Blogs from Kanchanaburi, Western Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 4

Friday I took my first tuktuk ride from the guest house to the sky train saving me a ten min walk. It's amazing where vehicles squeeze thru in the narrow allies. I made it to the mini bus rendezvous with time to spare then waited another 30 mins to be picked up and taken by taxi half way across town to the mini bus. Wow, taxis are very cheap. Saturday I'm eating breakfast, a tasty soup with rice and probably ground pork, looking across a small canal to a field of sugar cane and the rugged hills beyond. One man is cutting cane by hand. I think all the cane is cut by hand. They were loading it into the trucks late into the night last night. The other cutters are now returning to work. Some ... read more

I awoke early, filled with excitement. Last week, my coworker asked where I was traveling for the holiday. I told her Kanchanaburi. A few hours later, she asked if I wanted to come to her family home for part of my trip. I immediately accepted. She sent a songthaew to pick me up at my guest house. (After some research she decided taking the bus might be too confusing and involve a bit of walking, so this seemed like a better plan.) She said it would take 30-45 minutes for the trip. I climbed in, eager to enjoy the sights and sounds of slightly more rural Thailand. I saw many families going to and from the market, some washing cars, but mostly people were just relaxing together. Most people who were driving were a bit confused ... read more

After almost four hours on the train we finally arrived in Kanchanaburi, the home of the Bridge Over The River Kwai, which became infamous as part of the ‘Death Railway’ given its name by allied prisoners of war, who the Japanese had made to build during world war two as they pushed on their conquest of SE Asia. So many POWs died building this railway, which started in Thailand and crossed over into Burma to the Indian border, that the prisoners themselves (mainly British and Australian) gave the name The Death Railway. There’s still a section of the railway which you can ride the train on, right up to Nam Tok from Bangkok, and this is how we had decided to get to Kanchanaburi. You can get a minibus which gets you there in half the ... read more

YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE IT, THEN GO BACK TO THE BLOG OR GO THROUGH THE PHOTOS (63 TOTAL - CLICK ON THE NUMBERS AT THE BOTTOM OR ARROWS IN TOP CORNERS) IN THAT ENLARGED FORMAT. I PUT LOTS OF INFORMATION IN THE PHOTO CAPTIONS SO YOU CAN SKIP THE NARRATIVE, JUST LOOK AT THE ENLARGED PHOTOS AND CAPTIONS AND YOU'LL STILL GET MORE INFORMATION THAT YOU EVER WANTED. TO RETURN TO THE BLOG ENTRY, JUST CLICK YOUR BACK BUTTON OR ON THE NAME OF THE BLOG, BELOW THE NUMBERS ON THE LEFT. Bangkok, Thailand, February 28 - March 2, 2013 We flew to Bangkok a few days early to acclimate and get over our jet-lag before the Jean-Pictet IHL Moot Court Competition, which began March 2. We got in late in the ... read more

Having consumed lunch we made our way back to the car and then it was off to the Elephant Sanctuary. This took about 30 minutes and the journey took us ever deeper into the rural backwaters of Thailand. We were now climbing above the plains and into the mountains that border Thailand & Myanmar (Burma) which made it so difficult to build the railway and cause so much suffering. When we arrived we were the only tourists there so without any waiting (apart from the opportunity to purchase some ripe Thai bananas - 20 Baht - approx 50p) the Mahout arrived atop the Elephant we were to ride. On her back was, what can only be described as, a garden seat sitting precariously on her shoulders. Luckily the park had provided platforms which we climbed so ... read more