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Published: March 20th 2008
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Got collected at 6am in a minibus (not the comfiest but hey ho) and our first stop was at the Damnoensaduak floating market.
When we arrived we were taken on a free 15 minutes long tail boat ride around the canal way - very fun but quite scary as I was convinced that the boat was going to topple over into the river - not the stablest of things or the cleaniest of water to match!
Although we survived it we did get splashed a bit, I was more worried about my new tatoo getting wet and being infected!
After the fun ride you got the choice of either paying for a boat to take you around the proper floating market, see a snake show or just wander. Being proper budget backpackers we took the option just to wander around. The market is there really just as a tourist attraction now but it's still pretty amazing - really colourful and funny to see people selling everything, from fruit and souvenirs to full on cooked meals with big pans of frying oil and rice balancing on their small boats - that's a skill!
Next it was a bit
of a drive to the Kanchanaburi province (our driver got lost on the way and had to phone for directions) then we stopped off at some random place for lunch (looked nice but I had the bangkok belly so just sampled the rice) and then another 30 minute drive later we arived at the River Kwai Cementary.
Was so nice to see how good a condition it was kept in but so sad to read some of the gravestones, there were very few of them that were aged over 30 years old when they died - such a waste.
We then got taken to the River Kwai Museum, quite a small place and although you had to pay 40 baht entrance fee for 'maintenance', it looked like it hadn't been maintained for some time! But for 80p who cares.
This is the site where the original wooden river Kwai bridge is, the first one that they made and was later destroyed. It also had wooden statues to depict the men working back in the day, although (and I don't want to be dis-respectful) the statues were rather too life-like in some areas and the clothes they had
put on them didn't do them much courtesy!
The museum, though small, was really interesting though as I didn't know much abut the story of the River Kwai until I visited here. For those not in the know it's where the Japanese forced hundreds of thoudands of POW's to build this bridge for an easy route to Burma. Where the ideal timescale was something like 5 years, they completed it within 2 by overworking the men. Many died through starvation and exhaustion. Many more died when the Japanese learned that the allies were planning to bomb the bridge so in an attempt to stop it sent the prisoners out onto the bridge on the way of the incoming planes. Although the pilots could see the men, an order is an order and he deployed the bombs killing many more. Apparently the river was turned red for days due to the amount of blood and bodies.
The modern Bridge over the River Kwai is just around the corner from the museum and still has working trains that go over it today.
I was told that as I was wearing a redish top, I would have to buy another
as they didn't allow red or orange into the ground (they say it attracts the tigers but then someone else told us they were colour blind and only saw in black and white). To save me from being that day's lunch, I bought a good old Chang Beer T-shirt from the market from £1, so if all else fails at least I have a souvenir!
We had a quick photo op at the bridge and then being on a Thai tour (organised chaos - its great!) we were sought out and told to change to another bus that was leaving now to the Tiger Temple.
When we got to the temple, it had a sign saying clearly no bright tops - orange or red. Yet the T-shirts they were selling were bright green and Di got in wearing an iluminous yellow top - T.I.T (This Is Thailand).
The Temple is owned by monks so you have to cover up properly as in normal temples. The background is that it all started with an injured hog that someone brought to the monks to look after. They nursed it back to health then released it back into the wild,
for it then to return the next day with 10 of its mates! From then on local villages started bringing any animals that they found injured, from horses to chickens - everything. In 1999 the temple received its first tiger, a female cub had been found when poachers had killed it's mother. The cub had been sold to a wealthy Bangkok man who wanted it stuff, so sent it to a local to do it. He injected the lethal dosage, but the cub survived. The cub was in a poor condition when she came to the temple but the monks managed to nurse her back to health, unfortunatley she died a few months later from another disease. People started bringing cubs captured by poachers ever since and then the tigers started breeding, creating a lovely little family.
The grounds itself are quite big and your only allowed to visit the tigers between 1-4pm. You get a guide that takes you around the tigers where you can stroke them, but when your walking around you have to hold the guides hand - like being at school! It was so funny aswell seeing some massive western bodybuilder types holding hands with
tiny thai guides looking at tigers- made me chuckle anyhow!
Some people think that the tigers are drugged as they don't attack people, but me and di didn't think so - even though we are no experts! They tell you though that the tigers have been reared by humans since cubs so are used to contact, plus you can only see them after they have been fed and at the hottest time of the day so they are sleepy. The stroking of them is controlled as well, you are only allowed to touch them on their back. As we arrived near the end of the day (3.45pm), we could see some tigers pacing and getting restless - obviously they didn't let visitors go near these had clearly fully woken up and were ready to be taken back.
Once we had seen the big boys, we went to see the kiddy cubs who were so cute! We got to tickle their belly!
Then it was back on the coach to Bangkok. We had arranged to meet my mate V (who I knew from Santorini) in a very posh 5* hotel called the Lebua, at 64 floors it's one
of the highest buidings in Bangkok. They had a very posh bar and restaurant on the top floor - really beautiful and with a big jazz band playing as well - was well nice! The drinks prices reflected this though but we deserved a treat!
Even the toilets were lush and had loo roll with the Hotels name and emblem printed on them, so of course Diane had to steal one.
You don't get toilet paper in the Guesthouses so it has become our mission not to buy any, thankfully Diane had a large night bag that came in handy on quite a few occasions! This time we got toilet roll and she kept the packaging as a souvenir for her travel log - 2 in 1!
V then took us to another plush bar somewhere in the city, but after a cocktail we were all feeling pretty knackered (I know we're grannies, but we had been on a 12 hour day trip and V was still recovering from the night before) so we headed back at 1am.
We're off to the great JJ's weekend market tomorrow - over 1500 stalls - wow, gonna need our energy!
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