Kanchanaburi

A grand total of 230 baht (less than a fiver) got us from Bangkok’s Mo Chit bus station to Kanchanaburi (2.5 hours east) by VIP, 1^st class coach (air con + small sandwich). The owner of the Sabai @ Kan (our hotel) collected us from the bus station shortly after we arrived and whisked us to our mini-paradise for a four night stay. I assume that most people haven’t heard the name Kanchanaburi, but may have heard the term ‘Bridge over (or on) the River Kwai’ (think Christmas day movies) – well this is the home of said bridge (even if the movie was filmed in Sri Lanka). What’s more is that Kanchanaburi is quite a little in hot spot of tourist activities including waterfalls, hot springs, elephants and even tigers – perfect entertainment fodder for a couple of eager tourists like us.

Kanchanaburi WWII War Cemetery-very moving

After an early morning Thai Massage (10am now counts as early morning for us) day one turned out to be a bit of a ‘Dan’ day with visits to all things WWII- including the very emotionally moving war cemetery holding thousands of Dutch and British graves. Horrifying as the cemetery is, the worst thing is that rather than being killed in battle most of these twentysomethings died as a result of starvation, exhaustion and disease while conscripted as Japanese slave labour (building the Bridge over the River Kwai, Hellfire Pass and the remainder of the Thai-Burmese railway). We learned more about what happened and how awful the conditions were at the new museum directly opposite the cemetery.

We got up early on day two for a grand tour of local tourist spots. The minibus whipped us off to a famous (well in Thailand anyway) waterfall to start with – unfortunately somebody had stolen the water and the waterfall looked quite crap (too dry in this season) so the highlight of this bit of the trip was the cassava chips that the local shopkeeper badgered Monali into buying.

Hellfire pass

Stop two was Hellfire Pass and related museum. Like the museum back in Kanchanaburi it is a very moving tribute to those who died to complete this mammoth infrastructure project. After we looked around the museum we walked down to the pass itself. The pass is silent and offers little reminder of the horrendous conditions the workers face, however the thick rock at either side of the pathway gives plenty of indication that forging a pass here was not easy . Spookily a very tall solitary tree has taken root at the centre of the path through the pass – intentional or not it is a beautiful and in some ways sends a fitting message that a new beginning can grow out of the ashes of such evil and heartbreak.

Being tourists

We ate an awful lunch at a roadside shack and from there headed to a small village to partake in an Elephant trek and bamboo raft ride. We didn’t feel particularly good about ourselves after stepping off the elephant as they did all of the hard work in miserably hot conditions (some of the hills they took us up were very steep) – however, we tried to make amends through bribery, bananas being the favoured currency around here.  The older (mother) of the elephants seemed to lack sniffing power with her trunk and so had to be fed directly to mouth – a daunting experience when you see the size of her mouth and tongue and wonder if her lack of sniffing power also means she can’t tell the difference between a banana and my hand. Monali had the (unplanned) privilege of putting her whole hand into the elephant’s mouth and came out with a hand dripping in sticky saliva.

Feeding Dumbo (the elephant not me)

We jumped on flat bamboo rafts from the elephant drop off point which took us back to the village. I even had a go at punting, very nearly falling on three or more occasions – seems that ‘Captain’ Dan is not quite as talented (or slender) as the locals. The experience was fun and relaxing though as the cold fast moving water cooled our hot feet. Monali in particular enjoyed the activity sitting comfortably at the back sunning herself the entire trip like the regal princess she is!

Princess

The best experience of day was back at the village where a young couple were celebrating their wedding. Thai people are much like the British when it comes to wedding celebrations with alcohol playing a very important role. The locals here all sat around a small table covered with a multitude of different shaped glasses, 5 bottles of whiskey and three crates of beer. The men insisted we join them and handed me an iced concoction of (I think) beer and whiskey. Then before we knew an old fella started up on some guitar like musical instrument and the village women were around us dancing. Being the only man in our party they dragged me up to dance within a nano second or two. However, after a few minute they realised that (a) even after imbibing some strange Thai drink I am still really crap at dancing and (b) there was a single lady in our tour group who they could try and convince to marry one of the eligible bachelors getting smashed at the drinks table. Much Thai-English banter ensued until the our mini-bus turned up whereupon our guide looked a little worried about the fact I’d drunk the local brew and whisked us off in a hurry for the day’s finale.

Keith Richards of Thailand

The happy couple

The last part of the trip was a train journey along the death railway (called for the number of POWs and local Asians that were killed making it). Sadly the train is packed full of tourists like us and so it is very difficult to look out the windows to see the POW’s accomplishments. The bus then dropped us off at the bridge itself and we wandered across to take a look at the destruction it had incurred from allied bombing. It was fixed after the war as part of Japanese reparations and the bridge is still used on a daily basis (hopefully they give the 1000’s of tourist fair warning to get off the bridge beforehand).

Nice bridge, crap photograph (sorry)

We were very excited for our penultimate day in Kanchanaburi as we were to visit the Tiger Temple – home of the cuddly tigers. The temple gets a mixed press about whether it is doing a good job in tiger preservation or a bad thing in breeding animals into captivity. We really wanted to see and get close to the tigers so we decided on going ahead hoping that we would not be  saddened or disappointed by our choice to support them.

Nice pussy cat

The ‘bus’ (or pickup truck with roof) picked us up that afternoon and drove us 30mins into the wilderness. The temple is a forest monastery and cares for all animals (with exception of tiger food one presumes) so we passed cows, buffalos, chickens, emus and deer along the driveway and throughout the complex. We walked down to tiger canyon where the big cats sleep off the hot afternoon in the shade of the cliffs. One by one we teamed up with a member of staff who took us around and let us stroke 10 or so of the tigers – you get progressively more confident with each contact, though still respectful enough to reject any suggestion by the staff that you pull his tail! After that they drop you back at the start and you can watch all the other people go around.

Sad that they are not with their mother

All in all it was a nice experience – the animals appeared well looked after, are certainly not drugged despite common speculation we heard before hand(they all kept getting up and adjusting themselves) and the monastery is at least increasing the number of tigers in the world.  However, it is rather sad that tiger cubs are separated from their mothers at birth in order that they don’t act tiger (i.e. eat you) – we saw some of the cubs and adorable as they are, you have to think they’d better off being naturally reared.

Other cute animals also live at the temple (hopefully not tiger food)

After the dusty pickup truck ride back to the hotel, we packed and prepared to leave the next day. We were travelling to Ayutthaya,  a previous capital of Thailand with a multitude of historical remains and sacred temples.

Baby squid (dinner from the night market)