Thailand - Kanchanaburi

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We had a really early pick-up from our hotel to head off to Kanchanaburi, which is where all our activities start 😊
We had our first experience of a hole in the floor for a toilet on the way! We stopped off at a service station and it wasn't pretty!
The first stop for our activities was a Second World War Memorial where there were headstones for people from England, Australia, New Zealand, America & Holland. So sad reading the messages on the headstones. We then headed to a War Museum where we walked the bridge over the River Kwai. So scary! Really big rickety bridge and the only space to walk was about a ft in width plank. When there's loads of people going in both directions, it's quite scary trying to dodge eachother! A train then started to come! I didn't realise it was a bridge that was still in use. It was going really slow though, so we had enough time to get off the bridge rather than wait on a tiny platform on the side while it goes passed! On our way back to the minibus, a guy was standing with a tiger cub in a cage, was the cutest thing! He let the cub out of the cage & put a collar around him which was attached to the table & fed him a milk bottle!
After the River Kwai, we finally went to where we had to drop our bags off which was near where we were staying. We had lunch here and then headed to Tiger Temple! The tigers were huge. It was lovely to get to stroke the tigers and be so close to them, but they were so drugged, it was awful. I thought they were completely just trained by the monks, but it would turn out not! We all had our pics taken with all the tigers and then we walked around the temple a little while and saw some smaller tigers. At one point, we saw the monks taking one of the smaller tigers into a back room, we're guessing because he started to come around, the tiger started to fight a little bit and didn't want to go into the room, we then saw a monk inject him & seconds later, he was so dosile. Very sad. As the temple was run by monks, we had to cover up, wearing trousers passed the knees & tops to cover our shoulders. We were sweltering in the 35degree heat!
We were then taken back to our resort for dinner before being shown to where we were actually staying.... oh dear! They were floating cabins on a river, which was nice. But, the rooms were more basic than basic! The showers were just a shower head attached to the wall, without a cubical or anything, we just showered & it went all over the toilet, all over the sink, there were gaps between the wooden planks on the floor, so it could all drain back into the river! They were freezing cold too! Mosquitos everywhere & loads of ants too... Becca made the mistake of leaving some chewits on her bed, there were ants everywhere!!
We all just chilled on the floating rafts and had some beers for the evening.

The following day was another early start. We got a little boat back to the main raft, where we'd been eating, it was like a gondola! After arriving there we all piled into another minibus (so much travelling around!!) and headed to Erawan National Park. There are 7 waterfalls here & it's gorgeous. We climbed all 7 waterfalls (1500 meters) while trying to dodge the wild monkies from stealing our belongings and clambering over so many rocks & trees. This is more like an adventure holiday! There are a few waterfalls we can swim in, which is cool. When we made it to the top, the lads climbed up the actual waterfall, rather than the path while we relaxed in the pool, on their way back down, Carl fell off a log into the water haha and then further down he fell in again, but this time, luckily he had his backpack on and it broke his fall, otherwise it could have been nasty! We made our way back down and swam in the big waterfall. There's loads of fish in there which keep trying to nibble your feet! We were at Erawan National Park for 3 hrs & must have lost approx 2stone in weight between us!!!!
After lunch we headed to a cave. It was huge and amazing. There were loads of bats in there and where the calcium from the water had been dripping through, it had made crystals dotted all over the cave!
Back at the room that night, me, Tom & Carl had even more beers on the floating raft & got fairly drunk!

Today was sooooo cool! We bathed with the elephants & then went on an elephant trek. We were sat on their backs & they walked down the river. Once there, they rolled over and started playing, while we were all trying to stay on! People were jumping from one elephant to the other, it was such a laugh! At the end, we all got off and the elephants picked us up one by one by theirs trunks & put us on their backs. After the elephants had been prepped, we went for a little wak! The tiniest baby elephant joined us, so cute! We didn't go too far and the elephants kept stopping for food! Was nice and relaxing. Babrul dropped his flip flop & his elephant picked it up with his trunk & gave it back to him, without being told to!
We went back to Kitti Raft (where we have been staying) to pick up ours bags. We all went on the bamboo rafts back to the main place but we got dropped off at the worst looking bridge ever! I practically ran across the bridge cos it was so scary! The boys all jumped off and into the river! We then got into another minibus taxi and headed towards the train station for our night train. I had to ask to stop the taxi as I felt so ill, I really thought I would be sick. Note to self, don't get hammered before a long day & lots of travelling!!
We were dropped off at Nakhon Pathom train station, where we left our bags for a few hrs & went exploring until our train came. We found an internet cafe which was 20baht (approx 40p!!) for 2hrs!

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