The next morning was a lazy start. Our original plan was to visit Phanom Rung and head back to Bangkok thereafter. Alvin did some research and pointed out there was another smaller historical park, Muang Tam not far away from Phanom Rung so we decided to see both before heading back to Bangkok.
Riding to Phanom Rung is an easy and short ride and I found a route through mainly agricultural fields. In Buri Ram province there is a lot of agriculture and very rural roads. It’s quite an eerie ride as there is virtually zero traffic on these C type roads.
We arrived at Phanom Rung in less than an hour from leaving Phimai. Phanom Rung is another Khmer complex and is linked to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and dates back to the 12th Century. It’s built on an East-West direction on an extinct volcano rim. We rose from 40m above sea level to 400m along a steep and twisty road. As I found out, it’s build to line up directly with Angkor Wat. It also has a series of doorways through it’s complex and is built so that on certain days of the year the sunrise and sunset can shine directly in line with the doorways. The day we arrived was close to one of these days and so some celebrations were under preparation.
After spending about an hour we headed off down the other side of the hill towards Muang Tam.
Motorcycle Chronicles by Jamil Siddique 