Advertisement
Published: November 14th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Well hello again and welcome to the next installment of our travels!
Last time we wrote it was monsoon rain on the island of Koh Lanta and we have been up to lots since then. The rain eventually stopped after about 18 hours of torrential downpour so we spent the next few days on the island. It was nice and with good sunsets but nothing compared to where we had come from. After four days there we moved on to Koh Phi Phi where we stayed for 6 nights. We arrived early one morning, found some accommodation and settled in. The beaches were great, people friendly as ever and after spending time chilling out we took a snorkelling trip to the small sister island of Phi Phi Ley (the place where the film "The Beach" was filmed) and and snorkelled the Phi Ley wall where we saw beautiful coral and amazing tropical fish, from moray eels, puffer fish, parrot fish, and Nemo's (clown fish) before heading to "The Beach" where we chilled out and the boarded the boat to watch the sun go down! We then jumped overboard again and swam with turtles as the sun went down! Earlier in
the day we had seen some of the many caves on the island where the local Chao Ley live and harvest the famous swiftlets bird nests which are used worldwide in top chinese restaurants to make the soughtafter and expensive 'birds nest soup'! They risk life ad limb climbing to the roof of the caves on bamboo scaffolding to prise the nests from the walls! An amazing day!
The next day we were up early, (around 5am) to swim again, this time with as many black tip reef shark as we could find! We took a trip with a small group and were in the water by 7 where we swam with these beautiful and shy creatures, it was an amazing experience not to be forgotten! While in the water we were also able to swim with stingray and a shole of baracuda!
Whilst on the island we took a short longtail ride to monkey beach, a place where the local monkeys live! We hand fed them banana and played as much as we could with the friendly and greedy little locals on the beach and in the water!! V.Cool!
We eventually headed back to the mainland
where we would travel to Kanchanaburi via Bangkok courtesy of a 3 hour coach, (a 5 hour wait in the rain!), an 11 hour train, a 30 minute tuk tuk, a walk and another two hour minibus! Finally we arrived and found a great place to stay called the Jolly Frog with a lovely garden and hammocks overlooking the River Kwai! Partly made famous for its bridge - the bridge over the river kwai - and for the history that accompanys this from the 2nd World War it has been a fascinating place to be! We have been to, and walked the bridge, rode the death railway and visited hellfire pass and have also seen the war cemetry where around 4,000 of the 30,000 British soldiers who lost their lives are burried -many of which were from Cambridge, Norfolk and Suffolk - very humbling.
Other than the history of the area there has been tons to do so we took a trip to the Erawan National park and swam in the (rather cold) waters of the 7 tiered Erawan falls! We only made it to 4th tier though as this was beautiful and you could slide down the rocks
into the plunge pool at the bottom! The next day we saddled up again and took an elephant ride ......but not just 'any' elephant ride! We rode through the jungle and past the karen village where we rode our ele's into the river kwai for a wash and a scrub!! It was just the best thing ever!! We dried off and had dinner beside the river to finish the perfect day!!
The night before we took part in the annual festival of light - Loi Krathong where the spirits of the river are thanked and blessed. It is one of the most beautiful festivals in Thailand with the locals setting off glowing paper lanterns in the sky by the hundred and floating thousands of krathong (a floating lantern made from banana tree and leaves covered with flowers for decoration) down the river! We bought a lantern ourselves to float during the day and then by chance were invited to make our own by a few locals who taught us how to fold and crimp the banana leaves to decorate it! I (Ally) think i have found my niche!!
Today, our last day in kanchanaburi we visited the tiger
temple which is a sanctuary for rescued tigers and runs a breeding programme to protect the population! It was established by a famous local monk and we were able to stroke and sit with the huge powerful and beautiful animals and see the playful tiger cubs! Another unforgettable experience!
Amazing our 6 weeks in Thailand is almost at an end and we will be heading back to Bangkok and then onto Australia on Sunday (16th)! We will be really sad to leave such and amazing and vibrant place but have promised that we will be back to explore some more!
Keep in touch and will speak soon!
Ally and Alice x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.049s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0271s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb