We had obviously needed a day to simply crash so we extended our stay in Thap Sakae for another night to see at least a bit of the surrounding attractions. After a yummy breakfast (Flo had bought me Nutella and Thomas bakes his own bread!), we slowly got into our motorcycle gear. Despite it being 10.30am, you could feel that it would be a scorcher of a day.

Iconic, isn’t it?

The Ban Krut temple is only about 25km away but the ride was long enough to get quite hot. The first thing to notice on the temple hill is a giant buddha statue. It looks out over the land in the calm fashion of all buddhas. Around it, there are smaller statues to which you can apply leaf gold and thus do your bit for the temple (and for improving you standing regarding this life and the next). This practise results in a very patchy look of the statues though.

Walking up the hill, we first passed two big warriors or guardians, one of each side of the road. A big, well frequented staircase, then, leads up to the top of the hill with the temple on it.

Dragon stairway

As always, removing your shoes is expected but apart from this fact, Flo and I are lacking the knowledge of rules for proper behaviour in a Thai temple. For example, I wasn’t sure if it’s okay to take photos at all. Though I asked a staff member, I was sure I wasn’t understood when I got a “yes” answer…so really I wasn’t any wiser afterwards. So I quietly took some picture, not disturbing any people who were there for prayer and not zooming in on the devotional statues too much.

Soon, we were too hot again and went back our “flat” with just a short lunch stop on the road. The pool beckoned so we jumped in to cool down before using the afternoon for some administration and reading up on the next countries. Apparently, landmines are still an issue in Cambodia so no going off the roads at all…

Sweet concoction – but yummy.

Dui and Thomas invited us to a home-cooked dinner. Dui makes this vegetable dish out of Thai zucchini with some scrambled eggs with a sauce and it is so y.u.m.m.y! NOM! In capital letters! Then, we actually drove into town again to have the rich tea one last time. Unfortunately, we didn’t take a single picture of Thomas and Dui… 🙁