~Kanchanaburi~

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24th February

So, after barely a nights sleep in Bangkok, we were off to kanchanaburi! When I say we barely slept, I mean it!! We opted for a room in chada without ac, worse mistake ever. The pocksy fan on the ceiling was basically pushing the hot air round and round our room. The windows couldn't be opened for two reasons: 1. Our room backed on to kho san road (the noisiest road in the world) and 2. There were no mosquittos nets so we'd get eaten alive. So after boiling ourselves to sleep, we woke up at 5:30 for the best cold shower I've ever had! We couldn't use the shower on our floor as some delightful had been sick filling up the sink, the toilet and all over the floor. We checked out with the moody, non-responsive person who could have been a man or a woman - anyone's guess!!

Sitting on the street of Kho San road at 6:45 was interesting, watching the poor little lady sweep up the street and some eager shop keepers setting up their shops. The taxi and tuk tuk drivers were still their usual pushy selves. In the end we didn't leave Bangkok until 8am (an hour late) but this was Thailand where there is barely a concept of time!

Chris and I slept most of the way to kanchanaburi. Around three hours later we arrived at the Allied War Cemetary. Unfortunately we only stopped there for 20 mins which was no where near long enough to walk around the graves of the Dutch and British prisoners of war who died building the railway and the bridge over the river kwai. Before long we were shunted back onto the minibus for a 5 min drive to the bridge. We walked across the bridge and saw a train go across the bridge. We walked across the bridge and then had an ice cream. We were sat there when a train went across the bridge which was pretty cool.

Back on the minibus we drove and drove till we got to a floating place where we had lunch. This actually was where we were to sleep! A whole bunch of bamboo and planks of wood somehow linked together and kept mostly in one place. Everytime a longboat went past the whole place rocked. The part of the kwai it was on was pretty impressive, very wide and fast flowing. Lunch was rice and chicken. Then off to Soi Yok Noi waterfall - pretty, but heaving. The problem of being on a tour... Is you go to the touristy bits! Best thing about the hill tribe trek was being the only few at a waterfall.

Afterwards we all got back in the minibus which was matter of chopping and changing quite a lot -I think we travelled on 5 different minibuses. We were all sat on the bus, waiting for the driver. When he got on a Frenchman piped up and said "you should wait for us, not the other way round" - everyone on the bus was shocked! Weren't that agressive 70 years ago were they! We took a 20min ride on the death railway and over a bridge (not THE bridge), back on the bus and to the floating place.

We got shown our room which had twin beds in it, but did have it's own bathroom and fan. You could see the river flowing beneath the bathroom floor. For dinner we had some rice and chicken again, tasty! Afterwards we chatted to Olga (spanish girl) and Mika (Dutch girl) and played cards with two Isrealis. We went to bed pretty early not really having a clue what the plan was the next day!

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25th February

We had a pretty good night's sleep,at least compared to Bangkok! Breakfast was toast, cold scrambled eggs and a banana - I was so hungry I didn't care what it was!

After much confusion, we were told that we would be going to erawan waterfall today and doing the rafting and elephant riding the following day - not as planned! We got onto the minibus (yes another minibus) for a long drive to Erawan National Park. (This was the reason I wasted to come to Kanchanaburi - to go to this park so I was very excited!) We arrived at around 10am and were told that we would need to be back for 1pm and it was a good 40 min walk only to the top of the waterfalls. A whole day would have been better...oh well. So we decided to leg it to the top of the falls and then do the leisurely stroll and swimming in the pools coming down. We had just one stop at the 4th tier on the way up. Now, we had been told not to touch the monkeys and had seen signs warning about keeping your belongings safe, but nothing could have prepared us for what happened...

I was putting my hair up watching people take pictures of all the monkeys in the trees when all of a sudden a monkey came down the tree, up Chris' back and nicked the crisps out from the front of his bag where they were slotted in between the elastic. It took them, then went back up into a tree and started eating them! Chris did not see the funny side of it and wanted to get away from them!

