Nakhon Ratchasima/Khorat

We spent one night in Ubon Ratchathani where the guy at the hotel told us that the only trains headed in the direction of Bangkok were in the evening and at night. I looked on the internet and it appeared that this info was wrong so we went to the train station and there was a day time train. I guess that most people prefer to make the long train ride at night or maybe he did just not tell us about the daytime trains because there was no 1st class or seating with AC.

It was a long train ride to Nakhon Ratchasima/Khorat the city so nice they named it twice. It is not really that nice of a town and I don’t know why it has 2 names but I always refer to it as Khorat because it is easier to say. I like traveling by train because you can get up and walk around and the 8 hour train ride seemed to go pretty fast. I was disappointed that no one was walking up and down the aisle selling ice coffee but there seemed to be most everything else you wanted to eat or drink for sell at some point during the ride. At one point during the trip I had to ignore the lady that wanted me to close my window. In Asia dark skin is seen as being poor so most people do not want to have the sun on them but this is a problem if you want to look out the window. I kept the shade down for a while and tried to set it part of the way down but at some point just decided to leave it up and if she did not like it she could move. We also had a problem with a child kicking the back or our seats at one point but this was quickly resolved by looking at the child and in a low voice saying “Me Hungry! Me Eat Children” in Thai. Being a big ugly foreigner does have advantages, the child never touched our seats again.

We spent 2 nights and one day in Khorat and during the day we walked around the town visiting all the sites listed in the travel book. I enjoyed setting around the monument to Thao Suranari who led an army to defend the area from an invasion from Laos in 1826.

I also enjoyed the Wat Pa-Yap which is a temple that is decorated from the pieces of a cave that was destroyed from the blasting of a quarry. It was the last site we visited in the day and it was a great place to escape the heat and a pretty place to relax after a long day of walking around seeing the city sites. Sorry but I did not take any pictures inside.