Day 93 - Wholesome Tourism

It was a rather short and disturbed night, but luckily we were just awake enough to enjoy the Phimai historical site - a mini version of Angkor Wat. It's particularly pleasing as although we missed out on the famous capital of the Khmer empire thanks to recent border clashes, we were able to visit the second most important city...which we just so happened to be passing!

We went to the visitor centre first, as you do, and read some of the boards. There were "young guides" standing around - local school children, who, once triggered when we went near the first board, each politely introduced themself, and gave a short presentation on their section of the history before gesturing us to the next. It was extremely wholesome, very impressive English and very informative. They had clearly practised at length! At the end we had a quick song and group photo from the whole group! You don't get that at Angkor Wat!

As we started walking around we reflected on what a good idea it is to both add a great deal for the visitors, while getting the local kids excited about an important historical site and improving their confidence and language skills! The historical site covers the inner sanctum of the old city, nestled within the modern bustle around. It's essentially the ancient temple and surrounding grounds. Many will know I love a good Cathedral close and this had that feel, along with very few other tourists, so we could really enjoy it. That, and you're allowed to just clamber around all over it which is wild, but a much more intersting eay of exploring. The city and temple was apparently a prototype for Angkor Wat and were heavily (if a little shoddily) restored from the ruins.

We had lunch at the same place as yesterday (in large part for the tea), got another fruit juice slushie for the road and then set off.

There were two potential towns as targets, both with board game cafes (something I've been wanting to do again for years but failing too for one reason or another). We'd toyed with the idea of doing a short day to the next town and then a board game cafe and cat cafe, but the tailwind was ripping so we set an arbitrary goal of getting the full distance before 5pm and spent the entire afternoon rocketing along, leap-frogging each other as someone stopped briefly for a wee or snack and vice versa! I managed to have a 30minute video call catch up with Mum, during which I covered 10 miles! Now that's the kind of efficiency we need on this tour.

We made it shortly after 5pm thanks to a 90s red light but were chuffed with a high average. We stopped by the board game place to check it was open after a recent spatw of rocking up to closed stuff that should have been open. It was! We asked, by chance, if they knew a good hotel nearby. Turns out not only know, but are involved with running, a nice place nearby. We explained the price was a bit high, so they knocked off enough to make it work, and then we were following a moped guide through the streets to our accommodation for the night! Touring never fails to keep the content generation coming 😆.

We returned showered and refreshed for an evening of board games, culiminating with a group game with the owner and his friend which was really nice, and taught us a bit of Thai!

Food spend today: 55.51 euros

Tea consumption: 2