It's Sunday and the football drought continues with little action on the domestic scene due to international fixtures. Accordingly, we have nothing planned but that changes when we're aware of the arrival of friends from America. Their arrival in Bangkok creates an opportunity which initially is just a meet up for lunch. However, an idea soon develops to take this opportunity beyond that. We agree to meet for lunch, but it's not in Bangkok. In fact, we could well end up 3 hours away from the city.
Well before about lunch however, we collect the new arrivals from their hotel in the city. From there we head west and an awkward drive through city streets and urban roads. Finally, we reach the infamous Rama II Road, the vital artery to Thailand's South. Here the important upgrades continue with the new Rama II elevated highway. We continue through Samut Sakhon province an into Samut Songkram province where we turn towards the coast. Here we will find our lunch at a restaurant we've previously used. The attraction here is seafood, lots of it! We arrive around 1:00 pm for an exotic meal which takes us well into the afternoon but, today has hardly started it seems. From here we continue south on the scenic route along the coast of Phetchaburi province. This is an area we know quite well and I have a catalogue of attractions available for our visitors who don't. Stops along this route are inevitable.
Wat Nok Pak Ta Le is our first stop where we first visited in 2018. This temple is noted for its wooden halls but by far the most iconic feature here is the temple building designed as a galleon, so appropriate as it faces out to sea. Our visitors seem impressed, but we must press on and locate another attraction we visited on that trip.
The Art of Salt, as the name suggests, are models created from the salt production nearby. It seems that the models have a relatively short life as there have been some changes at the site since 2018. A new sculpture has appeared representing a mother figure embracing the sea. Again our visitors seem impressed using the visit for a photo opportunity. While there is plenty more to see, we need to continue with the plan as we move later into the afternoon.
While we need to reach our final destination as soon as possible, I've identified two more attractions, one of particular interest to me. These attractions have never been visited by us in the past which is totally surprising given that Phetchaburi is one of the provinces I know best. The slight detour should not compromise us too much.
When we reach the Khok Setthi Historical Site, it's more than I expect. My trained eye by now immediately recognises it as a Dvaravati monument. This culture lasted from the 6th to 11th Century. The monument is almost identical but smaller than the one at Khu Bua we visited recently.
Khok Setthi Is an ancient site featuring a large square based pagoda approximately 25 / 25 m, built with a brick framework, filled with earth and coated in plaster. The pagoda has a staircase on its eastern and western sides and a circumambulatory Platform with decorative recesses at the centre and corners. Richly, adorned with stucco sculptures of humans, animals and intricate patterns, the pagoda likely served as a Buddhist monument in the Dvaravati period functioning as a hub for religious ceremonies. Although its upper section has collapsed, the remaining structure stands about the 5 m tall. During the Dvararvati era, this area was a populous community strategically located with the sea to the east and mountains to the west, including the prominent Chao Lai Mountain. It likely operated as a vital port city for maritime trade between China, India and Persia.
While this ancient monument is of particular interest to me, my visitors are not quite so impressed and are more interested in reaching the second attraction in the area, just a couple of minutes away.
The majority of travelers to Ch-am use the Petchkasem Highway and start to see the mountains of the Bilauktaung Range in the distance to the west. However, there are a number of isolated limestone mountains between the highway and the coast. One such mountain close to Cha-am is known as Khao Nang and at the base of this mountain to the seaward side is Khao Nang Phanthurat Forest Park. This park has a number of interesting features. There is a bat cave here, but I'm not surprised that it's closed. I learned earlier that this bat breeding season and that creates extra risk of disease for those entering the cave. However, in this lovely little park, there is a short nature trail climbing up to a viewpoint. The trail takes in three features as well as providing a glorious photo opportunity. The features are: The Nang Phanthurat Shrine, The Nang Phanthurat Crematorium and the Phanthurat Mirror which is an interesting geological feature. It turns out that our guests are more interested in this attraction than a pile of bricks and seem quite happy clambering over limestone rocks. It's now around 5:00 pm and we are still not at our furthest point, but Cha-am is not far away. Here instead of the peaceful surroundings of the park we now head into traffic chaos as there's a festival in town which ends today and the reason we planned this mini tour in the first place. The question is have we left it too late, but we find a place to squeeze in and park the car. Many times I have been to Cha-am beach, but this is crazy.
The festival feature this week is the international kite festival with teams from around the globe competing for supremacy. We head for this magnificent beach and the crowd is enormous. Young children and adults play with kites which either they have brought with them or purchased on site. We start to inquire what the festival is all about and for the crowd there is some bad news. It looks as if there is just not enough wind to start the competition. We are told that competitors fly their kites behind ATVs but since there are crowds still on the beach it seems as if the entertainment for tonight will be restricted to a concert performed on the temporary stage. It's now 6:00 pm and the concert has started but our final exertion for today is to wander around the food stores set up on the beach of which there are many catering for this huge crowd. It's now a question of returning to Bangkok and drop off our guests.
The journey to Bangkok is two and a half hours at best, but there are substantial roadworks to contend with on the Rama II Road and that pushes our arrival time beyond 10:00 pm meaning it will be another half hour after that before we reach the residence. So, quite an interesting day ends after at least 10 hours. I don't think I'll be doing too much tomorrow.

Source: Visit