the bike but taking the long way home about doubled the time that google maps said it should take me to get home.

My 2025 and 2026 resolutions

Looking back on 2025 as it came to a close. I think 2025 was a good year for me even if I failed on a number of resolutions.

You can read through the 50 posts I have made throughout 2025 on this blog or view my 2025 YouTube Video Playlist that is most of the videos I have published in 2025 to know what I did over the year.

It was not all good I had a case of the shingles which put me out of action for about a month and was not something I enjoyed or want to repeat but I recovered and am back to enjoying life.

I have done a yearly resolution on the number of books to read in a year starting the year after I retired. In 2025 I added a number of other resolutions for the first time. I did this really just to try and keep me busy doing some new things and not so set in my normal day to day life.

I started to take some Thai classed at the end of 2024 so set the goal of taking at least 40 lessons in 2025. This resolution I failed. I took 15 classes and then decided I needed a break and would start again after Songkran but never ended up starting again. I am not sure what I will do with this resolution for 2026 but need to get back to sometype of daily study.

I kept the book reading resolution but reduced it from 50 books a year to 40 in 2025 and finished 43 within the year. I am keeping this resolution at 40 books for 2026.

I made the resolution to visit 10 provinces in Thailand that I had not seen in the past. I had passed through a number of this in the past but had not spent any time in them looking around. I visited the following to complete this resolution and posted about my travels throughout the year.

1 Uthai Thani

2 Tak

3 Kamphaeng Phet

4 Phichit

5 Nakhon Sawan

6 Chai Nat

7 Nan

8 Uttaradit

9 Lamphang

10 Phayao

My 2026 resolution will be to visit the remaining provinces so I can say I have seen all 77 provinces that make up Thailand. I will post about these new provinces if and when I travel to them within 2026. All these new provinces in 2026 are in the south of the country so will require a long motorbike ride.

I decided I wanted to move from near the center of the city of Kanchanaburi closer to what I call the tourist street. I made moving a 2025 resolutions. I talked a little bit about the move in the post All Good in Kanchanaburi back in March.

I am very happy with were I am currently living so have no plans to move in 2026.

I made visiting the Rocket Festivals a resolution and posted a number of blogs on my time there this year. I will keep this resolution for 2026 but have made the resolution to visit two specific locations that I have not seen the Rockets at before. I think I will also visit a number of the rocket festivals I visited last year as well in 2026.

I had the 2025 resolution to go to one of two different festivals I had not attended. I visited the Ghost Festival and have added the other festival as a 2026 resolution.

I made a 2025 resolution to visit a country I had never been to before. I failed this resolution never leaving Thailand in 2025. I have made this also for 2026 but think it may also be a fail, as it is a low priority for me. I look at going to a new country and it sounds like fun but I am happy zipping around Thailand. My last new country was Nicaragua back in 2018. I traveled around the US with a car and have had a motorcycle for most of my time in Thailand. If I visit a new country it will mean using public transport again and that is just not as appealing as it once was.

I seem to get in rut of always going to the same places for meals or coffee. I find a few places I like and just go to those same places all the time. In 2025 I made the resolution to try 2 new places a month to help get me out of this rut. Sounds like something really simple to do but I think I sort of cheated to mark this as completed. I had one month where I visited 2 bars I had not been in before and counted those as my new places for the month. The month I was sick with the shingles I only visited one new place and made up for it the following month with 3 new places.

I am not sure the new places resolution has really accomplished what I wanted it to do. I have tried a lot of new places so that is good and a few of these have become my normal go to places but I think I have dropped some of old normal go to places. I will just have to keep trying to add new places in 2026 but will not say it is a resolution.

I have not made any major changes from my 2025 list to my 2026 list of resolutions. I did add the Plow Field Good Buffalo event to the list just as a reminder to keep looking for when it is happening. I was traveling in the North of the country when it took place in 2025 and would like to attend it in 2026. This event is a bit hard to find out details so adding it to my list will make me check for event details as I update my resolution list monthly.

Thanks to all of you that follow me on my boring blog and watch my crappy videos on Youtube. I hope you find happiness and health in 2026.

Old Farts Hospital and School Visit

I am a member of a group in Kanchanaburi called the Old Farts. The group tries to do some good for the areas children. Once a year the group goes out to the local public hospital to give away some toys to the children and then goes to a local school and buys all the kids a bit of ice cream.

Follow is the clips I took from this years visit.

Stainless Steel Boat Race in Suphanburi

I enjoyed the Long Tail Boat Races at Wat Mai Songkrorat (วัดใหม่สงเคราะห์ราษฎร์) a few months ago. I tried to find another race and it seemed to have been canceled or I just misunderstood where and when it was taking place but when I saw the following event I decided to give it a try.

Not sure if it is in the above picture but the text on the facebook post had that this event was the Stainless Steel Boat Race (แข่งเรือสแตนเลส) at Ban Phai Kon Din, Suphanburi (บ้านไผ่กอนดิน สุพรรณบุรี) taking place on the 14th of December. It also said it was the last racing event of 2025.

I found a Ban Phai Kon Din in the province of Suphanburi and rode up to the city of Suphanburi on the 13th and booked a hotel for 2 nights. The following morning I rode out to the pin on my map that was Ban Phai Kon Din. I did not see anything that looked like boat racing at the spot of my pin. I rode around a bit and did not seem to find anything that look like a crowd of people to watch a race so I stop and decide I would try to ask about it. I had the above picture on my phone and walked up to a food stand and said in my best Thai "Hello, Do you know where this is" and pointed at the picture.

I am used to the faces of fear on peoples faces when they see this big ugly foreigner approach but the faces changed as soon as the Thai hello came out of my mouth and smiles appeared on their faces. One lady took my phone and seemed to know where I wanted to go. I did not understand much of the conversation that took place between these 3 ladies but I understood it was somewhere close to a temple but never did understand the name of the temple and then one lady said something that I understood as I go you follow me even though I do not know the word for follow.

She hopped on a motorbike and lead me a few kilometer away to a place I could see the crowd and somewhere I never would have found without the help. She stopped and pointed to the crowd and I think said there. I said thank you very much and asked if I could give her a little money and she accepted the 100 baht (about $3) from me.

I found a place to park and got out my chair and umbrella and sat down and waited for the races to start. While waiting a couple of people came along that seemed to be taking a video and sort of interviewed me. Following is the picture that was posted on facebook later of the interview.

This is the guy that I follow on facebook at DJKai Livestream that provides the info on the races. We talked with a little bit of English and a little bit of Thai and a lot of me saying I don't understand. If you want to watch me make a fool of myself it is in the following facebook video at about 26:50.



It did not seem to be a good day for racing with a lot of wind and I think they delayed the racing in hopes that the wind would die down but it never really did. They did do some racing but think there would have been a lot more if the weather was better but still an interesting day.

Following is the short I uploaded while sitting at the races and drinking a beer.



Following is the video I uploaded after returning home.