Chanthaburi Area, 06-Sep-00

Dear Editor,
past Sunday I checked out the area around Chanthaburi and collected following Info:

Border crossing to Cambodia
..at Ban Pakkard / Pailin is yet impossible.
One kilometer before the border is a checkpoint, where I explained that I wanted to visit Pailin. Not possible, they said and assigned a military guy to accompany me as far as the border.
We drove to the border market. There it is all Thai goods, Cambodia has nothing.
It's a semi-relaxed feeling there, but when I asked to cross the border, a number of men were very determined that I cannot do this. More questions yielded increasing unfriendlyness. So I assume, farang cannot cross there.
Further North in Ban Laem, same thing. Folks there were more surprised than unfriendly but didn't even let me cross the checkpoint to the casino that was said to lie behind. It's only for Thai people, I was told.
In general, a lot of Thai military patrol up and down along the border roads. Gives you a feel of being at war.

Accommodation in Chanthaburi:
Kasemsan 1 now starts at B200 for the cheapest fan room. It's friendly, clean and they have a guarded carpark inside the building.
This time, I was staying at Chantha Hotel by the river. It's currently under renovation, with only few rooms available. They put a lot of tiles everywhere to make it look cleaner. Double fan rooms with bathroom rent out for B120 (inside, small, no window) or B150 (bigger, some over the river). Overall, it's a friendly place where everything works and function comes before beauty: Steel bed frames, hard mattresses, tiled floor, plastic chairs. Soap and towel provided.
I had a room over the river, fresh air, but I should have brought mosquito coils. Parking a car is difficult at Chantha Hotel. A small restaurant is just next door and a coffeshop is opposite.

Around Chanthaburi (in brackets are the names of my GPS waypoints):
Off road no.317, in the area of Khao Soi Dao NP, is Wat Khao Banjob (banjob). This tempel has a mid-sized waterfall (3km walk to a bigger tier), a slippery suspension bridge that could need some attention, and plenty of opportunity for meditation in the forest. The cook offered that I could stay overnight at the tempel for free, I could even come with a group of people he said. So it seems to be OK and doesn't disturb them too much. There are no foodstalls. If you don't
want to count on being invited, bring your own meal(s).

Quite a bit Northwest from Khlong Plakang Waterfall (which is free to enter ! and just a bit North of Khao Chamao NP) is a cave tempel (cave01), nearby several other caves that appear unexplored.
Further Northwest  is one large, semi-impressive open cave (cave02) with some bats and a Chinese Shrine below near the road. Stairs lead up to the cave. At the moment there is some construction happening inside the cave, possibly setting up a shrine.

10km NE from there is Arng Paknarm tempel and waterfall (arng). It's 3km off the road, an English / Thai sign indicates the turnoff to this mid-sized, multiple-tier waterfall. Climbing up (there are stairs), one reaches a big Buddha statue.
Basic food and drink is being sold thru some stalls. I met only friendly people. Again, I was invited to stay at the wat overnight.

Well, I didn't stay at the wat and so here comes another soft-crime story:
I was cycling on the road when at 7pm, I was held up by dogs that came running from a house to the road and stopped me. Not uncommon, in Thailand. The dogs were pretty bad and one tried to get behind me. One guy from that house came out and checked from afar with a searchlight, what might be going on. He realized that I'm a farang as I could hear him say. I also got my flashlight and found at least 5 dogs around and that guy in the distance, in front of his house.
He made no attempts to call back the dogs but got - as I understand - angry at me. I couldn't go on because of the dogs, so I moved towards the house, with the dogs moving back from the road into the yard. As I tried to close the gate of the yard to lock the dogs in, the guy went into the house and got something that looked like a revolver. I first thought he was going to shoot the dogs but then I didn't believe it. I hurried back to my bike and rode off, the dogs
didn't follow. From behind, I heard two shots (and surely no dog wailing).
I wasn't too worried at that time 'cause the gunner was some distance away, the gun was rather short, it was dark and possibly there were some bushes in the way to block his sight.
Overall, I consider it pretty bad style of that man to fire a gun with no immediate threat. Even worse that he provoked the situation by letting his dogs run free. Could be he was drunk.
Knowing what it means to involve the police, I just didn't bother.

More thrill: I saw a real gun being sold to a traveller in Bangkok, Khao Sarn Rd, about a month ago. From what a friend sells thru his army shop, I know that Thais are using their guns.

Regards,
Martin

Attached: Oziexplorer waypoint file with the above-mentioned places