End of the Month Roundup - March 2013

Time indeed moves very quickly. The month of March has ended and the first quarter of 2013 is gone. Nine months more and we'll be welcoming 2014. Aside from the end of first quarter, March is also the month when I ended my 6-month stay in Thailand. I posted my farewell to this beautiful country before the Holy Week began.

Some of you might have noticed that I didn't posted anything during the Holy Week. I also failed to visit other blogs. I even went missing-in-action (MIA) in Facebook. The reason is that I was overwhelmed with my work loads in the office. I also had a difficulty adjusting to my old-new environment. I had no choice but to take a rest from blogging during the Holy Week.

I am glad to report that I enjoyed a long rest during the Holy Week. I didn't went to vacation, though, because I want my Holy Week to be spent with my love ones.

There are so many things that occurred during the month of March. I managed to visit some interesting places during my remaining days in Thailand. I managed to visit the Grand Palace and saw the much revered Emerald Buddha. I also joined a trip to towns located in northern Thailand, which gave me the chance to reach the Thai boundary with Myanmar. I also visited Sukhothai and Ayutthaya, which are the old capitals of the Kingdom of Siam. I assure you will enjoy my posts about these travels. So, please watch out for them.

It seems that I already said a lot of things (4 paragraphs!). So, without further ado, I begin the roundup for March.

I only posted about my [mis]adventures to Phukhieo Wildlife Sanctuary this month. I started with our stop over at a Buddhist temple, which coincidentally is the very first Buddhist that I visited.

This is Wat Promraungsri built by a Thai celebrity in honor of a Buddhist monk, who lived around 150 years ago.

I enjoyed our visit to Phukhieo Wildlife Sanctuary. I saw many animals like the deer, some wild dogs and few birds. The animal that I were so attached to during my visit is the leech.

I also got the chance to see a big skull of an elephant complete with its tusks!

I'm a little disappointed with our Phukhieo trip because our travel time is longer that our actual stay at the place. Our bird watching is a failure because the birds of Phukhieo hid themselves from us. My disappointment was gone, however, when I saw Phukhieo's giant tree.

The trip also had two bonuses because it gave me the opportunity to visit the Chulabhorn Dam and the winery of Vin de Ray.

So, these are my posts during March. I am slowly laying out my adventures in Thailand. So, expect more Thai adventure posts in April, May, June and even July. I only hope that you will not be satiated with my Thai adventures.

End of the Month Roundup is the monthly segment of this blog that summarizes all the adventures that I featured for the month.

Final Stopover at Vin de Ray Winery

The sun is setting and I'm exhausted because of our very long travel from Phukhieo Wildlife Sanctuary. Our driver wanted to get home fast so he just gave us few stopovers along the way. The result is my butt and back hurt so much because of too much sitting.

My travel companions, exhausted as we all were, still had little energy left for more adventure. Thus, our group leader decided to bring us to the final stopover at the winery of Vin de Ray.

I was surprised that a vineyard exists in Thailand. Whenever I hear of winery and vineyard, I always think of grape farms of Italy. The presence of a vineyard in tropical Asia is a remote possibility for me. Well, I'm glad that I'm wrong.

The first thing that welcomed me in Vin de Ray winery is a statue of a lady twisting her hair. This lady is a goddess of Buddhist myth named as Mae Phra Thorani. She is the goddess of the earth and the water pouring from her hair drowned the demons attacking Buddha.

Many Thais place images of Mae Phra Thorani at their homes to call forth the bounty of the earth. I guess that the placing of her statue in Vin de Ray is intentional because vineyards depend very much in the richness of the soil. The  winery owner is calling upon this goddess to take care of his vineyard.

Large “bottles” of wine can be seen from afar. This place is truly a winery and a vineyard.

According to Andreas Hörstemeier, a blogger living in Thailand, Vin de Ray is owned by a TV personality. It is the second time I visited a place built by a Thai celebrity. The first is the Wat Promraungsri, which we visited while traveling to Phukhieo Wildlife Sanctuary.

Grapevines.

It was my first time to see grapevines. Too bad that there is no grapefruit yet.

There are other things that the visitors inside Vin de Ray vineyard can do aside from taking photos with the giant “bottles” and grapevines. There are motorquads that can be rented for 100 Baht per hour.

Some of my travel companions rented the motorquads and zoomed around the vineyard. I just stayed on foot and watched them go because I don't know how to drive a motorquad.

I just discovered in the Internet that Vin de Ray vineyard has spotted deer. They are bred for their meat. Too bad that we didn't know of their existence. I would've photographed them if I just knew.

Vin de Ray vineyard also has a shop for those who want to buy wine, grape juice, raisins and other products made from grapes. Andreas said that the red wine has same quality as the European ones, “at least for the taste of a casual wine drinker”.

Vin de Ray shop.

There are other items that are for sale like sweets, souvenir items, vegetables and chicharon.

Vin de Ray products for sale.

I didn't bought any item from the shop because I'm such a “penny pincher”.

We still had miles to go before reaching home. So, we hit the road again after my travel companions bought all the items that they want from Vin de Ray winery.

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Info about Mae Phra Thorani came from Wikipedia.

Some info about Vin de Ray winery came from  Andreas Hörstemeier's blog, My Unseen Thailand.