Creatures of Thailand (part 2)

Before this trip, we hadn't known about Nakhon Ratchasima (aka Korat) province. It's only when we were there that we realised they're going to hold the 24th SEA games at this town in Dec 2007.

Interestingly, the Games' mascot happens to be a cat!




Souvenirs of the SEA Games mascot were on sale in the main town, but we didn't buy any




A dog with the interesting brindle pattern, found near the shops opposite the Memorial




On the way to the pottery village of Dan Kwian, we met 2 lovely ginger cats which I'd forgotten to mention in Part 1. They were found at the small eatery near the small bus terminal with the infrequent bus service (we should have gone to the main terminal 2 instead!).

While waiting for almost an hour for the bus to leave for Dan Kwian, we entertained ourselves with this extremely friendly ginger kitty.




Seeing how the SO and I were fighting to carry the kitty, the friendly woman at the eatery took out her other ginger cat for us to play with! Heehee!



The ginger kitties' pet dog



Then we arrived at Dan Kwian.

Road scene at Dan Kwian; the Thais adore their royalty




The pottery kitty at a Dan Kwian shop



After Dan Kwian, we took a bus going in the reverse direction back to Korat main town.

Something about these guys in uniforms just made me take notice of them - can you guess what's different about them?



(Answer: I find it strange that their shirts are somehow super duper tight! :p )

Photos of their much-respected Thai King and Queen can be seen everywhere



The next day, we packed our backpacks and left for Phimai which is about 2 hours away by bus. Phimai is a town still within the Korat province.

Welcome to Phimai !



A small town, Phimai is known for its two main attractions:

#1 The ruins of an old Khmer temple (a la the style of Cambodia's Angkor Wat)


#2 Sai Ngam, the hundreds-of-years' old banyan tree forest that sprouted from one single tree



Free-roaming dogs playing at the entrance of the Khmer temple



Squirrel living in the banyan tree forest




Cute little girls playing with their 2 very adorable puppies at stalls outside the banyan tree park; these stalls sell live animals (fishes, birds, tortoises, etc.) which people can buy to 放生 at the park。




After visiting the banyan tree park, we had to walk the long way back, and along the way, we saw these strange-looking cattle (the male ones are really tall and huge)



The weather was hot, and we had walked at least 3km to see the banyan tree, and the thought of having to walk another 2.5 - 3km back to town wasn't appealing to me. I was thinking "how nice it would be if a vehicle would stop to give us a ride back to town", when suddenly, a shiny, black & sporty Mitsubishi truck stopped on the opposite side of the road. The driver (who looked a little like my previous pottery class teacher) winded(sp?) down his window and said something in Thai which we didn't understand, but mai peng-rai lah, I just assumed he'd offered to give us a ride, and immediately and happily climbed onto his truck...no need to think liao loh!

Ha ha ha! My thought came true, so the SO asked me to think about the winning 4D numbers for next week's lottery. :PP

A river dam near the banyan tree park



Phimai is a quiet, small town sort of place which is nicer than Korat for relaxing or renting a bike to ride around. The downside was that nice Thai restaurants seemed to be few and far between...or perhaps there was only one!? It took us quite a bit of effort and of walking in the dark before we managed to find the Bai-Teiy Thai restaurant that's listed in the guide book...all thanks to the two local teenage boys. The restaurant had moved further away from the main town and had gone more upmarket.

Now the really neat thing was that we finally found our Korat cat here...right outside the restaurant! If we hadn't looked closely in the semi-darkness, we might have missed the sweetie altogether.



The sweetie Korat or korat-mixed cat seemed to have been recently spayed, and she was purring in my arms



Sorry for the blurry pictures, KSN, as the lighting was no good (and we don't like to use the camera flash on animals).

:)