Kwai Me A River (April 22 - 24)

Being in Bangkok 3 days longer than needed loosened us up for the tranquil trip around Thailand that everyone told us we will experience. Well, it started easy enough. We went to the bus station and got our ticket to Kanchanaburi, had a little lunch at KFC. TIme went so fast that when I looked at my watch again, we only had ten minutes to get to our bus. But, we were at the bus station, what could go wrong?

Well, for one thing, we didn't count on multiple bus terminals in that mall, which turned out to be a labyrinth. The signs were confusing and we saw a warning that you have to check in at your bus 30 minutes before it departs. Yikes! But all the panic was for nothing, because we're in Thailand after all... nothing happens as scheduled :)

When we got to Kanchanaburi, "taxi" drivers offered to take us to our guest house, but for 100 baht. Henri said 40 and didn't let up, so we got to our guest house for 40 baht on a jeepney (song teauw, I think they call it).

It was just as hot as Bangkok, and we had the sun full on because it was setting in front of us. Our room was ON TOP of the River Kwai. Have you heard of it? If you're at least our age, you must have. So, let's sing it!

After sunset, we hired a bike for 150 baht or 3,75 euro. The owners were so easily excited. I asked them where certain landmarks were and the woman ran inside and gave me a photocopied map. You can't really see the small writing, but it was still better than nothing. We asked them where "the bridge" was (and there is only one bridge you mean when you talk about bridges here) and the man jumped to the street, pointed to the right and said "3 kilo! 3 kilo!" and the woman chimed in. They were so nice and eager to help. We really liked this town.

At night, the bridge is lit up in rainbow colors.

It looked more like an open-air club than a war memorial, but I digress. I think my mom would get a kick out of seeing this, we love old movies and she was born during the war. We thought we could get a more respectful picture in the morning.

The next day, we drove for 2 hours to Erawan National Park. It's famous for its 7 levels of water falls.

And the fish that nibble on you while you swim.

You can take about an hour going up and half going down, and you could choose to bathe in all 7 levels if you like. You can also leave your clothes to the tree spirits, the phi ton mai, if you are so inclined.

Oh, I forgot to mention that when we got off the bike at the parking lot, we were met by a sight you think you only see in funny movies. There was a batallion of Russians in various states of undress walking out of the bus. They came IN THEIR SWIMWEAR. And not all of them were hot, so we gagged a little.

Henri waits for the Russian girl to finish posing so he could start posing on te rock too...

But two Thai girls beat him to it.

This is the last of the 7 water falls. There were Buddhist monks wrapping themselves up in their saffron robes up at the top.

There are a lot of monkeys here, and the people feed them sometimes. We could have spent an hour just watching these baby monkeys climbing up the trees and diving into the clear pond.

On the way back, we took a little more time to appreciate the scenery. Dense jungle spread out from both sides of the road, sometimes interrupted by marshes, and where wild animals still roam.

How often do you see an elephant crossing sign in your life?

And then we were back in town... with more interesting signs...

We didn't have enough  time to do the other touristic things near Kanchanaburi, most places close by 5 pm. So we went back to The Bridge to wait for sunset. But as we came near, we heard the train whistle - THE TRAIN IS COMING!

I jumped off the scooter even before Henri could park and positioned myself on the platform to catch the train. One minute, there was just me, and in an instant a big crowd arrived. The people walking on the bridge moved ever so slowly out of the train's way.

This boat kept going back and forth under the bridge. A German woman started talking to me and pointed at my camera then pointed to a Thai tourist whose camera fell in the river. Dommage!

While waiting for sunset, we went back and forth across the bridge.

The war museum across the river.

The goddess of mercy.

We took some appetizzers and watched the sky change colors from our balcony in the guest house, smiling at the rising crescent moon that looked like it was smiling back.

Then we went out for dinner and cocktails at the cheapest roadside bar in all of civilization. The sign on the little kiosk said it all: "Get drunk on 10 Baht." You bet someone did.

The next morning, we said goodbye to the calm river. It was a relaxing 2 days and we were ready to see more of what Thailand had to offer. 

We packed our bags for the next adventure - Damnoen Saduak! Little did we know than in a few hours we would be damning Damnoen Saduak.