We made it up to the 7th tier, but a guy walking back down said beware of the monkeys as they had stolen his wallet so Chris was a bit scared to stop there! We tried to stop a bit further down between the 6th and 7th tier, but the monkeys looked like they were about to ambush us so we made our way back to the 4th where there were plenty and people.

We jumped into the pool off a rock and swam in the crystal clear water. It was so much clearer than any of the pools in Chiang Mai and there were fish all around. They nibbled at your feet so it was just like having a fish massage again! There were some really smooth rocks that were being used as slides so we had a go on that before we had to head back to the minibus. We walked back taking photos as we went. We came to a really spectacular waterfall, but unfortunately only had time for photos and not a swim 😞 - another reason to come back and NOT do a tour! 😊

After lunch, we drove back to the same waterfall that we had been to the day before for some minibus sorting. We told that as we weren't doing the Tiger Temple we would just go back to the Floating House and spend the afternoon there. However, our guide guy told us that we could stay at the waterfall if we wanted so we opted for that instead - at least we could go for a swim! He said he would pick us up at '5 oh no I mean 4...' We had a swim in the waterfall, bought some traditional Thai sweet, dried fruit and had a drink. At 3:15 we spotted our guide and thought it was time to go so we finished up our ice creams and went back to where we saw him and he had gone! Luckily when we returned to that spot at 4 he was there! And off we went back to the Floating House.

We had a good evening eating the same food as the previous night. We got talking to some of the other people there. We exchanged travel stories and tips and of course exchanged Facebook names! Lol

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26th February

Normal breakfast bar the banana - didn't quite fancy cold scrambled egg so just went for the toast. Shortly after breakfast we were all given fetching orange life jackets and told to hop on a bamboo raft which was tied to the Floating House. This bamboo raft was different from the ones in Chiang Mai - they were alot more sturdy and raised slightly from the water. They also had a seat this in the middle. Our raft was attached to another raft and tugged up the river by a longboat. When we got a little way up, we were detached from the boat and the current did the rest. A Thai man was our "driver" and he was well equipped with the one oar! He joked about going for a swim in the river and then just like that he dived in and didn't surface for around a minute - no doubt in an attempt to scare us. Apparently according to him the water was 7 metres deep - and god only knows what was lurking down there!

After rafting, we got the minibus to an elephant place called Elephant Love Camp. The camp looked very run down, not like the ones we had previously been to. All the elephants were chained up, probably just waiting for the next tourist to take a ride on them. We had a 35 year old male elephant with big tusks. His mahout was called Ton and was very friendly and informative about the elephants. We went for a 40 minute or so ride on the elephant and then hopped back in the minibus for the next stop - Helnlfire Pass Museum.

We arrived at the museum which was very informative about the building of the Burma-Siam raiway. It was shocking (I was completely unaware of this part of WW2 until visiting the bridge and the museum) There was a walk of 4km near the museum which trailed through Hellfire Pass which was where some of the railway had been built - the men had to cut through the rock to lay the track. We walked a little way along the track, but it was quite rockly for simple flipflops so we turned back.

Lunch was had back at the Floating House where there were loads and loads of people - no doubt the next wave of tours. After unch, it was time to head (I would say home, but away...) We put our bags on one minibus knowing ful well that we'd have to change buses! We got to Saynok waterfall which seemed to be the general meeting place for swapping minibuses and were told to get of the bus and we would leave in 15 mins.

Half an hour later we were on a minibus bound for Nakhon Pathom to get our train to Surranthani. However, we got as far as the Tiger Temple and were told that there was something wrong with the minibus steering (this was aftr we had been overtaking every vehicle on the roads!)

We arrived at Nakhon Pathom 2 hours early so I left Chris with the bags and went for a wander nearby the station. Immediately I saw a 7/11 which are absolutely everywhere in Thailand. I walked along the streets with all the Thai people stopping to stare at me. I walked through a fish market in search of a noodle stand - it just felt like I shouldn't have been there! I went back to a chicken skewer stand and probably made the lady's day by buying 4!

A few card games later, our train arrived. It was a fan carriage instead of AC. A tiny bit hot, but had a few hours sleep.

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