Road Trip – Pak Chong to Khon Kaen

8 - 9 th Feb, 2013

With Pak Chong literally behind us, we had roughly 230 km in front of us before we’d reach Khon Kaen. The roads themselves in Thailand are good, however, as we all know the traffic rules and load limits can be another story.

Being sugar cane harvest time many of the trucks are filled higher than high. On two occasions during our trip, we witnessed trucks that had come to grief, no bends in the road!...maybe a gust of wind?

Not a sugar cane truck

Lunch stop

Khon Kaen

As we entered Khon Kaen we retrieved Ning Nong from the console to locate our lodgings for the night. And, as she guided us around town, Stray spotted a nice looking yellow building down a lane, not from from Fairy Plaza Shopping Mall.

The Money Place Hotel - Khon Kaen

With the name like ‘The Money Place’, which is opposite the still under construction, orange, ‘The Rich Home’, we couldn’t go wrong ;) A very newish and acceptable hotel indeed. Decorated simplistically and containing a fridge, large soft bed, small dining area, ample bench and storage, sat TV and air con the rooms were more than adequate, spacious and clean. You can find them on Facebook here.

All the rooms opened out onto external walkways/verandas

We happened to be visiting on a Friday when the walking street night markets are held, only a short walk north from Fairy Plaza on Na Muang Road. I forget exactly which street on the right it is, but you can’t miss the stalls and people and naturally, there’s 7 Eleven on the corner. Not the biggest night market I’ve been to, but plenty of trinkets and reasonably priced (tagged) clothes. Stray had bargained and bought shorts for 350 baht in Pattaya, here they were on the rack for 200 baht.

And food, lots of food, so that’s where we stopped for dinner. Sorry, no photos. 

With not much time allocated to our morning activities (I’m already starting to wish we had more time up our sleeves) we asked the girls at reception where we could find breakfast = boiled eggs and if at all possible, toast. They gave us directions, in Thai, back to the same street that hosted the markets the night before with the land mark of ‘???? red’. *Umbrellas, I see red umbrellas, that must be it! We ordered and ate our boiled eggs accompanied with those little donut pastries (which double as soldiers/toast fingers) and coffee strong enough to fuel a small jet plane.

Tummies full, we packed up the car and took a short drive to see the Nine Storey Stupa (or Phra Mahathat Kaen Nakhon) located in Wat Nong Waeng, near Kaen Nakhon Lake.

50 metres square, 80 metres high and adorned with temple bells, it makes a pretty sight and sound. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go inside, which is a shame after reading Wiki’s description of its contents.

Across the lake

Pedal paddle boats

We wandered down to the lake and around the park, which was fairly deserted apart from many trees and quite a few sculptures. I’m sure there was much more to see and places to visit, but alas, Nong Khai was awaiting our arrival.

*LIGHT, it was 'red light' as in traffic light -  fai daeng! As luck would have it the red umbrellas belonged to the street cafe next to the traffic lights.

Places mentioned in this post on Google Maps.

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai

When Tripadvisor won't advise - Happiness Guesthouse

For quite a few years I've gathered valuable information from tripadvisor.com and contributed what I could, myself. Even adding unlisted hotels and guesthouses to their list. To do that, you must provide as much detail about said establishment, as possible. 

However, after sending specifics about the Happiness Guesthouse and a great hotel in Khon Kaen, I was politely rejected and given this link.

I didn't really want to sift though Tripadvisor's requirements, so decided to do my own review here for the Happiness Guesthouse. Here goes...

Refer to previous post to how we arrived at our lodgings. Now I'll just show you some photos of where we stayed with a few relevant and not so relevant comments :)

Massive (wet) bathroom with danky corners

The 300 Baht room...hardish mattress

Large 400 Baht room with private balcony

Private balcony over looking the street

View way off in the distance on a hill top, taken from the roof top of the guesthouse

Another view of the bathroom in need of a good scrub

From the roof top (not meant to be up there) looking down on the car park

The communal balcony on the upper floor.

Comments: Beware the red chairs, they've been sitting there for years and tend to collapse under farang (non Thai sized foreigners). Internet is available at an hourly rate, I didn't bother using it, I was kapooped. The staff that greeted us, the old guy who owns the place, didn't speak English and wasn't very customer savvy. Later that afternoon a couple of younger people appeared in reception and were helpful the one time I asked for information. No breakfast or toiletries, and no luxuries such as an in room safe...it's a guesthouse. 

Finding breakfast was a bit of a challenge, encountering no boiled eggs (ไข่ลวก kài-​lûak...frustrating, because we pronounced it kai luuang for most of our trip and were understood!) and toast (not for me) on the service road we did a U turn on the suggestion of a local and started to head back out of town. It wasn't long before we spotted a western style coffee shop/cafe. 

The location. Right next to a train track, not visible and rarely heard from the guesthouse.


View Happiness Inn Pak Chong Thailand in a larger map

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai

Our Thailand Road Trip - and then there were three.

Still weary and in need of a good nights sleep, we've literally just returned from our Thailand road trip. Hope you'll stay tuned for where we went (clues above) and stayed, what we did and didn't do and what we'd do differently...if anything.

Snap's other blog Chiang Mai Thai