KANCHANABURI

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MONDAY 12TH MARCH 2007
I decided to try and forget the tourist shop incident and make the most of the tour, assuming i was actually going where I had asked. After much confusion the mini bus eventually arrived and off we went to Kanchanaburi. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and got the worst place in the front of this ancient mini bus with my legs crushed. I couldn't sleep as I'd planned and feared for my life during most of the trip. At one point the steering wheel was dropping to bits and the driver was trying to fix it while driving along the motor way. When we eventually arrived we went to see a POW graveyard, then we were dropped off at the worst museum ever. There were some bizarre random relics with no real significance (including a dentists chair 'from the war', outfits and photos of past 'Miss Thailand' contests, an old VW beetle and some unidentifiable specimens...bearing in mind this was supposed to be a war museum) apparently there is a good one in another part of the town and the one we saw was just for tourists. We then saw the Bridge over the River Kwai, which just looked like a relatively normal bridge (it's not the same as the one in the film apparently) It was quite scary walking over it as there were huge gaps to the river below and not a lot of space! We also went on the death railway, there was some pretty cool scenery and going over a huge old wooden bridge was quite scary as bits seemed to be dropping off as we went along! We had lunch on a raft house next to the river which was nice. We also went to a waterfall with a pool below it, which was great to stand under and swim in to cool down. The place I stayed in was great - it was a raft house on an elephant camp by the river kwai! I also had such luxuries as a HOT shower, TV and air con! WOW!

TUESDAY 13TH MARCH
The next morning we got up really early and went into the river to wash the elephants! It was quite scary riding the elephants as the river bank was really steep. But they were very slow and careful. After breakfast we went elephant trekking which was nice and relaxing. The elephant had bad eyesight and the boy had to tell him where there were mangos which had fallen from the trees. Later we went on a bamboo raft down the river kwai, then over a crazy bridge with huge gaps in it. After that we went to a tiger temple. It was a bit of an odd set up queing up to get a photo with them, some people say they're drugged, they did seem very sleepy, but the woman assured me they weren't. There were also lots of other animals wandering around in the grounds.

WEDNESDAY 14TH MARCH
I can't remember half of this day...but in the afternoon we went to Erawat Waterfalls - basically 7 different waterfalls in the jungle - each one higher up. We didn't have a lot of time and it was quite a trek getting up there so we didn't actually manage to see the last couple of waterfalls. Although this was partly because our way was blocked by a big family of vicious monkeys who were attacking people who went by. One couple said they put their bag down and turned round to see monkeys opening them and dragging them away. We decided it wasn't worth risking being bitten by wild monkeys and headed back to swim in the first pool to cool down.

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Photos

me with thai family
Thais often want me to be in their pictures - maybe because I'm big and white! (although not so white now!)