Ally
Well-known member
It’s been 3 months since I had a decent ride out on the bike & I wanted a bit of everything – Don’t we all !
I set off towards Lampang & called in on Wat Doi Ti. Khru Ba Siwichai now has many bees nesting.
I parked at the lower monument & walked up. This cable car must have cost a fortune.
Yep – you bet I did, it sang so clearly
The view looking north west
Inside the base of the giant statue
This is the back entrance by road.
This is the retaining wall to the upper level.
More wall – note the concrete pillar laid in the wall for reinforcement.
Does that look as if it will last ?
I would not recommend taking the journey in the cable car!
I rode the 11 out to Lampang and the ride there seemed to whiz by. Currently my guitar teacher is trying to teach me a new song. “The Girl From Ipanema” and he recommends singing the song so you get the melody in your head. Well sure enough, I had it inside my helmet! Amazing meditation/therepy
After Lampang, I took the Mae Mo turning at the lights the 1348, I wanted to find the signposted landmark – “Lampang Volcano”. I have ridden & driven this road so many times but never deviated to the side, to look for the volcano. I followed the sign, the first sign, that told me to turn right. I did!
Arrived at this railway crossing with flashing lights & alarm bells. I took the pic, had a drink, then though, why not just go and look at the train passing close up.
There we go. As I took this pic, the alarm stopped, the barriers lifted and the woman on the honda dream who had sat the other side waiting for I don’t know how long, asked me if it was ok to cross!! Eerily, the lights flashed, the raised barrier bounced up & down a while. We were being watched ! (Camera up on the signal)
Over the crossing I turned left but as there were no signs & there was a right fork too, I followed the dust most pounded.
There were no more signs but I did find Wat Wiang Sawan tucked away in the forest.
At the entrance of the temple grounds there is a bit more broken tarmac I followed that peaked at a parking area, again with no signage and looked like just another forgotten good idea folly. (Looking at TSM12 I see there is actually a place mark here called “Phukao Fai” = That to my understanding translates literally into Phukao=Mountain & Fai=Fire )
So as I was totally unaware of there being anything significant up there to see, I returned to the crossroads ! If that makes you think of Clapton then maybe it can remind you of Robert Johnson.
I now took the other option here and soon came to this rather plush looking place. My lens wasn’t wide enough to capture the width but suffice to say the palisade fence stretches both left & right. But that railway arch is the entrance to the main building on it. It looks quite grand. Sadly, just the other side of that embankment on the left, there was an earsplitting karaoke restaurant blasting out a nightmare for this place.
Well well, I am back to the 11 & still no sign of that Volcano
I am nearly all volcanoed out. So I ride straight over at this point. This apparently is the 4220. After a little while I come to some water but it’s pretty small, not as wide an expanse as I had expected I would find. (When you come out of Lampang on the 11, as you come over the first rise you see a large reservoir)
So as you can see from my map track, I then doubled back and thought about giving the volcano another go before finding the large piece of water on the other side of the railway line !!
Back at the 11, I headed towards Den Chai & I took the first decent looking bumpy road off to the left (There were a couple that were just too ridiculous for me to contemplate)
This was looking interesting. All along the way there were lots of craters, potholes from the heavy lorries moving rocks & their by-products. But seriously, as you will see in the other images below, the farmers have a terrible time with their fields which are full of volcanic eruption deposits, large & small.
Obviously some of these are collected in a heap by farmers but you get the idea. There is debris everywhere.
Well I now gave up hoping to find a place that was labelled “Lampang Volcano” as I came to the conclusion it didn’t exist … anymore. That’s the point I thought, a volcano blows up and is no longer a volcano right? – Wrong!
Back home and looking at Google Earth, find the Volcano. Grrrrr- So near yet so far.
Notice the circular indentation top right
So maybe if I had parked the bike & walked into the jungle a bit further I might have been closer to it. Now I know why there are not many signs on the roads for it after the first one. Lampang is proud of it but wants to keep it a secret!
After finding all the rock works, returned to the 11 and blasted the dust off me for a while & then returned to find the water. Mae Tha Reservoir.
I am now skirting around the reservoir on an unnumbered road which ultimately links up with the 1037/1036 & after a bite to eat, I find Doi Wang Huea Monastic Residence.
This place is like a building site but there is some progress visible. I was particularly taken by the use of glass orbs on the Buddha statues. All of them!
Hey, it’s a Saturday temple – that’s me!
I was intrigued at first by the design of the base. It looked familiar.
Capturing wind in a photo is hard. But there was a strong breeze from time to time and this tree was so noisy as a result. The seed pods were all that were left on the tree & they were bone dry. When the wind blew, the place just ‘rustled’
This area below the main temple is an interesting Buddha garden in the making. Need to check this one out again in a couple of years.
