Kanchanaburi

As we arrived back in Bangkok early in the morning from Chiang Mai, we decided to head off immediately to Kanchanaburi (home of the bridge over the river Kwai). This involved a trip on a local train which we just managed to catch, no thanks to a hopeless taxi driver (if you don’t even know where the train station is you might as well call it a day!). After the air conditioning and sleeper carriage of the previous train, the local ones wooden bench seats and open windows were a bit of a come down, but more fun!
Two very numb bums later, we arrived in Kanchanaburi and set off for ‘Sam’s house’ guesthouse; a nice collection of wooden huts on stilts surrounded by water and lotuses. After catching up on some sleep we headed to KTC travel and restaurant to get some food and book on a tour to the Tiger Temple. As is often the case when you plan an early night, it all goes wrong. Debs sensibly headed back to the guesthouse at a reasonable time, whereas I managed, thanks to the meeting of two Aussies Talbot & Emma, to have a bit of a late one. The evening became a search for an elusive bar that had promised free ‘Ping Pong’. As we started to doubt that Talbot had actually seen the sign, we stumbled across it but found the bar to be closed. Fortunately the very nice bar owner, a Frenchman called Jacque opened up especially for us, averting the disaster of a ping pong free evening. The night rather descended from there, until we were politely asked to leave by Jacque. Talbot then managed to get himself trapped under a concrete table and the rest of the night disappeared into a haze!

After a lazy morning it was time to go to the Tiger temple. From the name of the place we imagined that it would be a temple where monks live surrounded by tame-ish tigers. Tourists can then go and see the tigers and have their photos taken with them. The reality is unfortunately somewhat different. On arrival you are greeted by one monk, no temple and several sleepy/drugged tigers. You are then lead around by a helper who positions you near the tiger while another helper takes photos. After everyone has had their photos taken, the tigers are lead back to their cages for the night. Everyone gets the chance if they want, to take it in turns to lead the last tiger back while more photos are taken (this was made more entertaining by the male tiger spraying while walking along and hitting an Australian girl in the mouth!). The whole thing left us feeling rather cold; the sentiment behind the temple is admirable (all of the tigers have been rescued by the monks) but it just doesn’t really come across while you are there. The situation is likely to change later this year when a new tiger island is due for completion. From the plans it looks like the circus aspect will be thankfully lost.

Our second day in Kanchanaburi was spent on a full day tour. In the morning we headed to Erawan waterfall (a 7-tiered waterfall with numerous swimming areas) and spent a few hours swimming in the pools (if it wasn’t for the numerous fish and insects all trying to take a bite out of us, it would have been even more pleasant). We then headed to a Karen village (one of Thailand’s many tribal people) for an ‘elephant trek’. Having been on an elephant before we don’t really think that a short trip round the village really counts as a trek! We did ride the elephant through the river and Debs got to feed it some bananas, so it wasn’t a total wash out. From the elephant camp we headed out to the river for a short trip on a bamboo raft. This would have been ok if the captain of our raft hadn’t crashed it into another one causing us to nearly sink. Luckily we survived the trip intact and we arrived safely, although somewhat wetter, on the bank. The final part of the tour consisted of a trip along the death railway and a brief stop to see the famous/infamous bridge. The train journey was a pleasant end to the day, but the view of the railway from outside the train is definitely more impressive. The bridge is to be perfectly honest, just a bridge, but the setting and its history make it somewhat more impressive. After taking a few photos and walking across the bridge it was time for the tour to end and us to head back to our guesthouse.

Finding the tours to be not to our liking, we decided to forgo any more and instead just have a look around the area ourselves. We hired two pushbikes and cycled down to the JEATH war museum (an acronym of every countries name that was involved in the building of the railway: Japan, England, Australia, Thailand and Holland). The JEATH is an open air museum set up to recreate a realistic prisoner of war hut. Inside the hut are displayed many photos, POW testimonies (including newspaper cuttings from around the world), and some paintings and drawings done by inmates. The whole museum gives an interesting although somewhat unconventional account of the events that occurred during 1942-1943. Next door to the JEATH, we had a short look around Wat Chaichumphon Chanasongkhram and then headed back on our bikes to the ‘Thailand-Burma Railway Centre’. The railway centre is a very professional and interesting museum that gives an excellent portrayal of the hardships and horrors faced by the POW’s while building the Thailand-Burma railway. Leaving the museum we made a short stop at Donrak war cemetery and then headed back up towards the ‘Kwai Bridge’ for a final look around.
Kanchanaburi had been a pleasant enough place to stay, but it was time to head back to Bangkok, as we had a Visa run to Cambodia planned and Debs’ friend Sarah was due to arrive within the next few days.

Next Bangkok, Cambodia and Phuket.