Left Si Saket and headed southwards on highway 221 and road 2111 towards Khun Han town and the million bottles temple 'Wat Lan Khuat'. I reached my first destination about an hour later. As per the pictures and description that I've seen previously, the whole temple is made up of bottles. There were even Buddha images and wall murals made using the bottle caps. Extremely creative indeed. The monks must have been drinking alot.
I tried my luck at the fortune teller machine that they had at the temple. My divination lot reads that 'my hardship is now over and from now on my life will be pleasant and happy every night and day' If only this was true.
After praying for safety and good fortune, I moved off in southeast direction on road 2127 and 2335 towards 'Khao Phra Wihan national park' and arrived about an hour later. The whole place is heavily guarded by soldiers due to the recent firefight between the Thai and Cambodian armies over the ownership of the 'Preah Vihear temple'. Although there is now a ceasefire and the situation is now peaceful, tensions are still very high.
I went to the counter to purchase my admission ticket for 50B. Initially, the guard said that I could not ride my bike in and had to park at the entrance and catch a ride in. I did as requested and after 'pretending to wait' for 15 minutes, he told be I could ride in as it was getting late and there will not be many visitors at this hour. Success!
I promptly rode my bike in and arrived at my destination 8km later. I was quite surprised to see that the whole place is almost deserted except for many soldiers, army bunkers and bomb shelters. Cool! The national park is now an army base.
I only got as far as the 'Mo I Daeng cliff' which is just 600m from 'Phrea Vihear'. The army guard did not allow me in, even on foot due to safety concerns. I'm so near yet so far. As least I tried. The view from the cliff is sublime. Almost feel like taking a nap at one of the mini pavilion atop the hill. But it is 5pm already so I had to hurry to my rest stop for the day, Ubon Ratchathani, which is about 90km away.
Moved in a northeast direction on highway 221 before turning into road 2085 and 2178. I reach Ubon about 1.5 hours later at 6.45pm It was almost dark already and I need to find accommodation fast.
The first few hotels I saw near the railway station absolutely sucked and look more like whorehouses. (just found out that part of town is known as Warin Chanrap and it's across from the Mun river)
After almost an hour, I finally found a nice place to stay. 'Sri Isan hotel' a nicely refurbished hotel with wifi for 380B. add on 60B for breakfast which I opted for. Promptly booked the room for 2 nights after viewing it. I'm starving as I'm typing this now as I haven't had anything since my breakfast this morning.
Went around town to recce and had a simple dinner of pork trotters at the night market near my hotel. Cost: 50B Went back to hotel after dinner as I'm feeling very tired.
Expenses:
Hotel -440B
Petrol - 400B
F&B - 146B
Entertainment - 70B
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