PATTAYA TO UDON THANI BY SCOOTER
 DAY 2 - PAKCHONG TO CHAIYAPHUM

Day 2 on the scooters saw us only do a fairly short ride of around 5-6 hours to Chaiyaphum, in hindsight we should have probably gone further, but this was one of the only bigger towns along our route. 

Again there was fantastic, yet ever changing scenery, it is really amazing the number of quirky and unique little places you find in the villages and back-roads around Thailand.  Somewhere along the way we stopped for iced coffee’s at a funky place by the roadside, it even had a driving range!

Steak & Coffee somewhere between Pakchong and Chaiyaphum



 

From there we could see a huge gold Buddha a couple of hills away, so found our way there on the bikes for a look.  It was well worth the stop, though I can’t find the name of this one.

As we got closer to Chaiyaphum it was getting time for some food and by pure luck we stopped for a BBQ chicken on the side of the road, I’m fairly certain we were the only farangs to ever stop there.  The chicken was nice, fairly standard really, but it was served with the most amazing home-made Tamarind sauce we had ever tried. 

The sauce was so top secret that the guy wouldn’t even sell us any to take away, for fear we would reverse engineer it and steal his recipe.  It was so delicious that we stopped in on the way home a week later, but he laughed when he saw us back again as he had just sold out of chickens!  Bugger!

BBQ chicken, som tam and sticky rice

We arrived at Chaiyaphum mid afternoon and explored the town for a while checking out the markets and looking for accommodation.  We eventually found a good place for a staggering 270 baht (around $10), the Sirichai Hotel, which I have just learned now is actually listed on the Travelfish website.

270 baht gets you a very no-frills fan room, though it was huge and served it's purpose for the night, plus it had hot water. There was no wifi up at our level, but they have a good connection down in the 'beer garden' / cafe area out front of the hotel, a great spot to have a cold beer and watch the street.

The hotel was ‘interesting’ to say the least, we were possibly the only guests, as the owner and staff were overly super friendly and helpful, to the point that it was getting a little awkward, they were so intent on taking special care of us!  Plus the whole place had a cowboy theme going on and all the staff were dressed accordingly?!

 Friendly and helpful staff, good location, I would stay there again if only crashing for the night, but the slightly more expensive rooms at around 5-600 bt looked very nice.

Sirichai Hotel, and the manager's card

Chaiyaphum boasts a great night market, one of the better ones I have been to, with a huge selection of food to choose from, we ended up having dinner there.  Don’t miss the night market next time you’re in town.

We stopped at 7-11 on the way home and bought some drinks, snacks, etc, then snuck our way onto the dark and abandoned rooftop of the hotel, where we proceeded to have our own little party with great views over the whole town.  It was a fun and funny night.

Taking our supplies upstairs to the rooftop

The whole area surrounding Chaiyaphum turned out to be some of the best, and seemingly foreign to Thailand, scenery that I had seen anywhere and it is a province that rarely see's a tourist.  Go and see it for yourself.