#5: [27-Mar-16]

#4: [16-Oct-14]

#3: [19-Feb-13]

#1: [19-Feb-02]

22-May-2010 -- A three-day trip to Hua Hin with my parents (currently on a visit to Thailand) and daughter provided the opportunity to add this confluence to my count. Rather mysteriously, it had only been visited once before, despite being easy to reach.

On the way back to Bangkok, I left the main north-south Phetkasem highway (#4) at Tha Yang and continued east on road #3187 (newly asphalted and in excellent condition) towards Chao Samran Beach / Puek Tian Beach. Google Maps had shown it was just about 10 km from there to the CP, and indeed, I reached my destination within 10 minutes and without any problem, after having turned north and followed a village road for the last 700 metres or so. The previous visitors (in 2002) had indicated that the point was about 80 m from the nearest road, on a farmer's land plot, and told the story of the friendly owners, so I approached the last leg in high spirits.

I got out of the car while the others waited and, following my GPS, found the exact spot in no time. It is near the western edge of a rectangular parcel, mainly used as a pasture and containing some sugar palms (Thai: ต้นตาล, ton tan, Borassus flabellifer). A bit further north was a small, fairly new house. In contrast to the previous visit, there was no sign of any pond. I am not sure about the "sugar making hut", but it seems to be gone as well. A girl was tending to some cows, and there was also a middle-aged woman in a sarong. I had - somewhat arrogantly - ignored them, though, of course, I was moving on their private land (but one rarely gets any problems with this in Thailand).

Just as I was preparing to take my photos, the woman came walking towards me. I greeted her and said in Thai, "Sorry, I am not wanting to do anything here - just take a few pictures." But she just smiled and started to ask me something to the effect of, "Oh, you are looking for a certain point, aren't you? And it has something to do with satellites, right? There were some people who came to do that before...." I replied, "Yes, this is a device that tells the location using a satellite signal" and tried to show her the special 13N 100E coordinates that had brought me there, but she wasn't really that interested in the details after all. I said, "It is true, I know someone has been here before me; when was that, maybe 6-7 years ago?" She said she didn't remember exactly, but it had been many years already. She then wanted to know where I lived and how long I had been in Thailand, and whether I had come alone. After I had taken my photos, she even proceeded to ask if we had ever tasted the fruit of the sugar palm (Thai: luk tan) (I have, but not my parents) and offered to get me some (presumably by sending her husband up a tree, just as last time!), but I politely declined, as I didn't want to make the others wait much longer. Finally she inquired what would happen with the pictures (it seemed she knew it had something to do with the internet), but I couldn't really explain that in Thai. I thanked her and said goodbye.

In summary, all went super smoothly and the visit was a great deal of fun. If there were ratings for CPs based on ease of access and overall experience, this would be a 5 star confluence! Highly recommended! ;-)