Day 37 - Buriram to Surin

Left Buriram at 12.30pm and moved eastwards on highway 226. After an hour of riding, I arrived in the town of Surin. The city of many elephants and my destination for the day.

Looks like I'm just in time for the annual elephant festival which will be held annually on the 3rd weekend of November. This year's event will be on 17-18 November and my timing is perfect. Very excited already.

Stopped for lunch first at 'Sydney's steakhouse' for nice pork ribs. Cost: 205B.

Today, I faced problems securing accommodation again. This time it's due to the festival and the large amount of visitors flooding the town and many of the hotels were fully booked. I even contemplated skipping Surin and going straight into Cambodia which is about 50km away. But I definitely do not want to miss the elephant festival.

Finally, after about an hour, I found an
acceptable hotel to stay for tonight. 'Hotel Petchkasem grand' for 650B a night with breakfast. It's abit old but still acceptable to me. I'm very fussy about this.

Today I had a real busy and exciting day. Firstly I sent to the carnival where there were countless stores selling snacks, drinks and all sorts of titbits, as well as the usual carnival game stores. The highlight of my visit there was a visit to the booth operated by Thai army commandos. They had set up a mobile range for people to shooting with live arms. What I like is that the cost is very low. It's only 100B for 6 x 0.45mm bullets, compared to about 1000B at the commercial range set ups I've tried elsewhere in Thailand.

Next I went to the street carnival 'The annual Surin elephant round up'. Visitors from all over Thailand and other parts of the world visit Surin specially for this event. There were many floats that were created with fruits and vegetables. Along with each float, there were dancers who were dancing to music. It's all very interesting to me and I had a really good time here. Dinner was street snacks that that various hawkers were selling. Cost: 75B

Lastly, I went to the local night market. Nothing really interesting here so I left after about 30 minutes without buying anything. No beer tonight as I'm very tired.


Expenses:

Hotel - 650B
Petrol - 200B
F&B - 335B
Entertainment - 100B