In Kanchanaburi

---

---

We arrived in Kanchanaburi on 22nd June. Leaving Bangkok immediately after writing the previous entry, we got a taxi to Thonburi, an old district of Bangkok on the other side of the Chao Phrayaa.

An interesting note - did you know that the word "Bangkok" doesn't exist in Thai ? In Thai the capital is somewhat optimistically named Krung Thep, or "City of Angeles". Bangkok is apparently the deformation of the name of a place somewhere around Thonburi. Try Googling "full name of Bangkok" and you'll see it's quite a mouthful.

Anyway, we get to Thonburi. Thonburi makes Ekamai look like the epitome of organisation and calm. The atmosphere is bonkers. Touts try to drag us on to their buses assuming we want to go to Koh Samui or somewhere on the Andaman Coast. Evading them we make our way laden with our packs to the main covered area where the Bor Kor Sor or Government Bus Company tickets are sold. There's a bus to Kanchanaburi every 30 minutes or so. The journey is expected to take anywhere between two and three hours, and it's about 12.30pm. With Alex guarding the packs by the Kanchanaburi stop, I head off to find us some lunch. It doesn't take long to find a bewildering array of food stalls offering a fantastic variety of snacky things and tempting tidbits. I settle on a nice-looking lady wearing a green football shirt (a Thai team ??) - she is selling gai yaang and khao niaw - grilled meat and sticky rice. Typical food from the Isaan region of northeastern Thailand. Two skewers each of grilled pork and grilled chicken leg and two little bags of sticky rice set me back 50B, or about 80p. I carry this back to Alex. Before we tuck in I carry the bags to the bus and a very nice man from Bor Kor Sor loads them up for me. We install ourselves on the bus - it's quite busy and we are the only farangs on board. The lunch is glorious. As the bus pulls out of Thonburi we look back at the lady in her green football shirt and wish we'd bought more.

The bus is filled with all sorts. Schoolgirls, a businessman, grandmothers with granchildren, and the ubiquitous Thai monk ! The monk sits in the front row and the seat next to him is left empty as per usual. Halfway through the trip a man sits next to him and that's OK, but custom would forbid a woman to do so. Even the Company employee who goes round checking tickets puts his ticket on the neighbouring seat for him to pick up !

We are heading some 200km or so Northwest of Bangkok in the direction of Burma. There isn't so much countryside and we pass some large towns, some small. The route we are following is parallel to that of the Death Railway, built over 60 years ago by Allied PoWs and Asian Labourers. More on that later.

We arrive in Kan (what the locals call Kanchanaburi) at about 2.30pm. Outside the bus terminal a man says he has a taxi and can take us into town to our little guesthouse (that I booked from Bangkok this morning). Fair enough. Except, the "taxi" turns out to be a cycle rickshaw. Eek ! The driver says it's OK and starts suspending my 25kg-pack on the back of his trishaw. I explain as politely as I can (this is where Thai is useful) that I have doubts as to how our packs will stay on. He also seems to ignore the fact that the passenger seat is barely wide enough for me - and I'm proud to say by bottom is not that wide. We diplomatically move to a sorngthaew or pick-up truck, which gets us to the hotel in a few minutes. From the hustle and bustle of the station area we move to a lovely quiet and leafy district along the Mae Nam Khwae, the River Kwai (in Thai the word rhymes with "air" not "why").

---

Photos

Gai Yaang
"What on Earth are you doing ?" Alex asks as I snap her tucking into a delicious marinated chicken leg. We haven't left Thonburi station yet - there's another bus in the background at the neighbouring stop.