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https://scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3202051/thailands-version-angkor-wat-plus-bustling-markets-thai-royal-retreats-and-cheeky-monkeys
Lifestyle/ Travel & Leisure

Sacred caves with a sleeping Buddha, a Khmer temple ruin and a ‘holy hill’ that’s selfie heaven a short train ride from Bangkok, in Phetchaburi

  • Just 90km by train from the Thai capital, Phetchaburi’s ruined Khmer temple, once you find it, looks like one at Angkor in Cambodia but is much less crowded
  • The city also has cave temples in the jungle with a sleeping Buddha, and a former royal retreat on a hill that’s a selfie magnet and offers great views
The towers of Wat Kamphaeng Laeng, the remains of a Khmer Empire temple in Phetchaburi, Thailand. Photo: Thomas Bird

It’s an airless, languid day and the mugginess permeates the third-class train carriage. Passenger heads nod to the rhythm of the wheels, while the ceiling fans refuse to turn.

As the rice plains to the west of Bangkok give way to the houses of Ratchaburi, a sudden cloudburst spurs passengers to hastily close the carriage windows.

The rain doesn’t last long, and goes someway to breaking the oppressive heat. When I alight at Phetchaburi station, some 90km (56 miles) down the line from the Thai capital, I walk into town without an umbrella for shade.

The muddy banks of the Phetchaburi River run south to the old wooden fishermen’s homes and weathered shrines of Khlong Krachaeng. Across the river is a wet market, its alleyways decorated with murals and lined by Chinese shophouses, pairs of red lanterns dangling either side of doorways.

The train from Bangkok to Phetchaburi. Photo: Thomas Bird
The train from Bangkok to Phetchaburi. Photo: Thomas Bird

In a ramshackle building beside the Chom Klao Bridge is Rabieng Rimnum, which, according to The Rough Guide to Thailand, is “The town’s best restaurant, an airy, wooden house with riverside tables.” I find a seat.

While waiting for a banana blossom salad and a Singha soda, I watch townsfolk stroll across the bridge; this is a place that is unhurried and dreamily provincial in comparison with the capital.

Buildings along the Phetchaburi River. Photo: Thomas Bird
Buildings along the Phetchaburi River. Photo: Thomas Bird

Seven hundred years ago, though, when Bangkok was little more than a village on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River, Phetchaburi was the southernmost outpost of the mighty Khmer Empire (802-1431).

Wat Kamphaeng Laeng may be a designated national monument – the remnants of the Hindu city of Sri Jayavajrapuri, forerunner of Phetchaburi – but finding it is no easy feat.

I walk along a nondescript lane, past a pack of aggressive and hungry-looking stray dogs, and suddenly here is the wat: partially encircled by a modern temple complex are five crumbling 13th-century prasats, or towers, as well as a small chapel, all of which look as if they were airlifted from Angkor Wat, in neighbouring Cambodia, and which resemble the towers of its Bayon temple.

Prasats at Wat Kamphaeng Laeng. Photo: Thomas Bird
Prasats at Wat Kamphaeng Laeng. Photo: Thomas Bird

In contrast to that world-famous site, though, I have the honeycomb sandstone walls and flaking porticos, with their carved Hindu and Buddhist reliefs, all to myself.

Phetchaburi’s other big attraction is Phra Nakhon Khiri (“holy city hill”), a regal villa that, as its name suggests, stands atop a hill, in the centre of town.

I try to hike up Khao Wang (“palace hill”) as King Rama IV and his entourage did when Phra Nakhon Khiri was established as a royal summer retreat in the 19th century. But a troop of macaques swinging from electricity wires while eyeing people’s groceries halts my progress.

Views of the city and countryside from Khao Wang. Photo: Thomas Bird
Views of the city and countryside from Khao Wang. Photo: Thomas Bird

Fortunately a cable car, its cabins open-top, climbs the western flank of Khao Wang.

The summit offers widescreen views of the city and the fruit plantations beyond. The air is light, a cool breeze imbued with the scent of tropical vegetation relieving the worst of the humidity.

Apparently, whenever the king visited the area he stayed in Phra Nakhon Khiri, a colonial-style villa with shutters and verandas that has since been turned into a museum housing royal heirlooms.

Phra Nakhon Khiri, a colonial-style villa that has since been made into a museum housing royal heirlooms. Photo: Thomas Bird
Phra Nakhon Khiri, a colonial-style villa that has since been made into a museum housing royal heirlooms. Photo: Thomas Bird

Beyond the building, paths snake up the forested hill, linking a series of wats, prangs and chedis, making this holy hill selfie heaven. Thai tourists move strategically from one edifice to another to pose, model-like, before their partner’s clicking smartphone.

On the northeastern edge of town are Phetchaburi’s sacred caves. To reach them, a security guard instructs me to park my rented scooter in Boontawee Temple and take a songthaew, a covered pickup truck, the rest of the way.

We’re soon careering along a jungle-framed track, the domain of both dogs and monkeys.

A sleeping Buddha inside the Tham Khao Luang cave. Photo: Thomas Bird
A sleeping Buddha inside the Tham Khao Luang cave. Photo: Thomas Bird

Inside the caves are temples built during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910), who, according to Tourism Thailand’s website, “wanted to build a temple on Khao Luang Peak in honour of [his predecessor] King Mongkut, who once visited the Tham Khao Luang Cave”.

At the bottom of a damp staircase, the cave temples might only be 100 years old but they have the air of somewhere older. That theory is confirmed by a sign that explains that a “Buddhist sanctuary was built during the early Ayudhya period [1351-1767]”, indicating this had been a place of worship centuries before Rama V had it refurbished.

Past dimly lit effigies of golden Buddhas in various poses I make my way from one chamber to the next, stalactites and stalagmites throwing shadows across my path. .

Chedis inside the Tham Khao Luang cave. Photo: Thomas Bird
Chedis inside the Tham Khao Luang cave. Photo: Thomas Bird

When I return to the surface, night has fallen and a food market bustling with families snacking on cobs of sweetcorn and leather eggs has sprung up along the Phetchaburi waterfront.

“This one is a local speciality,” says a vendor in passable English, offering me a khanom tan, a kind of toddy palm cake so sweet I fear for my pancreas. I eat several.

High on sugar and unable to sleep, I buy a bottle of Chang beer from a 7-Eleven and sit beside a shrine watching the water flow beneath the heavy light of the moon. The water is perilously high. One-man boats are moored to half-submerged slipways and from one, an old-timer baits his hook and sits patiently waiting for his supper to bite.

A street food market on Phetchaburi Walking Street. Photo: Thomas Bird
A street food market on Phetchaburi Walking Street. Photo: Thomas Bird