08 February 2009

KhonKaen


During Feb 6-8 2009, I have a chance to visit KhonKaen as one of my friend was to enter the monkhood for 7 days.  He selected a temple in Khonkaen to be his monastery.  Mac and I flew in on the evening as the event will occur early of the next morning.  We had plan to participate in his ordain then visit a golf course in that afternoon
After the ceremony, we drove to Ubolratana Dam Golf Course to learned that the course was closed for
 a competition.  We then decided to drive to the other side of the town to a newly opened course, namey "Dancoon".  Dan in Thai means the land, and Coon is a local plantation which is also the symbol of Khonkaen.  So Dancoon means the land of the Coon plant.

The course was neat with well groom fairway and excellent Green condi
tion.  The price was only 800 Baht.  We decided to use the golf cart as the weather is a bit hot and the rounding was the first of mine for this year.  I made four wonderful pars.  Not bad for a twice a year golfer like me.

The
 next day we have three hiurs before our flight back to bangkok.  We decided to give respect to the Khonkaen's town pole.  (The town pole is the sacred place when the ancester first establish the town, they drawn all spirits to stay at the town post to guard against all the devils and bad things.) 

We then drove off another 20 Km. to visit "Pratad Khamkaen" which is a pagoda in a temple that contain the remains of the lord Buddha.  The temple is also the first establishment community of KhonKaen 
town itself.  The name "Khamkaen" was the former name of "Khonkaen" as pronunciation has changed over time.