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There's a scene in Tangled where Rapunzel says it is her birthday. Then her step mother replies, "No, no, no, can't be. I distinctly remember; your birthday was last year."

Wise woman.

So I decided to get away from the world this time around, at least my little corner of it. I also threw in my love of ancient temples.

I got myself on a bus out of Bangkok headed for Nang Rong, a district capital in Burriram province. There I stayed the night, rented a motorcycle, and treated myself to a day full of visiting temples. It involved an 83 kilometer trip (51 miles or so) and numerous pleasant mishaps. Here are some maps.

The red box is the approximate area of the following map.

Here, using Google Maps, I have identified the locations I visited. A is Nang Rong city. B is Phanom Rung temple. C is Muang Tam temple. D is Ta Muan temple.

The three temples were built during the Khmer empire, and they were placed along one of the highways leading to Angkor Wat in present-day Cambodia.

I will write an individual post about each temple... probably. As for now, just some highlights of the journey.

I went first to Phanom Rung, which is probably the biggest Khmer-style temple in Thailand. It is located at the top of an extinct volcano that is rather prominent in the otherwise flat landscape of the area.

I arrived early in the morning, and was the only person in the entire complex, which was GREAT! Except that I had to balance my camera on a rock to get the one and only picture of me I have for the day.

Also, this is where my camera battery started to die. I switched over to my cell phone for most of the rest of the day to save the good camera for only really important pictures.

 I then headed down the mountain on a rather windy little road. Shape curves, indeed.

 Muang Tam was really interesting. This is the post I look forward to writing. And I will... someday.

I then turned my trusty steed (or Honda Dream) toward Surin Province. I needed to get across the provincial border, then turn south to Cambodia to get to the next temple.

Along the way I stopped at an ancient brick kiln. It really wasn't cool, but I took a picture anyways.

As I drew nearer to Ta Muan temple, I ran into signs like this. They were completely in Thai. Also, the road was getting worse and worse. Something told me that not many foreigners visit this temple.

Then I started running into military barriers. I knew that Thailand and Cambodia had been fighting over a border temple in Sisaket, but I hadn't heard about this one.

Eventually I ran into a military checkpoint. The soldiers were happy to let me by with a few warnings. First, they told me I had to return to the same checkpoint after visiting the temple. To ensure this, they took my local ID. Second, they said I couldn't leave the road because there were a number of mines hidden in the forest.

It wasn't long until I started running across signs warning me of the mines.

That made the adventure all the better.

At the very end of the road, I found another military checkpoint, where they took another form of ID and allowed me to walk into the temple (lucky I had more than one form of ID on me). The soldier also warned me not to wander into Cambodia.

I found this temple in pretty poor shape. I guess the Thai Fine Arts Department hasn't had its way with the ruins yet. Probably due to the fact that the temple is occupied by both Thai and Cambodian troops. They seemed to be on very pleasant terms. That'll be in another post.

I ended up chatting with the soldiers for a while before climbing back on my motorbike for the return trip.

As luck would have it, I got started on the bike and had a flat tire. I was in the middle of the forest about 2.5 miles from the closest town. It would have been about the same distance back to the military post outside of the temple. I kept thinking someone would come by, but then I remembered that I was in the middle of a forest on the Cambodian border surrounded by a mine field. No cell phone service. No nice Thai farmers who would give me a lift. Not even a military truck. No help was on its way.


I couldn't even step into the forest for some shade because of concern for stepping on a mine. At least, thanks to the mine field, I knew I probably didn't have to worry about a wild tiger or boar finding me. If they did, they would risk severe dismemberment from stepping on hidden ordnance. Silver linings in every cloud. 

Well, the sun was out, and I hiked the 2.5 miles to the nearest village pushing this stupid motorcycle the whole way.  

I got terribly burned.

I also got very dehydrated. By the time I reached the nearest village, my shirt was soaked with sweat.

As I entered the town, it seemed everyone in town had to come to look at me and have a grand chuckle about the foreigner with a flat tire. It was all good-natured, of course.

After drinking a couple bottles of water, shaking some kid's hands, and getting my tire repaired, I was back on the road for the 83 kilometer (51 mile) bike trip back to Nang Rong.

It was a great birthday adventure.