Kanchanaburi

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2nd December 2007

We dragged ourselves out of bed this morning to go on a crazy trip....well, everywhere it seems! Our first stop was Damneon Saduak floating market. Hundreds of canal boats full of fresh produce battle down khlongs selling what ever they can to tourists, or trading with other traders in the nearing boats. It is probably one of the most visited of Bangkok’s tourist sites and after we spent half the day taking postcard perfect photographs and buying things we understood why.

We then headed to what we thought was Erawen falls?! However we later realised that our driver had taken us to the wrong waterfall and we still don't know what waterfall. Either way it was beautiful and quite frankly, I didn't care. The waterfall itself was full of kids all in their school uniforms, jumping in. It was a Sunday however so it became apparent they hadn't just come from school. After much deliberating we decided it was like wearing your Sunday best, after all Thailand isn't the wealthiest of countries so a school uniform to them is probably their best attire. We were the only tourists at the waterfall as well and we got some strange

Tiger temple, Kanchanaburi
looks as we messed around in the water. One Thai lady actually took a picture of Matt and I, which was a bit strange, can't say I didn't feel special though!

Next was the highlight of the day, the tiger temple in Kanchanaburi. They allow you in an enclosure with five different Tigers. The tigers are all chained up and have been trained since they were born so they are all very well behaved but there is nothing like the feeling you get when you sit next to and stroke those tigers, it is amazing! While we were waiting to go into the enclosure one of the trainers was actually explaining about how the tigers will always pick out the weakest of the group to attack so not to make ourselves a target by singling ourselves out. Just at this second a little boy all of about 5 years old walked out of the group and stood on his own totally oblivious of the fully grown male tiger licking his lips, eyes fixated on what he hoped was his dinner! It was fascinating to see, if not a bit worrying for the little boy!

The next stop was the bridge over the river Kwai, what a cultural and historical day! The bridge was constructed in 1942 by Japanese POW'S and completed in 1943. It was built to join Burma and Thailand so the Japanese could supply their front line troops in Burma. It was built over the Kwai Yai river, which was renamed the river Kwai in 1960 and was supposed to take five years to build because of the terrible conditions, but ended up taking 16 months. Approximately 30,000 British, 18,000 Dutch, 13,000 Australian and 700 American soldiers worked on the construction of the bridge and approximately 16,000 of those soldiers died of disease and freak accidents. Another 200,000 Asians were forced to work on the bridge, 80,000 of who lost their lives. Both the wooden and the steel bridges were subject to bombings from allied forces between December 1944 and June 1945. Most of the bridge was ruined by bombings but an 80-mile stretch through Thailand still operates.

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