December is typically the "winter" month in Thailand and this year, though the weather is cool, it wasn't as cool as last year. In any case, December is also apparently the month when sunflowers fields can be found around Saraburi and Lopburi area and we thought it would be nice to make a day trip.
We set off early on Sunday morning thinking that the roads would be empty but our mistake was that we chose the LAST weekend before New Year's to go visit the sunflower fields. I think everyone and their grandmother was going back to their hometowns so the highways were filled with cars, trucks, vans, buses etc. Driving out of Bangkok was relatively easy, however once we reached the highway, we were stuck and moving at a snail's pace. It was almost as bad as our drive through Poland and we kind of regretted our decision. It was so bad CS started looking up videos on Youtube to play while we crawled on the highway (he's quite obsessed with Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith lately).
Anyway if you are interested, these are the instructions I copied from the internet on how to get there (sorry, can't remember the site now) but we made some diversions. The route from the internet is below though
Take highway 1 and then turn into highway 2 at Saraburi. Go straight until you reach Muak Lek and turn into road 2089 which leads to Wang Muang. From there, take road 3017 to reach Pasa Jolid Dam, from there you can take road 3196 to get to Ayutthaya and then road 32 to get back to Bangkok.
We followed the instructions and found one sunflower field shortly after turning into road 2089 (I think). We had to pay 10baht each to enter the sunflower field, honestly the field was pretty big BUT the sunflowers were rather small. I had expected to see some really nice big sunflowers so it was a little disappointing. I was pretty glad to get out of the traffic jam though, and to walk around a bit.
We then drove a little further up and found another sunflower field but this was smaller so we didn't pay to go in. There was a nice old man selling kites just outside so we bought a kite from him and flew the kite for a while. It was pretty windy that day and the weather was great so we had quite a bit of fun for a while.
After that, we decided that we may still be stuck in traffic so we took a detour and went to Pak Chong to visit one of CS customers who had a restaurant there. The food was alright but the view from the restaurant was gorgeous and since the weather was cool, it was really great to sit outdoors and enjoy the cool breeze.
After that we thought we would drive back towards Saraburi to look at the sunflowers but driving out of Pak Chong, we noticed sunflowers! Turns out it was a corn farm which also grew sunflowers, probably to cash in on the sunflowers craze during December. The farm is Suwan Farm, it was quite sunny when we were there so most of the Thai families were sitting in the shade, snacking and relaxing. We ventured into the sunflower field where we had the fields more or less to ourselves, with the exception of one Thai couple who came with a photography crew. The view is lovely and since a picture says a thousand words, here goes
gorgeous flowers with mountains in the background
not quite Van Gough but good enough for us
We then took a drive to the Pasak Jolasid Dam, there was a viewing tower of some sorts and we paid 20baht each to go up. The tower was rather short but because it was the highest building in that area we got quite a good view of the surroundings. Unlike the Eiffel Tower there is no cheaper option if you climbed the stairs, haha... In any case it was a good way to get a sense of the surroundings.
view of the dam
There was this structure near the dam which reminded me of Har Paw Villa, but this was the only structure that looked vaguely scary. The place had mainly Thai families just enjoying a simple day out, enjoying the view and flying kites, and since the weather was quite cool it was all rather relaxing.
i actually have no idea what this is supposed to be,
