We left the hotel after an early (for us anyway!) breakfast to begin the final 97km ride to our ultimate destination; the viewpoint on the Myanmar border on top of a mountain and a few hundred metres beyond the village of Pilok.
The ride, at first was leisurely along the 323 which was still following the course of the River Kwae and the road was smooth and quiet. After a quick 30km, the road splits with the 323 continuing it's journey North whilst we headed onto the 3272 and what we were hoping would be a beautiful ride by the huge reservoir and up into the jungle and mountains. We passed by the small, final town of Thong Pha Phum and the slightly sad realisation that this was also the location of my final 7/11 on the route and pushed on to our first stop of the day which was the rather impressive Vajiralongkorn Hydro-Electric Power station with its very imposing dam.
There was a reason for stopping by this immense 388km squared reservoir. somewhere in these flooded valleys is the source of the River Kwae. I was also hoping to see some monkeys.....
Now as you can see from this picture, the road runs right up the side of the dam which worryingly appears to be nothing more than a pile of rocks!! Upon reading up, its seems the rocks are just there to back up a face of concrete but it did look rather 'Heath Robinson' although rather aesthetically pleasing!
The view back to where we'd come from
As you can see from this picture, I got to see a monkey. Just one scrawny little thing appearing to be taking a piss high up on a rockface! I also learned a lot about monkey behaviour from this rather dramatic warning sign that had kindly been provided by the now-defunct Dusit Zoo.
Did you know that monkeys don't like women or children?
The monkeys may be mad, but not as mad as me, I'd only got to see one of the miserable little gits!
Monkey maybe carrier of contagious serious diseases.
Unlike humans of course......
.....and so we turned around and headed back to the road, crossing a bridge that took us over the very beginning of the River Kwae.
It was still only mid-morning and we passed a rather nice looking coffee shop on the banks of the reservoir just before the start of the twisty, jungly bit so with the absence of any future 7/11s and with a close eye on the leaden skies that were promising to top-up the water levels, we decided to stop for a coffee and hopefully a croissant or even some cake.....
Now from this picture, remember the view up to the mountains in the far horizon. That's where we were going. And the cake and croissants? No. The only food they had was rather strangely cheesy dough balls and fried chicken nugget things and even more bizarrely, they were served with some colourful sweet, err....no idea what it was actually, but I learned that cheesy dough balls should be served with ketchup, whilst chickeny nuggety things should be served with chilli sauce. The coffee and blueberry icey thing were nice though!
So with our bellies full of cheesy dough balls and chicken nugget things, and the warnings of the coffee shop owner not to get caught on the mountain road in the rain, we headed forth once more and we finally started getting some views......
Now the mountainy part is about 32km. The road twists and turns uphill almost all the way with absolutely sheer drops at one side of the road and clings to the hillsides. The surface has a few km of decent tarmac but the majority is pockmarked concrete and rough track, riddled with min canyons created by rivulets of rainwater. In many places, there was soil and debris that had fallen down onto the road and in other places, simply no road, or some bits of rebar and orange tape which was somehow supposed to stop you falling to your deaths. 'Bat out of Hell' seemed to be playing on a loop in my head!
I didn't take too many pictures as I was driving and keeping an eye on the clouds which we were getting ever closer to. It was slow going as I navigated around the potholes whilst keeping another eye open for some alleged wild elephants that lived in these parts.
Finally, however, we popped up in the very odd village of Pilok which lies on the border with Myanmar. It was nothing more than a few small homestays and a couple for stalls all sited around a little man-made lake. A bit hippy and backpackers for my liking but it was still sad to see the empty rooms as very few Thais make this journey and the backpackers that would normally come are all still barred from entering Thailand.
A quick drink and the final few hundred metres up to the viewpoint which sits on a peak along a track to a small military establishment right on the border. We drove up to the barrier which was down and a couple of soldiers came out of their shed.
Sorry. Can't come in today.
Arguing seemed futile. You don't mess around with soldiers on sensitive borders and so that was it. We turned around and set off for home.....
We meandered our way the 350km back to Bangkok, stopping overnight on the way and vowing to return. The rains held off, there were no 'sirens screaming and fires howling down in the valley tonight', we didn't get any punctures and even sadder, I never got to see any wild elephants. Not even any slightly pissed off ones and then all of a sudden, we were back in the Bangkok traffic.....
Sorry. I just want to ask. Why do you give negative votes on my posts. Is there a mistake I made ?? Please give me a little explanation.
I just felt the post was over rewarded that's all.
It's over how it means? Please explain.
Hello hivepartner. I am a civil engineer, I really liked your post. You know, earthen dams are usually rocked out to protect them from erosion. If that dam you visited is not made of earth but concrete, then it occurs to me that it is because of supporting the road. Regards!
Thank you for your professional perspective!
For me, joking aside, it simply looked nice. I liked the uniformity. Now I know who to ask for advice on such matters. :-)
Thanks for dropping by.
jajaja Thanks to you. I like to learn from others and watch contructions, travels, etc, to know how is it in other countries. Sorry my english
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