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Published: February 29th 2012
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Buddha's head
One of the temples in Ayuthaya is famous for having a Buddha's head in amongst the tree roots - nobody really knows how it got there. Decided to sit down and write this entry as we are currently in the middle of a thunderstorm so there isn’t much else to do!
After getting Holly back fromLaos, we spent one night in Ayuthaya, visiting all the temples that the old capital ofThailandhas to offer its tourists. There were some very spectacular sights, particularly the first temple that we saw at sunset on our first day there. Unfortunately, Ayuthaya is one of the places that was worst affected by the flooding back when I first arrived in Thailand and much of the area of the temple was sectioned off as the authorities are still not sure quite how much damage has been caused. All the water has obviously gone now, but there may be unknown structural damage. It was a bit of a disappointment that we weren’t allowed to roam in and around the temples, but they were certainly magnificent from afar. However, both Holly and myself now feel that we are all templed out!
After that we headed to Kanchanaburi, home of the bridge over the River Kwai. I have had this on my list of places to visit ever since I
Commonwealth War Cemetery
A plague commemorating a solder from the Royal Engineers who died in Kanchanaburi. first came out here so was very pleased to be able to get there at last and I wasn’t disappointed! We were only going to stay three nights, but, as there was so much we wanted to do, ended up staying a fourth. We arrived on Thursday evening and didn’t much feel like doing anything as it was pretty late and we’d done a lot of travelling. Instead, we just had dinner and a wander out around the town. There is just one main road with lots and lots of ex-pat bars in it, we could have been anywhere butThailand! Our second day, Friday, was a little busier, with visits to theWorldWarTwoMuseumand theCommonwealthWarCemetery. We were a little disappointed with the museum as it was less about Kanchanaburi during the war and more about Japanese items that were used – Japan invaded Kanchanaburi and forced Prisoners of War (and Asian Labourers) to build the Thailand-Burma Railway, which is why the bridge over the River Kwai and Hellsfire Pass – the most dangerous railway cutting through the rocks – are so famous. The cemetery was an incredible sight to see, though. There were nearly 7,000 graves there, all from Commonwealth or Dutch
Elephant ride!
Holly and I are definitely riding this elephant...in case you can't tell!! forces. It broke my heart in so many ways, as well as making me very proud to be British – not that I need an excuse to be patriotic, I know!
Saturday was our busiest day yet as we went on an organised tour. It included a visit to a waterfall to start the day (at 8am), then we got to walk down to Hellsfire Pass as well as visiting a little museum about it. It was quite a walk with hundreds of steps down, that obviously had to be revisited on the walk back up – my calves were definitely reminding me I haven’t done any exercise for five months after that! Lunch was a little buffet type Thai meal with the other people on our tour, two women and a man who were all fromAustralia. It was very nice: rice, noodles, omelette, green curry and sweet and sour chicken. After that it was time to meet our next mode of transport – elephants! Yes, that’s right, I have now ridden an elephant! It was amazing the animals were so calm with us on their backs. At the end of the ride I even sat on one of their front legs and had my photo taken, before being hoisted up onto his back without the seat, for another photo opportunity. Definitely an experience not to be missed if anyone else ever comes toThailand. The elephants took us down to a river where we picked up bamboo rafts; literally pieces of bamboo rafted together. Holly didn’t want to paddle so I was given a stick and told to stand at the front of the raft and go! Luckily there was an experienced paddler at the back who, I suspect, did most of the work, but it was essentially my job to make sure the front of the raft didn’t crash into anything. I failed on several occasions…The final stop of the day was at the famous bridge. There isn’t anything to do other than walk across it and back again, but it’s a little piece of history that is not to be missed.
After all this, despite being exhausted, we managed to stay up until the small hours of the morning watchingEnglandvWalesin the Six Nations. I’m not sure it was worth it but I could never have forgiven myself if I didn’t see it. Sunday was a much quieter day, with just a visit to theJEATHWarMuseum. The name JEATH is an acronym of the countries involved in the war at Kanchanaburi:Japan,England, Australia/America,Thailand,Holland. Whilst it was small and mainly contained photographs of the POWs working on the railway, it was also nice to see clippings from people who had come back to the area once the war was over and to see that, whilst many thousands of people died, thousands also survived and had very successful lives and careers after being released.
Yesterday, we did the longest journey of our trip. From Kanchanaburi we took a four hour bus journey toBangkok. We actually thought we might miss our train as it didn’t take four hours on the way there and, though we had left five hours thinking we had plenty of time, it was a bit tight by the time we were sat in our train seats! At 7:30pm the train leftBangkokand headed for Surat Thani overnight, where we arrived at just about 9am this morning. Not much sleep was had on the train so I got a few hours in on the bus from Surat Thani to Krabi, where we caught a boat over toRaileyBeach. Railey is on the mainland but can only be reached by boat. It’s much more expensive than either of us were expecting and we are staying on the busy, ugly and (slightly) cheaper side of the beach. However, we arrived about 1pm, found a little hut to stay in overnight and walked a whole five minutes to a beautiful beach and laid there all afternoon! The thunderstorm has been very exciting but if it carries on much longer I will start to feel a little claustrophobic as the rain is far too heavy for us even to contemplate going down to the bar at the moment!
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