Thailand: Nang Rong

Wednesday 21 March: Motorcycle taxi (50Bt) from the border to Aranya Prathet's bus station for a local bus north to Nang Rong and the welcoming Honey Inn guesthouse. This is northeast Thailand where few signs are in Roman script and few people speak English but I like it, there's fewer tourists.
Thursday 22: Nang Rong is a crossroads, a transport hub and a base for visiting nearby Khmer ruins. So, hiring a motorbike for the day (the first since I fractured my foot in Lombok, Indonesia), I'm off. Prasat Phanom Rung, my first stop, is an impressive laterite and sandstone temple atop an extinct volcano. In the style of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but with landscaped and manicured lawns, it could almost pass for an English manor house, well, apart from the Khmer prang or tower. The approach promenade, stairways and naga bridges are also impressive. Further east and of similar design is the smaller but moated Prasat Mueang Tam. A long hot bike ride and all day I've been humming Arlo Guthrie's Motorcycle Song:

I don't want a pickle
Just want to ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want a tickle
'Cause I'd rather ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want to die
Just want to ride on my motor cycle

So I'm glad to get off of Highway 6, busy with sugar-cane juggernauts with trailers thundering by, and be back in my comfortable en-suite room at the friendly Honey Inn (250Bt) in one piece.

Photos of Phanom Rung and Mueang Tam.