Phimai

Phimai is the location of an 11th Century temple built in the Angkor-Khmer style. It's about an hour's drive from Khorat, passing big plastic models of cows and ostriches on the way. There is a very old archaelogical site which we unfortunately decided not to go to. Phimai itself is a small, fairly bustling town. There were quite a few Thai tourists to the temple, possibly in connection with the Buddha day.

The temple itself has a strange, calm beauty. It was an overcast day which added a slight surrealness to the place. I love how these old temples have been restored - but never fully restored. It combines the ancientness and the majesty together.

There are some stunning reliefs on the sides of the temple and above the doors - almost reminds me of the Roman reliefs in the British Museum! There is an outerwall surrounding the compact complex.



Just behind the low walls is the village proper with its trucks, tuk tuks and temples. The large wax sculptures we saw in Khorat were also making the rounds. It was incredibly peaceful though just to sit and contemplate the temple.



We lunched with our driver - a very sweet earnest fellow called Bob. On the way back we tried to stop off at what looked like an ostrich farm. It was more like a very large but empty restaurant. At least there were some nice toucans. We also went to a pottery centre called Dan Kwian. What a disappointment! If you want to buy some nice pottery friezes or bowls for your garden, then go. I thought I'd be able to visit some nice workshops but there didn't seem to be any...

In the evening we checked out the cute little night market in Khorat and 'The Mall' (which had everything from KFC to Dunkin Donuts). Fatt challenged me to one of those games with the discs that swish from table end to table end. We get very competitive in such games. I usually lose.

We sank a beer at a small restaurant by the night market. All in all a very pleasant trip!