Namrin with her Japanese friends-Ratchaburi

Hi, all

Ratchaburi is a quiet and small province which is 100 kms south of BKK. In fact, Ratchaburi is bigger than BKK at least twice but the downtown is very small so people consider it a small province.

I took Wakaho and Masa to the famous floating market. It's a worth visiting sightseeing if you have a chance to go out of BKK. We took a boat and had lunch there. And for what's more interesting here, I'll keep it secret because you have to come here by yourself, hahaha!

Next stop is actually Ratchaburi's Muang or the official downtown of the Muang Amphur. Amphur is sth in between province and district or maybe sth in between city and suburb. It's pretty difficult to explain as your countries may have used different systems so I assume you all understand it now. LOL! Muang is supposed to be the main amphur of the 7 amphur that belongs to Ratchaburi. In Muang amphur, there are many districts and Namuang is the central district of this Muang amphur. In conclusion, the relation is like this: Ratchaburi (Province) -> Muang (Amphur)-> Namuang (Tambol/District) -> downtown (Moo/Village).

The reason I took my friends to the downtown is to just try the best Tom Yam noodles in the country! LOL I drove around my parent's house and went to my primary school for a bit because we have a nice temple there! Unluckily there was a search for ancient stuff around the temple so we couldn't get in. Therefore, we only took the photo outside.

After that, we got out of downtown of Namuang to visit the stalactite/stalagmite cave. It's a huge one in Wakaho's opinion. I could show only a few photos because the rest should be revealed when you guys visit here, LOL!

Next stop which is the last stop of today tour is the bat cave. The official name is Tam Kangkao Wat Kao Chongpran or literally means the bat cave at Mount Chongpran temple. This is actually a natural phenomenon. You know we can't force the bats to go out from the cave. They come out when the sun sets. And even today it rainned, they still came out because they have to eat!! This sightseeing spot is very local. It's not in the Lonely Planet I already checked and I only saw a few foreigners apart from my JP friends and you bet, those foreigners came with their own Thai friends. So I have to say this is an exclusive tour;-)

That's all for today. After this, it's storm...very heavy rain for 6 hours all the way from Ratchaburi to BKK until we finished dinner in BKK and went back to the hotel, it's still pouring!! Sth that's hard to avoid during rainy season. You can only count on your luck! lol

See you on the beach ;-)

19th July 2008
http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd191/namrinb/Photo%202008/Thailand%20trip%20with%20Japanese%20friends%2017-31%20July/Ratchaburi%2019%20July/