Day 205 - Park Benches on Pachyderms

The Dutch girl we met in Kanchanaburi had never ridden on an elephant, and really wanted to try an elephant ride and elephant bathing while she was in Thailand. Cz and I have met, ridden, fed, and washed multiple elephants already, but I like elephants, so we decided to go too.

Unlike the elephant treks in Nepal, this one really was just an elephant ride. Much like pony rides in the States, we were placed on a gentle elephant and even seat belted into our park bench. The elephants did a slow circuit of a the woods near their camp and then walked down to the river for the 'elephant bath'.

We were each given a life jacket and rode the elephants into water deep enough that they could 'dive', dunking us into the water. More emphasis was placed on personal safety, and less on just playing with elephants in the water. I suppose that is necessary, as this is a much more established and touristy operation, and the river current seemed stronger than in Chitwan. It was still fun, but I missed my pachyderm pals from Chitwan.

After the elephant wash, we dried off, ate a last meal at our favourite restaurant, and hopped on a bus back to Bangkok. Apparently we chose the most popular bus, as we claimed some of the last seats before the aisles were stuffed Indian-style. Luckily it was only 3-hour ride until we back in Bangkok. We spent a little bit of time at the bus station getting info on tickets to Siem Reap, and were soon happily ensconced back at Sukhumvit Hostel munching on our favourite Phad Thai and fruit smoothies.

Day 204 - Seven Levels of Fun

Erawan National Park sits about an hour's bus ride from Kanchanaburi. The main draw there is the 7-tiered Erawan falls. Aside from being very pretty, swimming is permitted in all the pools. The water is clear except where the force of the water churns up the milky white limestone as it tumbles down. The shallows of every pool are populated by schools of fearless little fish that nibble on hands and feet. In fact, during the building of the death railway, men would use the nibbling fish (not here, in the river Kwai) to clean away the dead and rotting flesh from their wounds.

Levels four and six to seven were particularly fun. Six to seven because the rocks were full of natural hand and toe-holds, so it was east to climb up the falls between the levels. The Australian and I went up this way and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, thinking we had found an untraversed part of the falls. Then we noticed a group of people emerging from the woods and a sign saying , 'end of the path'. Turns out we weren't the pioneers we thought we were - there was in fact a path by which one could walk quite comfortably to level seven. Our way was till more fun though.

Level four was great because its rocks were covered in a slick brown algae, effectively turning them into natural waterslides. We each took turns winging our way down the different boulders until it was time to dry off and hike back to the bus.

Tired and pleasantly sore from our very active day, we quickly changed and returned to our favourite restaurant for a big dinner. We figured we burned up enough calories to order at least twice as many dishes as we had people.

After dinner, most of us went for massages. Traditional Thai massages start at about $4 US for a full hour treatment, and oil massages (more like Western massage) are about $6 per hour. Cz, being the most sore from yet another day spent trekking went in for a whopping 2 hour treatment. He came back so relaxed and happy that I think the cheap massages might be just the carrot to get him traipsing around the hills on a regular basis.

Day 203 - Day on the River Kwai

Kanchanaburi is a small town that would be completely off the tourist circuit, but for a certain bridge immortalised by Hollywood's version of WWII. The town has developed around its history with landmarks and museums scattered over a few kilometres. It is possible to hire tuk-tuks or taxis to get from point to point, but much more fun (and cheaper) to just hire bicycles for the day. As by the time we were ready to tour Kanchanaburi, we were a group of seven strong, we made a quite an impressive little parade as we pedaled around town.

Our first stop was the famous Kwai River Bridge. Since WWII it has been rebuilt a few times, and remains a working railroad bridge for local trains. The pylons closest to shore still show evidence of its turbulent past, but otherwise it is simply a tranquil bridge across one of many rivers in Thailand.

On the far side of the bridge, hawkers have set up stalls selling all manner of random stuff. Strangely, several tame peacocks cohabit the area in a large pen. Perhaps, like the abby elephants, it is possible to pay a bit to go in the cage with them and feed them. They seem pretty well-kept, but there is no logical reason for them to be there.

The area around the railroad leading towards the bridge on the Kanchanaburi side has developed a cluster of stalls catering to the many visitors. Our Australian friend decided to play on his Chinese heritage with a traditional palm-leaf hat from one of the stalls. He is a med student, and will be spending the next six weeks volunteering at a refugee hospital near the border with Burma. Everyone here is much amused with him and his hat, and he hopes that his comic antics will help relieve some of his patients' inevitable fear at the clinic.

After lunch, we pedaled over to the very informative Thai Burma Railway Museum. The museum was very well laid-out with several exhibits about the events surrounding the building, and eventual dismantling, of the 'Death Railway'. The museum overlooked one of the memorial cemeteries. We found it most striking (and tragic) that a recurring theme of the museum was that careful records were kept of all the European deaths, but there was almost no evidence that could be found on the Malaysian, Indonesian, Koreans, and other Asians that died in the building of the railway, beyond that they seemed to have the worst treatment an highest death rates. Similarly, in the war cemetery next door, there are sections for Dutch, British, even American troops, but no section for the Asians, simply because their graves in the jungles couldn't be found.

