If I had to rate the navigational skills of she who must be obeyed, I would give her a solid 9.9; out of ten thousand. Take her a kilometre away from home and she will never return without assistance. Ten minutes in a shopping mall and she will have no idea where the car is parked.

All the more surprising then, that when we were in her home town of Ubon Ratchahtani, she directed me down obscure side-streets in search of elusive shortcuts, and they all worked. She knew every road, every tiny sub soi; and always knew exactly where we were. I was extremely impressed and told her so in my usual charming way: “You are less crap than usual.”

So it was with some confidence that I accepted her proposal to make an afternoon visit to Sam Pan Bo, a collection of rocks a mere 70 kilometres away.

Two hours and 165 kilometres later, we arrived. Evening was approaching, there was a threat of rain, and there was no sign of the famous rocks. Apparently we had to take a boat, and the boat owner wanted 500 baht. Fortunately, we found some people to share the ride and soon we were standing on some rocks with holes in them. And that was the attraction, just some rocks with holes in them. Take a photo at sunrise or sunset and you might catch a red reflection in the water; but there was no sign of the setting sun. We had driven for two hours and taken an expensive boat ride to stand on some rocks which looked very similar to the rocks on my beach outside our condo.

In the midst of this natural wonder, there was one rock pool which was circular, with a couple of little pools on the side; such that it looked vaguely like the outline of a cartoon character. This was enough for the many other people who had been conned out of 500 baht for a ride in a boat; and a mass shriek of “Mickey Mouse! Mickey Mouse!” erupted, two fingers were raised, stupid grins put on faces, a happy memories of a mouse shaped pool moment were captured with cameras. I refused to indulge, although to be honest there was little else to photograph.

A Canon 100-400mm lens will cost you around 60,000 baht and will fit in a rucksack. The Panasonic 45-200mm (effective 90-400mm on a M4/3 camera) will cost you around 12,000 baht and will fit in your pocket without anyone thinking you are pleased to see them.

Image quality is pretty good. The first of these shots is at 103mm, the second at 200mm. Panasonic GF1.

Up early to watch the candle festival procession, then 400 kilometers down the road and now stopped for the night in Sa Kaeo.

Too tired to even look at the day’s photos. Home tomorrow and then beware of endless photo galleries.

Comments 🔗

2010-07-27 | wentworth says

Crushed. I’ve cancelled several appointments in anticipation of shots of the Paul the octopus float and what do I get? Promises. Promises can’t feed my addiction to photos of supposedly physic molluscs in giant candle form can they? I just hope that……actually I’m too upset to comment further at the moment I need to take some of those pills Lloyd gave me.

The Ubon candle festival features a competition between temples in the region. You can imagine that the first competition was won by a single decorative candle carried by a monk. Then one temple had the idea of enhancing their candle with a tiny statue, and then the whole thing got out of hand; and now the winning entries need to be towed by a lorry, like this one:

Travelling through the rice fields of Isaan, and my wife is keen to point out items of interest, none of which I can look at because I am concentrating on the road ahead. One of her observations is that the farming has become increasingly mechanised, but the number of buffaloes has not decreased.

This weekend marks the start of the candle festival in Ubon, and the streets are lit up this evening; although not with candles.