Advertisement
Published: November 15th 2010
Edit Blog Post
After a couple of days in Chiang Mai, shopping and sightseeing we flew back to Bangkok, where we organised a day trip to Kanchanaburi, home to the Bridge over the River Kwai and Tiger Temple.
After an early morning pick up at 6.45, we travelled for 2.5 hours to our first stop, the War Memorial Cemetery. We walked around the graves of the Prisoners of War, sad to see the many names of British soldiers who lost their lives in WWII. We then got back on the bus for a short journey to the Bridge over the River Kwai and War Museum. We didn't go in the museum as you had to pay extra and we had been told it wasn't worth it so after a brief look around the outside and some photo's with an old Death Railway steam train we headed straight towards the Bridge. We walked through a tiny market and came across a Leopard cub randomly on one of the stalls. It cost 100 baht (£2.10) to have a photo with it holding like a baby, whilst it fed itself a bottle of milk. So amazingly cute but also a little sad, however it looked well
looked after and certainly got fed enough. We then headed over to the bridge and started walking across it. You could see down to the River Kwai below through the many large gaps in the wooden platform. Quite scary as it was really narrow and full of pushy tourists. We even had to deal with the train crossing over as we were still standing on the tracks. Luckily it was only moving slowly so there was plenty of time to get out the way, only on to a makeshift platform however.
After taking lots of photos, we jumped back in the minibus and headed to a elephant camp. We could have paid extra to go on an elephant ride but because we did it a few days earlier we chose to leave it out. It meant we had to wait while others had their ride but we didn't mind because this time we got to see and feed a very cute baby elephant and also watch a couple of little orphan monkeys lark about. After 40 minutes at the elephant camp we headed to a local outdoor restaurant for lunch, which was a bit of a Thai buffet, with
several big dishes to share between us and the lovely family from Taiwan. After Lunch we went to Sai Yok Noi Waterfall which means little waterfall (it was actually quite big). It was very busy with lots of Thai people picnicking and bathing in the clear, cool water. We took our shoes off and had a paddle then climbed a little way up the rock face for some photo's.
Next, on to Tiger Temple, the highlight of the day. We bought our tickets and headed in, it was almost like a safari park but you got to walk around with the animals who were all walking around freely in a huge reserve. We saw lots of wildlife including Water Buffalo, Bulls, Dear, Ostrich, Goats, Eagles and Wild Boar with lots of cute piglets. Best of all though were all the amazingly tame Tigers. The Sanctuary was originally set up by an old Buddhist monk for orphaned cubs and unwanted "pet tigers" in 1994 and now houses over 50 of them. Because they have been raised from cubs by the Monk and his volunteers they are really tame and comfortable with people petting them and really well looked after. We
both got to have our photo's taken sitting with and stroking lots of large adult Tigers that were in a canyon where they are exercised daily. Then we moved on to another area where the younger monks were walking some of the baby Tigers. We sat and stroked the cub and took lots more photos. Then we wondered around the rest of the park and got up close to lots of other wildlife.
After leaving the temple, the last part of our excursion was a a trip on the Death Railway train. We rode through the countryside, sticking our heads out the windows to feel the breeze and take in the scenery. The trip took about 40 minutes on the rickety old tracks. Once we'd arrived at our stop, we got back on the minibus and headed back to our hotel, very tired but very happy with everything we had experienced throughout the day for around £22 each!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 53; dbt: 0.043s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Janet clewlow
non-member comment
Ahh babba
Motherhood suits ya Sis lol it looks amazing what a lovely pic love to u both xx