SE Asia 2014 Day 20

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Up early, because we have a busy itinerary today. Breakfast at hotel, which features a nice spread that includes creamy scrambled eggs and "Canadian bacon", which we haven't see before on this trip,

We head west out of Bangkok on the bus. Much of the trip is reminiscent of the 401: 4 lanes of traffic on each side, plus collector lanes. Speeds, too, are approaching 100 km/hr. We notice that many of the buses and transport trucks are garishly painted, either in traditional Thai patterns or in western-influenced themes. The land is getting progressively flatter. We are entering on of Thailand's main agricultural districts. At a rest stop, we are amazed by the giant pumelos for sale, the size of basketballs.

We enter the town of Damnoen Saduak. This city is crisscrossed by canals, which Wat tells us were built at the command of the king to ensure efficient irrigation. The canals have homes along them interspersed with shops. At a certain time of the day, boats come out on the waterways to create a floating market. Potential customers must themselves board boats to visit the shops, some on shore and some floating.

We are loaded into sampans, 4 to a boat. Our driver uses a single paddle to expertly manoeuvre us through the crowded and sometimes narrow canals. He knows no English but occasionally points things out to us and presumably talks about them in Thai. We spy a man on the shore with two huge pythons, one albino, available for picture taking for the right price. As we cruise by, once again we have a window seat to the daily lives of the people who dwell beside the canals. Their homes are small and simple. They use the water for washing clothes and dishes and probably other things we don't want to know about. Our driver steers us to certain shops right alongside the water, presumably through prior arrangements. The proprietors have hooks to pull the boats in closer in order to peddle their wares, but it's mostly brica-brack that we have seen before. Quite a backup at the disembarkation point, with sampans like ours and motorized vehicles jockeying for position. Important to keep your hands in the boat, because there are collisions.

Another hour's journey on the bus brings us to location that was not on our itinerary but highly interesting: Kanchanaburi, the location of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai. If you've seen the movie, you probably remember the main lines of the story. A group of British soldiers, captured by the Japanese in the early years of World War II, are forced to build a bridge over a river. The Japanese aim was to build a route through the jungle to Burma as a launching pad to India. Hollywood got an important detail wrong: the river in question is named Mae Klong, although the real river Khwae is nearby. In addition, the bridge was bombed out by Allied forces, not blown up by hand as in the movie.

As we near the bridge, we pass through the town of Kanchanaburi. There are two large cemeteries of war dead, one with mostly allied POWs (British, Australian, and apparently two Canadians) and another for the Chinese. Most of the dead perished during the building of the nearby bridge. On arriving at the bridge, we have the opportunity to cross it on foot. The construction is mostly original; just the bombed-out middle span has been replaced. The bridge is in good shape, with very little rust, impressive in this muggy tropical climate. A tourist train carries people across the bridge as well, but it is slow-moving and one need only step onto a platform as it passes by.

We have lunch within sight of the bridge on a covered patio that is stiflingly hot despite electrical fans and a warm breeze off the river. Have I mentioned how ungodly hot it is here? There's simply no way that someone of my background could tolerate living here. And this is not even the hottest season!

An interesting tidbit is that the plates we eat from are Ikea, made in Thailand. Meal highlight is Tom Kha soup.

Our final stop of the day is to an elephant camp for an elephant ride at the Wang Po elephant camp. This is handled production-line style. Within five minutes of exiting the bus, we are on the back of an elephant in a gondola. Our friendly beast is named Boon Ploom (at least that's what we hear), which Wat tells us later means "big karma."

Our mahout is a cheerful young man with a blue plastic plug in one earlobe. He sings mangled English pop songs as we amble along, clearly understanding nothing of the words. When we reach a precipitous downward path, he turns to us, grins, and says "oh my god," as he has heard countless previous passengers exclaim. We survive the descent and plunge into the river, deep enough that my feet are just above the surface. Back on land, our mahout borrows my camera and fires off probably 100 shots. (I weed them out later.) Then our ride is over and we are herded back onto the bus. We enjoyed seeing and riding elephants again, but we much preferred our experience in Chang Mai, when we spent an entire day with the elephants and their handlers and learned so much about them.

A long three-hour bus trip back to Bangkok. Everyone dozes off. When we reach Bangkok proper, Wat happily tells us that the traffic on the main bridge into the city is unusually light. Of course, he should have kept his mouth shut, because five minutes later we run into gridlock. We spend perhaps 45 minutes literally inching along. Eventually, to doubleback to our hotel on the opposite side of the divided road, the driver has to execute a 180° turn. It would be a huge challenge in a bus our size at the best of times, but in this traffic it is almost impossible. It takes at least 10 minutes just to complete the turn. By this time, Kien is suggesting that we just get out and walk, but the traffic finally thins enough to allow us to reach our destination.

We have a couple of hours for freshen-up until we board the bus again for dinner, which tonight is at an authentic, "real life" Thai restaurant. Although we are served some interesting dishes, such as steamed clams and cockles, and crab curry with the whole crab in its shell, it is too warm in the restaurant and the food too weird for us westerners.

Later a group of us decide to head out on our own to visit one of Bangkok's premier night shopping venues, called Asiatique. Located on the banks of the river, the huge building filled with shops and restaurants is dominated by the enormous ferris wheel we saw yesterday on our boat cruise. In the centre of the complex is a Christmas display, complete with decorated tree, a snowman, etc. These people have no idea that water has an additional state beyond steam and liquid.

After haggling over the price, we hire a van cab to take us back to the hotel. The driver is a hoot. He keeps offering to take us to other places: a crocodile show, a nightclub, even (I understood correctly) his own house, laughing uproariously when we insist no, just back to the hotel, please. He asks us when we are going after Bangkok. When we tell him Koh Samui, he says he can drive us there, too! Quite a character having a little bit of fun with us. We give him a tip that brings the price back pretty close to what he asked, just because we enjoyed his personality so much.

Back in our rooms, we repack to get ready for departure tomorrow. The formal part of the trip is over already. Tomorrow we will say goodbye to Wat, Kien, and half our group. Only eight of the sixteen are moving on to Koh Samui.

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