It was a nice ride from Lan Sak in Uthai Thani to Mae Sot in Tak. It took me over 4 hours but was only about 250 kilometers or 150 miles. The bad air quality does take away from the views on the ride going through the mountains as well as the big trucks on the main highway going into Mae Sot. The highway was steep in a lot of place and they had the run away truck ramps that reminded me of going through the Rockies in the US. I am not good at stopping and taking any pictures which is something I should work on.
I knew I had to go through one other province but I didn't realize I traveled through 2 new provinces to me but I will return to both of these provinces on this trip so will talk about them in future posts. The province of Tak is a neighbor of the province of the one I live in Kanchanaburi and I was close to Tak when I was in Sangkhla Buri last year. The problem is there are not any roads going into Tak from Kanchanaburi. The distance between Sangkhla Buri and Mae Sot is about 160 kilometers or 100 miles. There are roads via Myanmar but if staying in Thailand it would be close to 700 kilometers of 440 miles to drive between these two towns.
Once I arrived in Mae Sot I found a hotel and then went off to visit Wat Thai Watthanaram (วัดไทยวัฒนาราม). I found this temple very striking gold glittering in the sunshine. Following are a few photos and the short I uploaded while at the temple.
After the temple I went by the market which is very popular with people coming to Mae Sot. It is suppose to have all kinds of goods from the other side of the border in Myanmar as well as from China. I rode around the market and didn't even go in and look around. I don't really have room for anything else on the bike and so just gave the market a pass.
My next stop was at Wat Thai Samakkhi (วัดไทยสามัคคี). It was a nice temple but it did make the same impression that the first temple I visited today did. Following are a few pictures I took while at the temple. Not sure why they were putting up rope or string all around the temple but monks and worker were busy with this process while I was walking around.
The following morning I headed the long way to Wat Phra Borommathat (วัดพระบรมธาตุตาก). There is this often used phrase "it's not the destination it's the journey" and I would say this day that phrase was in fact very true. When I arrived at Wat Phra Borommathat I found it underwhelming but I found the journey to get there was glories.
I headed north out of Mae Sot on route 105 and then turned east on route 1175. 1175 was a twisting road up and down through the jungle and mountains past some national parks. There was often signs of beware of elphants crossing. It was just a really fun ride but I only stopped once and took the following picture.
You can see the haze in the photo from the smoke. I did a screen capture the night before of an app I run on the phone to show what the air quality currently is. It was not so bad in Mae Sot but the capture shows how bad it where I live.
Following are two photos from Wat Phra Borommathat.
From Wat Phra Borommathat I rode down route 1107 which followed the Ping River and went past the city of Tak. I had not found any sites in the city that I wanted to see but it appeared to be an attractive city from the opposite side of the river.
I stopped shortly after passing the city to take a break and uploaded the following short to YouTube of the Ping River.
I ignored Google maps for most of the remaining ride into Kamphaeng Phet and just tried to follow the ping river.
