I’ve been limiting my away days recently because I simply hate viewing football as a pauper – shoved in the back of beyond, and being in dire need of an eye operation, I just can’t see what is going on. Many T1 stadiums are very as bad, even if you have 20/20 vision.
I chose Uthai Thani because I’d seen the stadium on TV, and they seemed to treat visiting supporters with respect.
Uthai Thani is 378 Km from Hua Hin, so a bit far to drive on a return day trip. My wife enjoyed a recent short break in Ratchaburi, so I decided to spend 2 nights in Ratchaburi, and catch the supporter’s bus from the Dragon Solar Park Stadium. My wife stayed in Ratchaburi whilst I travelled. Being on the large size, I reserved 2 seats on the bus, just to give myself the necessary level of comfort.
It was a 6pm kick off, and the bus departed at 7am. As is normal with Ratchaburi’s supporter buses, they like to make a day of it, and visit local attractions in the area before actually going to the match. I was travelling alone with 2 bus loads of Thais. Normally the organizer speaks decent English, but he was sick. I was English on a bus of Thai speakers – hmmmm should be interesting.
The bus was one of the Inter Provincial mini-van type of buses, which I thought only drove at breakneck speeds.
This bus must have had a one-off driver. There was a speed display in the cabin (similar to Concorde), which everybody could see. The fastest I saw him go was 82 Km/hr. Most of the time he was driving at below 70 Km/hr. I didn’t realise these buses could go that slow. It felt like a new bus, so the low speed wasn’t because it was clapped out. Ratchaburi to Uthai Thani is 255 Km at an average speed of about 65 kph = just under 4 hours. The return journey alone took 5 hours (an average of 51 kph or 30mph – OK, we had a short stop, but it wasn’t that long).
I said earlier that I’d specifically booked and paid for 2 seats for my own comfort. There were 20 passengers on our 19 seater bus. This meant that 2 passengers were sat on stools in the aisle. Wow, was I getting glared at in the beginning. Thankfully, they couldn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Thai. Thais hate confrontation, and it would take more than glares to get through my thick skin. The stand-in organizer did have some sort of discussion with me before I boarded, and we understood enough of each other to confirm I had 2 seats.
Going up, the first stop was Wat Khositaram. The bus stopped, and everybody got off. I followed like a lost sheep. It was heaving. I’m not a religious person, but am quite happy that people have their beliefs – please don’t get the impression I’m trying to knock Thai religion – I most certainly am not. Thai people were absolutely loving it, and it was a BIG party going on, with mobile drum kits going around on little trucks with brass band accompaniment and dancers leading the way but of zero interest to me.
I tried taking a few photos, but everywhere was just crawling with revelers.
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Next stop was somewhere in Chainat. I’ve been to Chainat before, and this was certainly not the town I had visited. It was a nameless (to me) temple on the outskirts of Chainat. This temple was worse than the first. We were dropped at the entrance, and had to walk through to pick up our bus at the other end (I only deduced this when I’d done my Dolly the Sheep bit and got to the other end). From start to finish were little stalls asking for money. I won’t say how much I donated, but it was a number less than 1.
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I saw the others start to move, so I got up to walk back to the bus. Then I spotted a little pier, so nipped out to take a couple of snaps. When I got back, they were waiting for me. Did I care? Not really, I could only have been 2 minutes behind the rest of them, probably less. They couldn’t tell me off anyway, or if they did, I wouldn’t have understood them.
...................../to be continued
