Day 4 #MHS. Bangkok - Lopburi : Embraced By Endless Sunflowers And.. Getting Stopped By The Police Again

Give a girl a sunflower and you'll see her smile.
Bring a biker chick to a sunflower field and she'll.. bash through it in joy with her ride >:D

That's me! Haha :p and I love sunflowers!

Feeling cheerful on this sunny day, we left our bags in the hotel and took a day trip to Lopburi where endless fields of Sunflower awaits!

Located 150KM northeast of Bangkok, Lopburi is an old city known for its temple ruins and home to hundreds of mischievous monkeys. They are not afraid of humans and would steal whatever food or item from you when the opportunity strikes.

So let's just stick to sunflowers.

We all know how erratic the traffic can be in Bangkok, and it wasn't difficult to lose each other on the go. Plus I didn't have a Bluetooth installed, so communication can be a little challenging at times.

Credits to a Facebook follower Yongyuth Namwong (I have no idea how he captured this?)

I was leading the way and halfway through, I saw a group of policemen and news broadcaster TV crew. Next thing I know, I was asked to pull over and they spoke to me a lot, in Thai, of which I did not understand.

Then, I see the TV broadcaster guy filming me and I'm like, HI?

So all I said was "Sawadeeka!"

Every question the police asked, I just said "Sawadeeka". After a while, they realize I don't understand what they've been saying and finally one asked me where I was going in English. I answered politely, "Lopburi, flower!"

On the way to Lopburi

They smiled and said "good luck girl!" before letting me go.

Perhaps they recognize a foreign number plate on my bike and decided to just make a check. Thailand seems to have stepped up their security measures which is commendable. Kudos to these authorities doing their jobs so well, making Thailand a safer place to be in!

I continued on and realized I've lost my partner somewhere along the way. But thanks to Family by Sygic, a phone GPS Tracker, we managed to see where each other was and reunited.
Go download the app, it's FOC and really helpful.

Arrived into Lopburi and was instantly greeted by an endless field of sunflowers!

There are a few sunflower fields in Lopburi but we stopped at the very first one we saw! Plus, the owner of the field was waving at us to come in, so why not?

He was so friendly and even though he couldn't speak English, he signaled us for our bikes to take pictures with his sunflowers. All that was required was a humble 10THB fee to enter the sunflower field and thereafter you can spend as long as you want inside.

I've never seen so many sunflowers in my life before and I couldn't stop smiling the minute I saw them. So much that my face was cramping in my helmet from smiling too much, I had to quickly remove it.

Whee! Time to ride into these lovelies!

Here are some fun facts about sunflowers

- Each sunflower is actually made up of thousands of little flowers, up to 2,000 of them.
- Sunflowers are native to America and around since 1,000 B.C.
- A well-known sunflower characteristic is that the flowering heads track the sun's movement, a phenomenon known as heliotropism.

- Sunflowers can grow from 3 to 18 feet tall.
- There are 70 different kinds of sunflowers
- The tallest sunflower grown stood at 30 feet tall

- Sunflowers help soak up nuclear radiation; They're not just pretty faces, but are actually good at absorbing toxins too. Millions were planted after the devastating tsunami destroyed reactors in the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.

After all that photo taking and hours of being embraced by this vast sunflower field, it's time to manually three-point my bike out of the tight narrow pathway in between the sunflowers.

Look at all that fertile soil clinging onto my new Pirelli Angel G.T. tyres! Anybody wanna volunteer to help me wash please? I give you free map to Lopburi to see sunflowers. Hahaha

 Oh well, hopefully some of it flies off while I ride back to Bangkok later!

So happy to see so much sunflowers today as while we on the way back, we bumped into some Thai locals who told us although sunflowers are technically in season now, not many have bloomed due to weather changes etc. So we were considered lucky to have seen a whole field of it!
Most grown to about my height (keep guessing how tall I am hehe).

Be your own kind of beautiful

Take a short day trip to Lopburi the next time you visit Bangkok! Apart from sunflowers, you can go on and explore the ancient town of Lopburi and sip some coffee at the nearby artsy cafes too.
You won't regret it!




 
[Singapore.Malaysia.Hat Yai.Bangkok.Lopburi]

[Mileage Clocked: 1,290KM]

[Weather/Temperature: Sunny/34°C]

[Terrain: Tarmac]

Next: Chiang Mai, Thailand