At the last minute, I decided to I was going to have plenty of time in Bangkok and should see something else as well. I selected a day trip to Kanchanaburi, about an hour outside Bangkok to see the Bridge over the River Kwai, which I had no idea was even in Thailand. (Note to self - must brush up on Asian history...)
The day didn't start out very auspiciously, as our minibus was delayed picking us up and then we were crammed in so that I was surrounded by luggage. Once again on a tour to meet people and put in a situation where I couldn't do that! Then they realized they needed to get more people in, so figured out a way to cram the luggage under the seats and put an English guy next to me. Who smelled of alcohol. And slept the entire way to Kanchanaburi. On my arm. Sigh. At least it was a source of amusement for everyone else. From then on I had a great icebreaker with the other people on my trip who kept expressing their condolences to the girl who couldn't get the hungover, sleeping guy off her arm. The only thing that saved me on that first ride was when a turn sent him hurtling to the other side and I quickly used my fleece jacket to wedge some space between us. Luckily the tour improved immensely after that, as we changed minibuses often and I never sat next to him again. I met an English couple and a few nice Australian guys and generally had a fun day.
I didn't know much about the River Kwai either (another note to self, add the movie to my Netflix queue) so the Jeath Museum (stands for Japan, England, America/Australia, Thailand, Holland - the countries involved in the war at that location) was a good place to start. A very small museum with not much in it, but a great explanation of what made the bridge significant. It was built by allied prisoners of war in a year, a feat that would have taken three times as long in any other situation. So many prisoners died in such rough conditions that they call the railway that used to cross the bridge the "Death Railway", as there are as many sleepers on the railway as there are men that died.
After the museum and a walk across the bridge, we rode the Death Railway and visited a waterfall. It was pretty, but we were there for 15 minutes. Too long to just stand there staring at a waterfall, not long enough to actually go swimming in it. But I was happy to leave, as our next stop was the Tiger Temple!
The Tiger Temple is run my monks. At one point, these monks were given a tiger cub that had been abandoned or orphaned, I forget. Once people heard that they were caring for this tiger cub, they were given others to care for. Now they have many full grown tigers that have all been raised by them, and are therefore more like house cats than like wild animals. The draw here is to have your picture taken with various tigers. It's quite incredible. I think pictures definitely speak louder than words here...
The day didn't start out very auspiciously, as our minibus was delayed picking us up and then we were crammed in so that I was surrounded by luggage. Once again on a tour to meet people and put in a situation where I couldn't do that! Then they realized they needed to get more people in, so figured out a way to cram the luggage under the seats and put an English guy next to me. Who smelled of alcohol. And slept the entire way to Kanchanaburi. On my arm. Sigh. At least it was a source of amusement for everyone else. From then on I had a great icebreaker with the other people on my trip who kept expressing their condolences to the girl who couldn't get the hungover, sleeping guy off her arm. The only thing that saved me on that first ride was when a turn sent him hurtling to the other side and I quickly used my fleece jacket to wedge some space between us. Luckily the tour improved immensely after that, as we changed minibuses often and I never sat next to him again. I met an English couple and a few nice Australian guys and generally had a fun day.
I didn't know much about the River Kwai either (another note to self, add the movie to my Netflix queue) so the Jeath Museum (stands for Japan, England, America/Australia, Thailand, Holland - the countries involved in the war at that location) was a good place to start. A very small museum with not much in it, but a great explanation of what made the bridge significant. It was built by allied prisoners of war in a year, a feat that would have taken three times as long in any other situation. So many prisoners died in such rough conditions that they call the railway that used to cross the bridge the "Death Railway", as there are as many sleepers on the railway as there are men that died.
After the museum and a walk across the bridge, we rode the Death Railway and visited a waterfall. It was pretty, but we were there for 15 minutes. Too long to just stand there staring at a waterfall, not long enough to actually go swimming in it. But I was happy to leave, as our next stop was the Tiger Temple!
The Tiger Temple is run my monks. At one point, these monks were given a tiger cub that had been abandoned or orphaned, I forget. Once people heard that they were caring for this tiger cub, they were given others to care for. Now they have many full grown tigers that have all been raised by them, and are therefore more like house cats than like wild animals. The draw here is to have your picture taken with various tigers. It's quite incredible. I think pictures definitely speak louder than words here...
Then back to Bangkok where I had a few drinks with the Australian guys where we discussed all the tall tales Aussies like to tell foreigners, especially Americans. Some examples - flying crocodiles, drop bears and silicon spiders. One of the Australians I was talking to had told someone about the flying crocodiles of Queensland. I had heard the drop bear story, once from a German who convinced me that more people are killed by these bears that drop out of the trees in the forest, land on hikers and maul them than by anything else in Australia. Our deckhand in the Whitsundays had told us about the silicon spider story he concocted for the more gullible of his sailors. He told them that if the sand squeaks under your feet, you're near a silicon spider nest and should get away soon, just so he could watch people run around the beach trying to get away. The sand in the Whitsundays is all silicon, which always squeaks when you step on it. All Aussies take part in this kind of teasing - it seems to be a national sport.
Then back to the hotel to get ready for another hectic day of sightseeing. You can see why I'm so behind on the blog...
No comments:
Post a Comment