Kanchanaburi

Only about two hours away from Bangkok by bus (or a bit longer and a lot more beautiful by train) is Kanchanaburi, I major WWII point. It played host to the death railway, and you will all probably know of it thanks to the film 'The Bridge over the River Kwai'. We decided to go inland instead of out to all the beautiful islands because we had seen so many beautiful islands in Malaysia and Vietnam so decided to do some historic tourism instead. Once there we found a nice little 'hotel on stilts over the River Kwai' which was as quaint as you can imagine. We decided to save a bit of money by going for the non-ac cold water option that worked out as a few quid a night. This meant we could splash out a bit more on excursions!

Rory and I headed off to the JEATH museum one morning. Run by a monk it served the purpose of reminding everyone how terrible war is through many photographs and newspaper articles. It left you feeling a bit depressed, especially as on the way there and back we passed the POW cemetery with the hundreds of unmarked graves. There were also the thousands of marked ones that told of men as young as 18. It was kept beautifully though, much better than the Chinese cemetery next door.

We went on an excursion one day that took us to a bit of track that the POW built that's still in use today. It stretched alongside part of a hill and if you walked along the tracks a bit (with a steep drop to your right) you come across a cave. Now occupied by a massive Buddha and smokey from the years of prayer, this cave used to be where the POW hid when their allied friends bombed all their work. You can go all the way in to the dark dank batty back quarters and just imagine the terror and suffering.

We caught a train from there and took it along part of the death railway. The scenery was beautiful. It dropped us off near the infamous bridge, no longer in use since they built a second one, and we walked up and down it looking at the tracks with the dates stamped in them and the sections that looked different to the rest as they blown up and rebuilt. You could imagine the area being beautiful and tranquil (except of course when it was being built), but now it is surrounded in floating restaurants and tourist stores.

We went for a walk up a hill that followed a 7 tiered waterfall. Each tier was as beautiful as the next, and they obviously take really good care of the area. We walked all the way to the top before we allowed ourselves a swim. Once in we discovered that those pretty little fish that we saw in all the pools on the way up were actually horrid little hidden nibblers. They swam up to you as soon as you put a foot in the water and in the style of a Chinese fish foot massage, nibbled your skin. Even if your not scared of fish (which Pippa was making it all rather funny) you get a big shock when a big blighter comes up to take a little nibble. The water was filled with limestone which meant you couldn't see what was happening, making it all the more startling.

The last excursion we did was an elephant treck. I had promised Rory we'd go on one since we couldn't do it in India. The ride consisted of about 20 minutes through the edge of the jungles on little park benches strapped across the elephants back and ended with a swim! Yes, at the end of the trail we dismounted, the park benches were removed, and sat bare back on the elephants in the fast moving river Kwai as they took us out and lowered into the cold water. We were given a little bottle of soap and a brush and they waited expectantly for us to scrub the back of their heads. It was all rather cute. Luckily the one that Rory and I got didn't squirt us with his trunk like some of the others did. I made Rory be the first one to go out there and he looked so unsure of what was going to happen it made us all laugh!

Back at the hotel we had befriended a little black kitten which we called shadow, because he followed us around everywhere and sat on us whenever we sat down. Our little hut had a balcony which we read on in the evenings in the company of shadow and a couple of mosquito coils. It was a very peaceful place and we were sad to leave. On the last night we (Rory, me, Pippa and her friend Bex) went out for an Indian meal and a sheesha with Thai beer, said goodbye and then Rory and I departed homeward bound the next morning whilst Pippa and Bex went south to the tourist islands.