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Published: February 17th 2007
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Chips 'Thai Style'
They are battered. I thought they only did this in Scotland??? From Bangkok we took a mini bus to Kanchanaburi site of the famous 'Bridge over the River Kwai' Another Thai travel experience, we were picked up from our Hotel (obviously expecting the mini bus to be outside!) then had to follow the guy for about 20 min, with our backpacks in about 30c heat whilst he did a tour of all the guest houses to pick everyone up. Eventually everyone was loaded in, with all the luggage and we set off. After about 30 min., we had left Bangkok and were on the highway when all of a sudden the driver turned round. Next thing we know we end up right back where we started to "pick up one more!" Only in Thailand would this happen, 11 people kept waiting to pick up and a young backpacker who missed the bus(he had overslept). It was more annoying for some Americans who were only going for the day and it was now 11am and a 2 hr drive to Kanchanaburi!
We arrived in Kanchanaburi to find that our guesthouse had not received our booking and was full, but it actually worked out well as we found a really nice place and
she gave us a discount.
On our first night we decided to go to a ‘Miniature Sound and Light show’ over the River Kwai. It was advertised with fireworks and all. We thought this would be good. We got picked up at about 18:30 and drove in the opposite direction to where the bridge was. We picked up a few more people on the way, including Fiona (who we had met in Chiang Mai) and we did not know she was in Kanchanaburi. A bit of hysteria here as we screamed ‘oh my God I didn’t know you were here!!’ When we got to the place it was not quite what we were expecting. We should have been suspicious when the guy started saying ‘you will have to use your imagination, that is really important’ - he was not kidding! We walked round to the back of this house, and they asked us to sit down. We where overlooking the river but could not see the Bridge. Admittedly it was dark about 19:30. All of a sudden music started, then some commentary, some lights and hey presto, there was the bridge lit up in all its glory. Only problem was
Our discounted room
Nice open air bathroom. All those creepy crawlies... we all started to laugh as it was a miniature Bridge. Then there was a long (not very good) American narrative about the history with highlighting prison camps, the bridge, the training crossing the bridge and for the grand finale allied bombings with tiny fireworks and the bridge was supposed to collapse (this did not happen as it was broken) So as you can imagine we were a bit disappointed! At least we met up with Fiona and we could all laugh about it together. She said she would have been totally gutted if she had been on her own!
After the farce of the light and sound show the main sights of Kanchanaburi are very sobering, obviously they are all due to the Japanese occupation of this are in WWII. There are 2 brilliant museums, one next to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery and the other one at Hellfire Pass. Hellfire Pass is really shocking when you consider that POW's carved it out with only basic tools (i.e. hammer and large drill borer) and often had to work 16 hours a day under terrible conditions with meagre food allowances.
We took a ride along the Death Railway across the
"The Sound and Light Show"
There is Minature and there is Minature. But this....too small viaduct. This was on a rickety local train with wooden seats and all the windows open. Actually it felt like something you see Michael Palin do on his travel programme.
On another day we took a long tail boat trip to the Chung Kai Cemetery. Smaller than the other one but immaculately kept, there are around 5000 plaques to the dead. Although it is very sad to read all the personal messages and to see that most of the deceased were only in their 20's the worst ones are the ones that just say "Soldier of the Allied forces - known unto God" Tragically there are a lot of these for the unidentified.
Our long tail boat then took us down to the famous "Bridge over the River Kwai"; probably the most known part of the Thai-Burma railway. This was much more impressive than the minatiure version!
We also did a trip to the Erewan Falls which is a tiered waterfall with seven falls. It was a nice hot and sunny day, and all you do is climb a hill for about 2.5km. You get to each level and there is a waterfall. It is very pretty and you
can go for a swim in most of the pools, just be careful about those little fish, they nip. The big ones were not bothered with you at all so we made it out in one piece! As you can see from the pictures we did have a go on the natural slide. Sven was straight up there and ripped his shorts, much to the amusement of two young Japanese ladies on our tour!! First time for Kersten doing something like this and I was a bit scared but enjoyed it once it was all done. The only problem with the whole thing is once you are at the top you have to start walking back down to get your lift back, so a 2.5km uphill turns into a 5km nice and sweaty round trip. At least there were plenty of stops we could make in the pools to get refreshed.
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