T&A

We pictured Kanchanaburi to be a small village along a river in the middle of some jungle, but it was actually quite a large city since it is the capital of its province. Although it’s a big city, it does have close and convenient access to national parks and waterfalls, but we were here mostly to visit the bridge on the river kwai and a tiger temple.

The bridge on the river kwai, made famous by the movie, was basically the start of what became known as “The Death Railway.” The Japanese occupied Thailand and much of South East Asia during WWII, and decided that it was necessary to build a railway into Burma in order to occupy Burma, and cut off important supply routes to China. The railway was constructed by tens of thousands of POWs, many of which died from disease, malnutrition, fatigue, and the commanding Japanese themselves.

We stepped off the bus and were immediately greeted by the usual touts. This time we decided to listen to one of them; perhaps because we are at the end of our trip and don’t really care to hunt for a better bargain. The woman led us to a driver that was going to take us to the guest house for 80 baht each. When we started to walk away, he eventually lowered his price to 40 baht total. He took us to what turned out to be a really nice guest house called “Jolly Frog.” It looked like this place would be quite popular in the busy season since it had nice rooms, a nice courtyard with hammocks, and a massive restaurant with reasonable prices. After checking into our room, we decided to go for a walk towards the bridge.

Literally 15 minutes into the walk, we made a detour to an air conditioned internet cafe. The heat was unbearable. This was the first time in our trip that we had to stop walking, even in the shade, and get out of the heat. We stayed in the cafe surfing the web for at least two hours until it was around 3pm and the temperature had started to cool down. At this point, we were able to finish the walk, which turned out to only be a few minutes more to the bridge. Along the way, we noticed that a woman lost her hat as she drove by on her friend’s motorbike. An old man driving the opposite way slowed down and picked up the hat. Both of us were thinking that it was nice to see such generosity by the old man. However, instead of turning around and giving the hat back, he simply dove away slowly as if he would stop if someone complained. No one complained and he simply puttered down the road after stealing the hat. We still joke about the “nice old man.”

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We arrived late Friday evening in Chiang Mai and were too late to pick up our Buddha statue from the Fine Arts Department. In order to kill time we decided to visit the zoo on Saturday. We rented a motorbike and drove through some serious traffic to reach the zoo which was only about 20 minutes from the city centre. The zoo was pretty small, but somehow we managed to spend the entire afternoon there watching monkeys, lions, tigers, and giant pandas. On Sunday we slept in and strolled through the city for the day. In the evening, the Sunday Night market was set-up along a long walking street. The market stretched for about a kilometer along a cobbled stone street with vendors along either side, some even spilling into side streets and open wats. Buskers in the middle of the street kept everything entertaining, and there were plenty of food stalls. There was even a live performance of dancers and breakdancers. Although the market was very touristy, it seemed as though a large number of local people frequented it as well. It was easily one of the best market experiences out of the hundreds that we have had.

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The bus ride to Pai was one of the most scenic rides in all of Thailand. The roads winded through the mountains, and it felt like we were back in Laos again. As we pulled into the bus station, a man was walking across the street with a shirt that said “Do nothing in Pai.” This pretty much explains the town in a nutshell. Pai is a small little tourist town in the North-West area of Thailand which for some reason has turned into a backpacker hangout. There are no real attractions, except for the scenery, which can include riding elephants through the jungle to view numerous caves and waterfalls. The town itself is relatively calm, with Western style restaurants everywhere you turn. There are also plenty of motorbike rental places lining the small, narrow streets.

We decided to take a hint from the hordes of westerners riding motorbikes, and rent one ourselves the next day. We began the day riding a few kilometers outside the town to a wat located at the top of a small hill. This wat was not spectacular by itself, but the view from the hill was great. Unfortunately, since it is almost the rainy season, most of the farmers were burning their fields to create fertilizer. While this may be great for future crops, the haze in the sky blocks the beautiful scenery.

We continued our tour past a few of the elephants used for trekking in the area, but decided not to stop to ride one. Most of the elephants looked very old and tired. We did stop further down the road at a hot springs site. It was relatively expensive to get in, so we were expecting huge pools of heated spring water to bathe in. However, when we got in, all there was to see were a few 80 degree Celsius pools. A small stream ran across the pools, but it wasn’t too much fun to wade only up to our ankles in the hot water. We suspect that this spring is much better during the rainy season when the stream probably turns into a river, and the cold rain water would make the heated water bearable. The rest of the day, we spent riding around the area taking in the scenery and enjoying our time in what felt like the middle of nowhere, surrounded by jungle, and just us and a motorbike.

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