04-Feb-2007 -- We met up with my eldest son in Chaiyapum, Thailand, for a quick visit to catch up with the rest of the family. It had been a bit of a rush getting away so I did not have time to check out the nearby confluence points but I was fairly certain they had been bagged already. However I had my trusty Garmin and could not help noticing that 16N 102E was only twenty kilometers north of our hotel. Anyway on Sunday, after the monks had been round to bless the family gathering, most people were tired and not ready to go on the planned trip to see a waterfall, a common pastime in Thailand. So my two sons Sarot and Iain, in-laws Cheng Xiong and Na Veng and I decided we would kill an hour and try to visit 16N 102E.

We left Ban Gudtum, drove the 10km to Chaiyapum and took the road north heading to Tat Non National park. This was a good straight highway until a few kilometers from the park when it started winding up into the hills of the National park. We turned left just before the national park gates and then left again on to a dirt track leading to a small Ban (village) which we passed through and turned left again. This took us to a point about 550m from the point when we had to park the cark at a water reservoir dam and proceed on foot. Sarot and Na soon whimped out trying to walk through the tinder dry cut grass and Iain (jungle man) was worried about snakes leaving only Cheng and myself to make it to the confluence. It lay in a burned out potato field and there was no-one around. We took the photos and then followed an easy track back to the others where we chastised them for being so pathetic and then returned to the car. It was pity the day was so hazy as the views would have been much better on a clear day. We then stopped off at the Tat Non waterfall juat a few kilometers away for a refreshing splash in the river before heading back to do the shopping. All in all an enjoyable short trip.