Kanchanaburi is a popular side-trip from Bangkok and it was nice to be mosying along on my own for a bit. I stayed at the Sugar Cane Guesthouse Nr 1 in a raft room for 150 Baht. I arrived at about 9pm and just chilled reading my book and booking a tour for the next day. The town itself is nice and has the typical internet cafes, restaurants and tourism agencies, but most sights are quite a drive away in opposite directions so it is really worth it to do a tour in this case.
Maybe the food was clean, but the taste was not so good....
View of the River Kwai from the guesthouse as the sun sets
The next morning I clambered into our minibus and met Maxine (New York), Jolise (Holland), Chad (Seattle) a French dude with his Thai 'girlfriend' and Atar from Israel (who informed us that not all Israeli's were good with a gun despite doing time in the army)
During the requisite who are you, where have you been, where are you going, what have you done, how long are you traveling for kinda questions (usually me: six weeks every one else: bloody months and months) we were discussing Cambodia and how at one point tourists could pay 20 dollars and shoot up cows and things with AK47s at the killing fields - this is how the gun question came up.
As an African you probably shoot things all the time right??? Er.... no??
Anyway - so off we went to Erawan Waterfalls, a truly amazing seven-tiered waterfall where one can swim from level two to level five. You can probably swim higher up but we were too lazy too climb all the way up.
Me at level one (I think) and alongside is a picture of the fish that we were warned might bite us, haha - yeah whatever we mocked.... unknowingly!
I am just putting so many pics cos its so damn gorgeous!!So, we went swimming and the fish do bite.... they are the same fish used as 'massage fish' so it is actually more of a nibble than a bite, but it freaked me the hell out and I was leaping and shrieking all over the show until I finally grit my teeth and let them at my feet. Apparently they eat away the dead skin or something.... loads of fun swimming and hanging out with my new friends.
From the top Maxine, Atar, Me and Jo! DEATH RAILWAY
Our next stop was a little more sobering as we made our way to the Hellfire Pass museum.
During World War II the Japanese needed to keep up their force in Burma, and desperately needed a new way to transport supplies as the ocean routes proved vulnerable to attack.
In 1942 they started building a railway from Thailand to Burma.
We visited the Hellfire Pass museum dedicate to the stretch of railway that was the most fatal to those building it. On the railway as a whole, more than 60,000 prisoners of war and 200,000 Asian labourers toiled to build 415 km in 15 months. About 13,000 POWs and 90,000 Asians died from disease, accidents, starvation, and other brutality.
On Hellfire Pass......
The Pass today
The group
The train still running today - we took a short ride!
Maxine and I
Walking along the railway
Hanging off the bridge (actually I was trying to get off as my friend took the picture as a train was coming...)So.... how to avoid the following conversation:
Maxine: "What's so special about this bridge anyhow?"
Fran: "Er there was a movie about it and something during the world war?"
Obnoxious German tourist aghast at our ignorance: "Eet vas bombed five times during ze war!"
Fran in dumb blonde mode: "What amazes me is that they would rebuild the bridge five times only for it to be bombed again".
Obnoxious German tourist astounded at my stupidity: "Maybe because zey missed five times."
I suggest watching the movie (largely fictional) or noting the following -two bridges were built (one temporary and one permanent ), and eventually destroyed by allied bombs. The version as seen today ( nothing like the one in the movie which was filmed elsewhere) is the steel bridge which was later repaired. I still don't know what the German guy was on about!
So we finished off our day with some 10 Baht Whiskey:
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