We raced against time to bike to the JEATH war memorial museum on the far edge of town. That museum was really more a collection of photos and newspaper clippings kept in buildings designed to represent the camp huts in which the soldiers lived for the duration of their time on the railway. Everything was permeated with mildew, and many of the photos curled at the corners with the damp. The evident decay might have detracted from the preservation aspect of the museum, but it did bring home the harshness of the living conditions.

We stopped briefly at our guesthouse to clean up a little for dinner and to admire the view from our porch. It's hard to believe a place of such tranquility was once the scene of so much violence.

We ate dinner at a great local restaurant where Cz entertained himself by taking 'art photos' of all our friends.

We finished the night in a local bar whose main attraction was a litter of almost-new puppies. Their eyes were open, but they still wobbled on fat little legs, and fell over to sleep anywhere - frequently our laps. In addition to the puppies, the bar had several nostalgic games like Jenga and connect four. One round of Jenga proved that the laws of physics do not necessarily apply in Thai bars. Within the first few moves, the whole affair balanced on two offset rods. Somehow the game continued until it seemed nearly every layer balanced precariously on a single piece. Each of us kept pulling out pieces to make it more unstable, assuming that it wouldn't come back around, yet somehow it did. An ill-advised move by Cz about two turns after this one finally brought it tumbling down.

Day 202 - Tiger Tiger

We got up with the sun this morning to catch an early train to Kanchanaburi. As the taxi

crossed the bridge to Thonburi (the neighborhood with the train station) we were surprised at how much the bridge's silhouette resembled the silhouette of a famous Paris landmark.

The train itself, because it was a local train only offered third-class cars. The insides of the cars were painted an institutional aqua and mustard that was somehow cheerful in the way of grade school classrooms. Reinforcing the classroom feeling were the rows of wooden bench seats and the slightly musty smell of a classroom at the end of the school year - a faint combination of dust, sweat, and disinfectant. The windows, however were wide, and we passed through some very nice countryside. The Thais of this area are known as a riverine people, and we rode along several lotus-choked canals with houses perched carefully on stilts above.

We arrived in Kanchanaburi at about 11:00AM. The first guesthouse we tried was booked, but the second had rooms floating right on the river Kwai. Literally - many of the guesthouses in Kanchanaburi -this one included - rest on docks floating in the river Kwai.

By 11:30, we were settled around a shady table nursing cold beers and waiting for lunch. Incidentally, one of the top beer brands in Thailand is called "Tiger". As we sipped our Tigers, we discussed what to do for the rest of the afternoon. Aside from its rather famous bridge (yes we're on that River Kwai), Kanchanaburi is also near "The Tiger Temple", a tiger sanctuary run by Buddhist monks. Perhaps fortified by our tiger in a bottle, we decided to spend the afternoon frolicking with tigers of of the stripe-y variety.

It was a bit of a madhouse, as the tiger temple has become quite famous, and now tour buses from as far away as Bangkok make trips to visit the tigers. Despite the crowds, and being less of a temple, and more of a canyon populated with tigers and monks, it was still worth a visit. for the first part, we were escorted into the tiger area and allowed to pet the tigers. Judging from this fellow's reaction, it seems even big cats like Cz.

At 4:30, it was time for the tigers to walk up to their sleeping quarters. The youngest tiger actually got to ride piggy-back on one of keeper's backs. All the grown and half-grown cats had to walk. The younger ones were encouraged on their way by a 'cat toy' of two water bottles on a string being jiggled along in front of them. One didn't want to go in and snarled quite crossly at his handlers. He brought his point home with an impressive jet of pee on one of their shade umbrellas before allowing himself to be led up the hill. The final tiger was the largest and most docile of the group. Each of us got to take a turn walking with him and his monk towards the feeding area.

I was a little bothered that the tigers spend most of their day tethered essentially as a tourist attraction. This was alleviated somewhat because at the end of the day, they are released, and allowed to play with their handlers, the monks, and each other.

In addition to the tigers, Tiger Temple is home to a menagerie of other beasts, from a tiny bantam chickens, medium-size goats and deer, and giant oxen. I don't know how many of these other characters are destined to be tiger food, but until then, they have run of the compound and regular feedings of kibble and root vegetables.

It was hard to tear ourselves away from the animals, but our van was waiting to take us back to the guest house. we returned in time for dinner and few rounds of pool at a local bar. The local bar however, left something to be desired in the music department. When the four songs on repeat expanded to five with "Popeye the Sailor Man", we opted to pay visit to the local 7-11 (They're EVERYWHERE), and take the party home. Luckily we occupied 4 of the six rooms on our houseboat, and the other two were currently unoccupied. Otherwise there might have been some frustrated and sleepy neighbors.