Kanchanaburi part 2

---

The night market
After my blog entry yesterday Me, Stuart and Ice all jumped on Stuats ped (yes 3 of us on one motorbike which seems to be normal over here) and we headed off to a night market to get some food, look around and just see where the night takes us.
We got to the market and grabbed a bite to eat - once again my zero tolerance for spice meant that the very small amount of spice on my rice actually felt like my mouth was on fire! Not only that but because the chicken I had still had all its bones my mouth was a complete mess.
After my lovely meal we headed into the market. It was boiling hot, full of people but really quite exciting. The first thing that caught my eye was the stall selling swords, knives, tasers, guns and other weapons! I honestly didn't know what to think.. the fact you can just walk down your local market and pick up a nice revolver and a taser for 1000 bhat each (20 pounds) really is a scary thought.
Anyway I took a couple of photos and watched an English guy buy a taser and discuss how he was going to get it back into the UK.. He thinks posting it back is the best way! Ok mate... good luck with that!

Then we bought some ice cream which at this point was exactly what I needed because I was so hot! I had chocolate of course.. only 20p!
We wondered around for a while, found a temple in the middle of the market, found a stall selling rabbits in clothes, hedgehogs and birds, loads of clothes stalls selling t-shirts for like 80p, jewelery stalls selling various things - mostly this market was quite normal. Me and Stuart were the only foreigners there though! I bought a t-shirt and a weird tie and a keyring, the t-shirt is really nice, the tie says Milo on it which reminds me of Malaysia and the keyring was just too cheap to leave behind!

When we got to the other side of the market we heard quite alot of music coming from round the corner and thought we would check it out.
When we got there it was like a fun fare and a huge stage with a band on with dancers and stuff!! Looked amazing. We played a shooting game at a stand which was good fun and then just stood around watching the show.
After all of that we headed back on the ped but first stopped off at another smaller market.
Something quite strange happened there actually. A very convincing ladyboy who was friends with Ice and Stuart was running one of the stalls (honestly i didn't realise it was actually a man at first but when he laughed it kind of gave it away) and we decided to stop and have a chat... whilst we were chatting, apparently a guy who was standing near by made a comment about me and expressed quite an interest but if that wasn't bad enough, the ladyboy told the guy that he was to late as I was his/her boyfriend!!! Honestly i was speechless.. I did laugh about it alot on the way home though.
So yeah was an eventful night!!
We headed off back to the guesthouse, got some water and stuff then headed off to sleep. 😊

The epic road trip to Erawan National Park Waterfalls

So today me and Stuart embarked on an incredible 63km road trip on a mo-ped to the Erawan Waterfalls!! It was fantastic!!
We started off this morning by getting some pre road trip food, then dropped of some laundry and then headed off on our adventure!
The drive there was great fun, all the locals waving at us as they overtook or in some but rare cases when we overtook, gorgeous mountain views, fantastic weather, perfect for a road trip.
We stopped off at a temple to take some snaps, a monk actually offered us a place to sleep in exchange for some work!! So friendly these people.
We drove onto a farmers land to get a closer look at some of the mountains (was a little scared of being shot at but was worth it).
Past a couple of military barracks, i waved enthusiastically at one of the armed soldiers but he just glared back very unimpressed. We stopped off at a dam which was just incredible, a huge lake on one side and a river flowing on the other, an amazing sight. Took some photos along the way, shame I couldn't photograph everything but I took quite a few.
The trees were a perfect colour, they formed a canopy above the road to shade us from the pounding sun.. locals sat and watched in the wooden huts and shanty homes as we raced past (at about 40-60km an hour.. which actually is quite fast)

We arrived at the checkpoint into the Erawan national park about 2 hours later, paid our entry fee and drove to the car park. When I got off the ped i burnt myself on the exhaust... really hurt actually for most of the day 😞 Its probably gonna leave a mark to be honest... at least i was spending most of the day in water!
We walked quite a trek up the mountain and stopped at the 7 tiers of the waterfall to have a splash.. even the monkeys came down to say hello which was sweet!
The fish in the pools nibbled away at my toes and legs which was a very unusual experience... the water was so deep you could dive from extreme heights and still not touch the bottom. We climbed higher and higher until an army man said we could go no further (at tier 5) which was a shame as we had trekked so far. The pools were beautiful though, slides formed on the rocks through thousands of years of erosion creating a perfect playground, a natural water theme park.

The time came where we had to leave but the day was a good one!
The journey home wasn't quite as amazing as the one up here because it decided to poor down with rain. We did race a bus however which was very funny, I motivated Lacey (thats what i called the mo-ped) with cheers at her success of climbing steep hills and continuing to keep the bus behind us but eventually we had to give in and let her rest.
We stopped at a small market just out of town to grab a bite to eat and a much needed drink, also my feet had gone numb from the vibrations of the peddles and so had my bum so having a stop was good.
We got back into Kanchanaburi, stopped near some of the old steam engines to take some photos and have a little look and finally arrived back at the guesthouse.

The end of the day

I went and had a shower whilst Stuart and Ice went to get my food which we ordered (i had Pad Thai which is a mixture of noodles, egg, prawns, bean sprouts, peanuts and some other things) and they also bought back my laundry.
That's basically it! Quite a good couple of days. Can't believe I've been here nearly 2 weeks! I am really enjoying it though!

Speak soon

(Happy 18th Birthday Kim, love you lots)

Night!

---