Everyone taking the
Kanchanaburi trip met at about 7:00 a.m. to board the vans.
Kanchanaburi is the location of the Bridge over the River Kwai and the
Death Railway which the Japanese ordered tens of thousands of prisoners of war
to build. It is to the west of
Bangkok towards the Burma border. The
railway was being built as a means for Japan to invade British India.
Our first stop:
the gas station. Our second
stop: another gas station, this one
with a mini-mart. We even got to
spend half an hour there. Then we
had to make an incidental stop at the War Cemetery.
There was no gift or souvenir shop there so we got 15 minutes to spend
there. It was actually just a
regular war cemetery, though well kept up.
Our tour guide didn’t tell us anything about who was buried there but I
overheard others say that there were different sections by country.
There were hundreds of people there as all the buses and vans from
Bangkok reached there at the same time.
We took off and
headed towards the JEATH Musem (Japanese European American Thai Museum?)
They gave us half an hour there and told us to meet them at 11:00.
The museum was full of pictures and paintings on the wall and lots of
stuff. The first building had the
war museum on the bottom and a jewelry/Miss Thailand museum on the second floor.
Then walking throughout the compound it was quite interesting and there
were many exhibits about the building of the bridge. Then walking to the back of the grounds, it seemed the museum
was right on the river and right by the Bridge! Well the bridge was completely
rebuilt after it was destroyed in the war.
When the Allies were coming to bomb it, the Japanese filled the bridge
with prisoners of war. The allies
bombed it anyway killing so many prisoners that the river turned red.
Anyway, at 11:00 our group headed out and our guide was not there so we
walked toward the bridge without seeing her so some of us walked onto the bridge
as a lot of people were walking on it. It
was actually quite scary as it didn’t have a complete floor.
Well, it is still used as train tracks so the only solid part was where
the tracks were. Passing people
wasn't always fun. We walked to the
other end and then heard a train horn. So
we headed back and would you believe it! As
we were on the bridge, the train was coming!!
Well it was very slow and all along the bridge are little areas to get
away from the tracks. So we got to
watch the train go by! There were a
lot of passengers on the train. In
fact, we noticed something strange: most
of them were tourists!!! It
didn’t take much to figure out that we were supposed to be on it!
Oh well. So we headed back
and the tourguide was all huffy and mad because we missed the train.
We were not the only ones as it was hardly communicated whatsoever what
in the world we were doing. So we
waited for more people who were still on the bridge and missed it and jumped
into two vans and the vans sped off to the next train station.
That was one of the most thrilling rides as the driver just drove on the
other side of the road, passing cars and not slowing down whatsoever. Well, we made it to the next train station in time.
We got on the train about an hour after it had left.
It's a slow train.
The train went around
some serious canyons and it was quite exciting and picturesque.
The whole area is undeveloped except for some cabins/huts for people to
stay in here and there. After an
hour we got off and our vans were waiting for us.
We got driven for a while to another river and there we ate lunch on a
raft restaurant. The food was
obviously for tourists because there wasn’t a single spice (they are afraid to
give spicy food to tourists because they don't believe they can take it).
Then it turned out that those of us who were doing the two day/one night
package were staying there. They
had small rooms on one of the rafts which were fine.
The toilets when you flushed them (with buckets of water) just went down
into the river below.
At that point there
were eight of us left. They told us
to get on a long and narrow boat with motor and took us upstream.
Along the way we passed a long staircase leading down a hill to the
river. In the middle of the
staircase was a monk, dressed in orange, doing his meditation. Not far past that, there were some elephants along the side
of the river with their owners. One
of them was bathing in the water. That's
where we were going!! It was time
for our elephant ride! So they put
benches on top of the three elephants and we crowded on top. I got stuck in the middle, three of us on top.
It was bumpy! But it was a lot of fun!
The elephants were hungry, and all along the way, they kept stopping to
pull trees down. Usually smaller
trees such as banana and papaya trees which they loved to eat.
Unfortunately they don't like pomelo since they were growing and ripe all
over the place. We rode for almost
an hour through the forest, with the elephant keeper sitting on top of the head
without a chair. My elephant was
thirty years old.
After the elephant
ride, we got onto a bamboo log raft. It's
basically a bunch of bamboo poles tied together and sitting at or below the
surface. It was nice, we rode very
slowly, with the current, back downstream to where we had come from. As we approached a sort of pedestrian bridge right by our
place, and the first bridge the whole time, two teenage girl workers from our
guest house raft came running down the bridge to meet us. Then they took us on a walk through the fields, a long way
back to the guest raft. The walk
wasn't really to anywhere except to see the place.
There were corn fields all over and the corn plants looked so incredibly
healthy. The girls were very funny
and didn’t really talk English. We
made it back to the raft and there wasn’t much more to do. They finally fed us food, which had even less taste than
lunch. Everyone else drank beer but
I didn’t really want to and I went to sleep pretty early.
I was the only American. There
were also two young Japanese girls dressed alike with the same short spiky
haircut. They were very funny and didn’t talk English well.
The next day, we woke
up and were given breakfast. I had
asked the night before what was for breakfast and got the answer I expected: toast and eggs. So
I asked if they had rice since I really don't like their contrived Western
breakfasts. So three others with me
(the three Asians) got fried rice for breakfast and it was actually good!
The four other westerns also enjoyed their breakfasts.
Then they took us to
another river where the two people who were doing the three day/two night option
would stay. They took us on another
raft which sunk into the water and was full of silverfish and cane spiders (the
big ugly but not really dangerous ones) across the river.
Then we hiked through the jungle with a tough acting yet funny local lady
who led us. We headed off to
some waterfalls which come in "Seven Steps". Since it was early, most of the other people were Thai, and
only a few foreignors. It is
usually included in the afternoon portion for those who do the one day option
(they don’t get the elephant ride). At
the second step was a nice big pool under the waterfall so we were able to go
swimming. The tourguide told us
that there were fish that bite but don't suck.
We didn’t really understand but I was convinced it was leeches and I
wasn't going to go. But then she
managed to explain to us that the fish in there will nibble at us but not bite.
The fish were pretty big too! So
most of us went in. The water was
cold but not too cold so that it was very refreshing.
I swam across the pool towards the waterfall to climb onto the rocks on
the ledge. It's actually quite
slippery there. As I was standing
on a rock in the water trying to get a hold, the fish were nibbling at my feet
like crazy. It was horrible! They didn’t nibble as I swam, only then. I made a good
scene for the Thais of falling back into the water.
Finally, I got a hold and got up the ledge. I bumped my head twice as I walked through a cave back there.
Swimming back I made a fast break to get out quickly. Even though the fish don't seem to bite, it's really weird!
We hiked up some
more, but only got to the fourth step before time ran out.
We finally headed back to Bangkok, stopping at some more waterfalls along
the way. The trip was fun and it
was a good minitrek for someone staying in Bangkok, not actually going to the
north. The three day option is
supposed to go closer to the Burma border.
Even though the trip didn't start off so well, and it didn’t really
follow the itinerary either, it was a lot of fun.
Now it's time to go home.
Jeffrey Esmond
Bangkok
August 1999
