So, you fancy a day out that won’t cost alot, a nice ride out on your motorcy? Try this one.

Firstly a little advice if you are planning such a trip with a friend when you are both starting from different locations. Do ensure that both parties really do know the proposed meeting point. At the very least ensure that you have a well charged mobile phone so any confusion can be sorted easily. Me and Ali,(my webmaster, all hail!), arranged to meet at a coffee shop on the Hang Dong Road. Trouble was I got the wrong place and had discovered my mobile phone battery well flat that morning with no time to charge it up. From all accounts we both spent some time riding up and down Hang Dong road looking for each other and failing miserably. In the end I took the view that Ali was likely to have gone ahead to San Pa Tong anyway so I did the same. I was wrong and I have to apologise profusely to Ali for screwing her day up. putting my guilt to one side here follows the report of a great place to visit.

The nicest drive, I think, is to head out on the canal road, passing the Night Safari intersection(placemark 17 on our Google Map) and on to the intersection with the Samoeng Road,(placemark 18); at these lights cross over and carry on straight ahead. After around half an hours gentle ride you should bear left, (placemark 19) which will take you to a T junction with the main 108 at San Pa Tong. Leaving the Night Safari intersection at around 11.15am, I arrived at San Pa Tong a little before 12, midday.
The ride down that minor road had been lovely, through the rice fields where workers were busy gathering straw and the air was filled with the smells of fresh cut plant life. Other stretches of the road had wonderful floral scents, lavender, wild garlic and much more.
Just to the right of the T Junction at San Pa Tong was a delightful little coffee shop, “Cup and Cake”, where I sat a while with an iced Latte of very good quality for just 40 baht. The staff were very friendly and the manageress was very helpful when I enquired on the whereabouts of the Forest Temple that Ali had said we would be visiting. She wasn’t sure, but pointed me in the direction of  Wat pa De-lurn Tam. (was it this one Ali?)

This Temple turned out to be just 5 minutes or so ride down the road and a wonderful place to visit.

Set in quite vast grounds, with several buildings spread out between the trees, the compound appears very well tended and appears to be very popular with school visitors.

Indeed it seems to have been developed into a ‘teaching’ Temple.

In various spots around the grounds you come across many figurines dipicting various scenes from The Buddhas life story. An excellent teaching tool to pass on the culture.

Other notable features are the gigantic Golden reclining Buddha; a group of quaint concrete Animal statues, including dinosaurs,  and a curious dome shape Vihara.

At the time of my visit there was a large party of children ,from one of the local school, milling around.

It became quite impossible to take photographs of the concrete animals without several children rushing into the shot and posing. Many of them seemed keen to practice their English and there was a prolonged period of answering the same questions, ‘what is your name?’, ‘where do you come from?’. The lovely part of that was the genuine looks of delight when they got an answer, seemingly surprised that I’d actually understood them.

One confident young lad, Boom, became my guide for a short time, keen to point all the many different things worth photographing.

It was he who took me around to the dome shape Vihara, quite different in design to anything I’ve seen at Thai Temples before, it had more of a Dutch feel about it to me.

Peace was restored when the school children were called to the large activities hall where they were screening a cartoon film of Buddhas story on a large projector screen, followed by an enthusiastic sounding lecture from one of the Monks.

The Monks dwellings are set to the back of the grounds behind a big wall and set between a much higher density of trees, so maybe you could call this a Forest Temple; I’m sure it was in the past.

There is so much to see here, and it would certainly be a great ‘family’ visit. For many more photos of this Temple grounds visit our photobucket album here.

After spending the best part of an hour and a half here, I then headed back the way I came, taking my time and visiting 6 more Temples on the way home. All these Temples will appear soon under the Temple list on our home page. You could do the same or maybe even just take a ride around the many village roads, and even head up into the hills for an hour or two; something I’ll be doing next time I head out this way.