Day two in Kanchanaburi

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Sweltering hot day
Rumour: Forty one degrees
My arms are sweating!

Since we did not follow the original itinerary as planned we had quite a few activities that lay before us on our 2nd day of our tour.

First it was a "walk" through the "forest" that was located behind the C&C Jungle huts. To me it seemed at first like we were taking the two dogs out for a walk. I guess it didn't help that the person leading us on our walk did not speak English. Details. haha The area was quite dry...I'm not sure the last time this area has seen rain. Just a short 30 minute walk and we were all dripping with sweat. Yucks! Thank goodness they provided us with free drinking water the entire stay. I think on this day I must have had at least 3 or 4 litres of water to drink...no joke.

After replenishing some fluids we headed to the Lake for our raft ride. Basically we all sat on the raft that was pulled by a long tail motorboat. This ride took us close to the highway where we met our songtheaw that took us to our next destination...a cave. The main attraction here was an image that looked like a Chinese Goddess. The tour guide kept asking me if I knew who she was talking about and I had no clue...but in the end after asking me 5 or 6 times I said, "oh yeah, she looks and sounds familiar..."

By about10:30 we were off and running to the Elephant camp where we went on another elephant ride. It wasn't any more exciting than the ride I had last week but it was still pretty fun. This place wasn't as nice as the Conservation Centre but the elephants looked well taken care of so I was happy to see that. They of course took our picture on the elephant so that we could buy a souvenir photo. But this time it wasn't in a nice frame...it was plastered to a souvenir plate. So as you can probably guess, I didn't pick up that souvenir! Besides, I was sitting next to a stranger and our elephant trainer was kind enough to take some pics on my camera for me.

By this time we were all ready for lunch and more water. We had lunch near the Sai Yok waterfall. Not much water there at the moment...more of a trickle but they still allotted 20 minutes to us to enjoy it before heading to the Tiger Temple. Yep, I touched a tiger! I was a bit nervous at first but they were pretty gentle and not moving about so I am happy to report I still have all of my limbs. haha It seems a bit touristy to be able to pet the tigers but the monks are allowing this so that they can raise monies to build proper living dens for the tigers.

If seeing the tigers wasn't enough, we were still in for an "exciting" train ride on the Death Railway. Okay, it wasn't all that exciting. It was just damn hot waiting for the train to come. Not very often that you see sweat dripping off of your arms is all I'll say...really put the pit stick to the test. haha The train ride was pretty uneventful save the pancake seller walking up and down the train trying to sell pancakes…seemed a bit out of place to me.

Then it was time to say goodbye to the "one nighters" and hello to eight new people. We stayed over at the Jungle huts again and spent the evening playing cards. I think it was called Westie where you try and guess how many "tricks" you're gonna win. (I think this is the card game that Kelly taught to me and Sanyee last summer.)

Wonder what day three of my tour will be like??

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