16-02-2020 – Visit to Wat Pa Phu Kon
Today we wanted to revisit some of the sites that we visited 27 Jan 2019. https://www.4wdaus.com/steve-alison-head-east-2/.
So the first stop was the historical park of Sala Keoku. Although this is a dual pricing attraction, 40 baht is not unreasonable. There are huge statues here and their quantities and variation are very impressive (some of the structures reach 25 metres tall!!). From here we headed south west to Wat Pa Phu Kon. We took a ride in the back of one of the utes to the top, about 1.5kms. A feature of this temple is a large reclining Buddha made from Italian marble. Forty blocks of marble were used, each weighing 15 to 30 tons. We will not mention how we learnt that the mens coverup loan pants here are not very big, but we did manage to laugh about it!
From here we headed back to Nong Khai and caught the sunset on the Mekong River for the second night in a row. Dinner was eaten at DD Restaurant, a favourite restaurant of ours from our last years visit.
17-02-2020 – Explore South West of Nong Khai
We enjoyed staying at the Baulinn Resort so much we decided to stay a 3rd night and use the day to explore south west of Nong Khai.
The first temple we chose to visit today was Phuttha Utthayan Wat Pa Dong Rai. A beautiful temple in the shape of a very large lotus lilly in the middle of a lake. The surprise here was the resident crocodile living not far from the lake. We also met one of the tourist police, we always seem to end up posing in one of their happy snaps, this time we made sure we got our happy snap of him as well.
Our next stop for the day was Wat Pa Nong Phue – the centre piece being a large reclining buddha. From here we visited Wat Pa Ban Kho before returning to Nong Khai for dinner. Whilst looking for a place to eat we came across 2 retired Thai Airline planes in the middle of one of the eateries – so random!
