Wat Phra Borommathat, Ban Tak, Tak Province

Year of the Horse: If you were born during this year, then your pilgrimage site should be the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Burma. However, for Thai people, there is a replica, though a somewhat smaller version, at Wat Phra Borommathat in Tak. According to legend, the Lord Buddha once visited Tak and gave a strand of his hair to his followers there. The hair is now enshrined at the temple. The Shan style stupa is 23 metres high and was built over a much older shrine. It is surrounded by 16 smaller stupas which are 7.16 metres high.  In addition, there are 12 big and 6 small mondops (the square right building to the right of the picture) which each contain an image of the Buddha. This temple is really beautiful and hopefully one day I can go and see the original Shwedagon Pagoda in Burma.

I was in Mae Sot in November 2004 and witnessed the Moslem New Year celebration there. The scale of celebration paled in comparison with that in Malaysia as the celebration in Malaysia can last for 2 weeks.

It was not possible to get a low cost flight during this period as the Moslem New Year is celebrated nationally in Malaysia. We had to take a bus to Haadyai and thereafter take a NokAir flight from Haadyai to Bangkok to save cost. From Bangkok we took a bus to Phitsanulok and stayed there a night. After the sight-seeing at the market and the wat, we took a bus to Sukhothai and stayed there a night. Sukhothai has a lot of attractions and I am sure some of the bloggers must have written something about the attractions there.

Mae Sot is a really an outback place bordering Myanmar. It is however much bigger than Sangkla Buri in the south, another border town with Myanmar which is famous for the “Three Pagoda Pass” border crossing. Mae Sot is interesting in that there are more ethnic races and it is even possible to hear some Chinese and English spoken here. One can even find goods from Myanmar. I managed to pick up a Myanmar wall map there for 50 Bahts.