Ally
I set off towards Lampang & called in on Wat Doi Ti. Khru Ba Siwichai now has many bees nesting.
I parked at the lower monument & walked up. This cable car must have cost a fortune.
Yep – you bet I did, it sang so clearly
The view looking north west
Inside the base of the giant statue
This is the back entrance by road.
This is the retaining wall to the upper level.
More wall – note the concrete pillar laid in the wall for reinforcement.
Does that look as if it will last ?
I would not recommend taking the journey in the cable car!
I rode the 11 out to Lampang and the ride there seemed to whiz by. Currently my guitar teacher is trying to teach me a new song. “The Girl From Ipanema” and he recommends singing the song so you get the melody in your head. Well sure enough, I had it inside my helmet! Amazing meditation/therepy
After Lampang, I took the Mae Mo turning at the lights the 1348, I wanted to find the signposted landmark – “Lampang Volcano”. I have ridden & driven this road so many times but never deviated to the side, to look for the volcano. I followed the sign, the first sign, that told me to turn right. I did!
Arrived at this railway crossing with flashing lights & alarm bells. I took the pic, had a drink, then though, why not just go and look at the train passing close up.
There we go. As I took this pic, the alarm stopped, the barriers lifted and the woman on the honda dream who had sat the other side waiting for I don’t know how long, asked me if it was ok to cross!! Eerily, the lights flashed, the raised barrier bounced up & down a while. We were being watched ! (Camera up on the signal)
Over the crossing I turned left but as there were no signs & there was a right fork too, I followed the dust most pounded.
There were no more signs but I did find Wat Wiang Sawan tucked away in the forest.
At the entrance of the temple grounds there is a bit more broken tarmac I followed that peaked at a parking area, again with no signage and looked like just another forgotten good idea folly. (Looking at TSM12 I see there is actually a place mark here called “Phukao Fai” = That to my understanding translates literally into Phukao=Mountain & Fai=Fire )
So as I was totally unaware of there being anything significant up there to see, I returned to the crossroads ! If that makes you think of Clapton then maybe it can remind you of Robert Johnson.
I now took the other option here and soon came to this rather plush looking place. My lens wasn’t wide enough to capture the width but suffice to say the palisade fence stretches both left & right. But that railway arch is the entrance to the main building on it. It looks quite grand. Sadly, just the other side of that embankment on the left, there was an earsplitting karaoke restaurant blasting out a nightmare for this place.
Well well, I am back to the 11 & still no sign of that Volcano
I am nearly all volcanoed out. So I ride straight over at this point. This apparently is the 4220. After a little while I come to some water but it’s pretty small, not as wide an expanse as I had expected I would find. (When you come out of Lampang on the 11, as you come over the first rise you see a large reservoir)
So as you can see from my map track, I then doubled back and thought about giving the volcano another go before finding the large piece of water on the other side of the railway line !!
Back at the 11, I headed towards Den Chai & I took the first decent looking bumpy road off to the left (There were a couple that were just too ridiculous for me to contemplate)
This was looking interesting. All along the way there were lots of craters, potholes from the heavy lorries moving rocks & their by-products. But seriously, as you will see in the other images below, the farmers have a terrible time with their fields which are full of volcanic eruption deposits, large & small.
Obviously some of these are collected in a heap by farmers but you get the idea. There is debris everywhere.
Well I now gave up hoping to find a place that was labelled “Lampang Volcano” as I came to the conclusion it didn’t exist … anymore. That’s the point I thought, a volcano blows up and is no longer a volcano right? – Wrong!
Back home and looking at Google Earth, find the Volcano. Grrrrr- So near yet so far.
Notice the circular indentation top right
So maybe if I had parked the bike & walked into the jungle a bit further I might have been closer to it. Now I know why there are not many signs on the roads for it after the first one. Lampang is proud of it but wants to keep it a secret!
After finding all the rock works, returned to the 11 and blasted the dust off me for a while & then returned to find the water. Mae Tha Reservoir.
I am now skirting around the reservoir on an unnumbered road which ultimately links up with the 1037/1036 & after a bite to eat, I find Doi Wang Huea Monastic Residence.
This place is like a building site but there is some progress visible. I was particularly taken by the use of glass orbs on the Buddha statues. All of them!
Hey, it’s a Saturday temple – that’s me!
I was intrigued at first by the design of the base. It looked familiar.
Capturing wind in a photo is hard. But there was a strong breeze from time to time and this tree was so noisy as a result. The seed pods were all that were left on the tree & they were bone dry. When the wind blew, the place just ‘rustled’
This area below the main temple is an interesting Buddha garden in the making. Need to check this one out again in a couple of years.
Ally
