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Published: July 17th 2008
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I have just spent the last few days backpacking around Kanchanaburi and Ayutia which is in central Thailand. My first stop was the old capital of Thailand known as Ayutia. I spent the day wondering around the old ruins which are very similar but on a smaller scale to Angkor Watt in Cambodia. I climbed around the ruins with a few other travellers I met along the way. We visited one of the largest leaning Buddha in the world and got lost a few times around the city. We visited multiple temples which are dotted all over the place. I found some of the temples captivating because of the incredible detail in the stone carvings. One Buddha carving had been sitting in its place for so long that the roots of the trees had locked it in place for hundreds of years. It was a fantastic day out.
Our next stop was the Kanchanaburi war memorial for the soldiers that died during the construction of the railway from Thailand to Burma during World War II. As I wondered around the peaceful cemetery I stumbled across some grave stones from my local regiment The Sherwood Foresters. Its strange to think that
lads from my city were out here building the railway and perished during its construction. Its even stranger when you realise I was about to go riding along the railway through the Thailand jungle as a tourist, for some reason it just didn't seem right!
Before hopping on board the train, I decided to go for a walk through the town and along the bridge over the River Kwai. Like most people the only knowledge I had about this bridge was from American movies about the war. The bridge is incredibly old but well maintained. Even the old telephone lines that the Japanese used were still in place. Its really strange walking along a railway track over a bridge with spectacular views of the fast flowing river beneath. It was even stranger when I unexpectedly heard the sound of a steam engine horn and had to stand close to the edge of the bridge while it came past inches away from my face!. I was completely unaware that the bridge was still operational!
As I seen the train pull up at the train station I rushed to buy a ticket fearing I was about to miss the train.
Luckily I just managed to board the old steam train as it began to move out of the station. It really was a matter of jumping for the train!. I found an old wooden seat next to the window and sat back to enjoy the journey along the railway while taking in the breathtaking scenery of the Thailand jungle, mountains and railway bridges. I would often stick my head out of the window to get a good view of the steam engine only to be beaten back by branches from the jungle trees.
That night a group of backpackers including myself stayed on a floating guest house on the banks of the River Kwai. Each room was surreal, you could actually look down and see the fast flowing river flowing beneath your feet through the gaps between the poorly constructed floor of the guest house. The toilet and shower dropped straight into the river while any left over food was also thrown in. Whenever a boat came past, the entire guest house would sway making you feel slightly queezy!
While at the guest house, one of the lads who had been travelling with me for a couple of
days decided to go for a swim in the incredibly fast flowing river. I watched in amazement as he actually dived in and got dragged half way down the river by the current. I actually thought he was a gonna... So did he! Luckily a boat was coming up stream and fished him out of the water. He was very very lucky.
Somehow that evening it was someone's bright idea ;-) to begin playing drinking games. The six of us got very drunk and was then invited by the local Thai lads to do Karaoke in front of some other tourists which was incredibly embarrassing but great fun. We stayed up until the early hours drinking Thai beer while singing our little hearts out. It was hysterical - never ever ever again!
The next day we all got up at sunrise with stinking hangovers. We made our way down to the river front where 4 elephants awaited us. It was our chance to ride elephant back through the fast flowing River Kwai. We sat on the back of the elephants while they began walking into the very deep water. The elephants would often duck under the water leaving
me clinging on for life while getting submerged under the surface of the river. I fell off a couple of times and was dragged off down the river by the current. You have to be a good swimmer to beat the current! It was great fun, we were all cured of our hangovers pretty quickly because the water was very cold! It was so much fun.
My elephant decided to wonder off into the Jungle after almost drowning me in the river. It dragged me through a few trees and then proceeded to pull down an entire tree. When it managed to uproot the tree, it lifted it above its head and hit me square in the face. Although it caught me completely off guard and scratched my face in a few places, it was pretty funny. The entire thing was filmed on my friends camera. Hysterical!
After being beaten up by a pissed off elephant swinging a tree at me, the group of us decided to go down stream along the fast flowing River Kwai on bamboo rafts. Although our raft was half submerged because so many of us tried to get onto it, it was good
fun and very relaxing watching the jungle pass by. The current dragged the raft along the river, we didn't even have to paddle.
Following the sobering elephant ride and bamboo rafting we decided to visit Hell Fire Pass which is where most of the POW's died during the construction of the Thai/Burma railway during World War II. The entire place has been converted into a memorial at the expense of the Australian tax payer :-) but only a few railway sleepers and parts of the track remain. It was still very eerie to visit such an historic place. You can only imagine the torture and hard manual labour the POW's must have faced while constructing the railway pass. It was a very interesting place to visit.
Finally we got a mini bus over to the controversial Tiger Temples before returning to Bangkok. Some people were saying that the tigers were drugged to become passive. I don't believe they were drugged, just well fed and lazy! We got to play with baby tiger cubs and have photos taken with some of the larger but trained tigers. It was awesome being able to get up close and personal with fully grown tigers. Although they were chained for our safety they still could of eaten you if they wanted.
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Daniel Marin
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So Jealous!
Wow...this is awesome! I can't believe you were that close to a tiger. When I last saw you we were lucky if we were 20 feet away from a tiger, ha! Take care and thanks for keeping us posted...