Leisure

I have been to almost every province in Thailand, the only exceptions being some of the provinces along the border with Malaysia which are majority Muslim and have insurgencies, simply due to safety concerns. (I have been to the border through Songkhla, and around within Songkhla, but not the other few bordering provinces.) I have also crossed borders into all surrounding countries.

I normally browse Google Maps in satellite view while my wife is driving, looking for interesting features photographically, whereby we have explored many places which looked interesting but about which there was little coverage elsewhere ... and discovered some wonderful things locally. We have found some interesting off-the-beaten-track places this way.

Whenever we travel, we do not rush to get somewhere, and don't just endure the highway and time to drive, as I have observed in many other people, especially fast drivers going down the highway like they're playing a video game. I enjoy the change in scenery in driving and traveling (maybe because I spend a lot of time on a computer in my life), and the many things I see out the windows. When we go somewhere, we often try to find a route that we haven't been down before. Not the fastest route, and not the usual route, but the most scenic, or just another route so we don't go down the same route we've already been down many times before.

Actually, we do this both within Bangkok and also in interprovincial travel.

Thailand has always had good road infrastructure. I have long given the government a lot of credit for that, and appreciated the good roads. There are so many good roads in somewhat remote locations. Of course, there are also a lot of bad, small roads in rural places, but there are also some stunningly great roads in very remote places, too.

Small highways in other provinces can cut down on the amount of pollution you breathe, compared to the main highways. However, you need to be careful which roads you go down, as some may be in poor condition, e.g., take a look at them in Google Streetview. On many of them, you don't get the benefit of an extra lane for easy passing of slow moving farm trucks and heavy trucks, and need to beware of drivers who pass in bad places as if they're accustomed to the road being nearly empty. It's also not recommended to get too far off the beaten path when it's getting dark.

If you're an impatient person, or somebody who needs constant entertainment and stimulation, then this is not for you. However, if you like to relax and take in life on Earth in places off the beaten track, and find a lot of the little things in nature and another culture interesting, including driving through farm land, small towns with farmers markets, and various mountain geologies and geographies, then you might consider some of these routes and places.

There are also a lot of places which obviously were quite significant in ancient times but overgrown and mostly or entirely forgotten about and almost beyond recognition ... except from satellite photos in which you can detect apparently man made features ... and then you may be able to find it in archaeological academic research, but it requires a bit of imagination now when you're there and looking at it.

If you don't get sick while reading in a car (it never bothered me but many people other can't read long in a moving vehicle) then trips can be very educational experiences.

The above are the things which I would like to cover here in ThailandGuru -- interesting places we discovered. I have a special collection of digital photos and have done research on many places while I was there. If you like cruising around Thailand, or if you'd just like to find some places to drive past or stop at while doing a trip upcountry, then this will be for you. Please be patient as I prepare this. I am very serious about this project but just started to put it together in 2022.

In early 2022, I took down this entire section and started to overhaul it. The original text content was written starting in the 1990s and them moved to ThailandGuru.com in the year 2000 and expanded upon there. However, over the next 2 decades, countless other websites have been created and developed which cover leisure activities in various sectors in depth. What I have started to focus on here is covering places and activities which I don't see covered well elsewhere. This is especially so as regards travel.

This website will never again be the place to look for particular restaurants, bars, or leisure things like that. I will still cover particular towns and areas popular with tourists and vacationers, and some attractions, but will not try to recreate what some other leisure websites already cover well, as leisure is big business.

I plan to focus on travel here. Please check back in a few months.

 > Leisure

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