01-Jul-2009 -- Having grown substantially tired of the main route from Bangkok to the Northeast (i.e. National Road #2, aka Friendship Highway, via Nakhon Ratchasima & Khon Kaen) on numerous trips to Roi Et (as well as annoyed by the dense traffic), I had recently tried out the road connection from Ban Phai (Khon Kaen province) via Chaiyaphum, Bamnet Narong, Thep Sathit, Lam Sonthi, Chai Badan (Lopburi province) to Saraburi on the way back – a much more pleasant drive, due to the scenery and traffic conditions. Today I was to drive it in the other direction for the first time, with my daughter and mother-in-law in tow, giving me a good opportunity to grab the CP on the way. And just like with 16N 104E, when my sister-in-law and niece had to endure a little confluence hunting detour, the Thai grandma proved an easy 'victim', having no real idea which way we were headed, and certain not to protest anyway.

I had gathered all necessary intelligence on Google Earth. 15N 101E is situated less than 3 km northwest of Khok Salung in the Patthana Nikhom district of Lopburi province, in close vicinity to the Pasak Chonlasit Reservoir, and some 7 km from the #21 highway, where a local road branches off at 14.986974N, 100.927765E. However, when coming from the south, it is a bit cumbersome because one cannot make a direct right turn, and while there's a U-turn 200 m before (?!) the intersection, the next one is located 2.5 km after it. So I had to go there, drive back the 2.5 km and then turn left. I then continued right until the end of the road in Khok Salung, a dusty forgotten backwater with nothing but potholed streets. I had in fact been there before – on one of SRT (State Railway of Thailand)'s weekend trips to the sunflower fields of Saraburi and the Pasak Dam (which the railway crosses on a long viaduct), when it had been the end point of the journey. So the road terminated in a T- junction near the train station. I turned north, then west, the north again, continuing on a narrow, twisty road along the perimeter of the reservoir, which brought me within 600 m of the confluence. Google Earth had indicated there was some sort of dust road leading from there to a farm adjacent to the point. And indeed, on my left was a set of two grass'n'gravel tracks on a low dam, separated in their center by a concrete ditch. With 290 m to go, there was another track branching off to the right. I got out of the car here and walked. On approach to the farm, I heard voices – and spotted a man sitting under the trees behind one of the houses. It also turned out I had to pass right through the farm to get to the CP, which was another 90 m northwest. Walking straight through the little yard, a woman appeared from the fields on the other side, coming towards me. I simply ignored her, my eyes locked to the GPS display, and kept pursuing my goal. On through a row of bushes, onto a small dam separating two (irrigation/fish) ponds. I then found that the point was actually a bit in the water, 4-5 meters east of the dam, at its northern end. As the Estimated Position Error was 5 m, I set the accuracy for my visit at 10 m. Sidenote: these ponds must be less than 5 years old, as there is no sign of them in the photos taken by the first visitor in 2004. The best position I could measure without getting wet was 15.00000N, 100.99996E. (Also good, in a way, because I didn't have to spend time attempting to get the perfect coordinate display, and was done very quickly.) I snapped the required pictures to complete my third confluence visit; all this while being watched from a distance by the 2 men and 1 woman. Making my way back to the car, I thought they'd probably be wondering for the rest of their lives why that mysterious westerner had come and what he'd done there.....

Later this day I could possibly have added 16N 103E to my collection, which I passed in a distance of 7 km to the north, but two reasons stood against it: it was getting dark, and I didn't want to burden my passengers with yet another detour.