Yesterday started with a dawn bus journey to Lopburi, 155km’s directly north of Bangkok, for the annual “Toong Dok Tantawan” Sunflower festival. Each year people come in their thousands to walk around in the never-ending fields of blooming sunflowers and escape the rigours of Bangkok. Except that yesterday being a public holiday for the King’s birthday meant that there were so many people on the road trying to get to Lopburi that at times it felt no different from Bangkok. But it was worth the wait in the long run.

We were driven around all day by a local contact in the back of his ute. The novelty of being laughed at by endless numbers of thais driving past pointing and staring at the farangs sitting in the back of the ute, getting covered in dust and fumes and baking in the hot afternoon sun quickly wore off.

Marty managed to grin and bare it all much better than me:

Our drivers’ kids – good lads, very shy, but well behaved.

Late afternoon saw us at Pasak-Chonlasith dam, eating local thai food on the waters’ edge and washing the dust from my throat with an ice-cold Heinekin. The weather was cool and pleasant, the beer was cold, and the Som Tum salad was fecking hot! (I’ll spare you the details of the aftermath in the bathroom, I’ll simply describe it as ‘Weapons of ass destruction’)

Our driver and his wife, by the dam:

The evening was spent walking around the Lopburi fairgrounds, where I took the plunge and decided to sample some of the more hardcore traditional foods. I’ll post a video of it with some more ramblings about this unique event soon, but for now you’ll have to make do with photos and your imagination.