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Early Friday morning we set off from our hostel in Bangkok out of the city to Kanchanaburi. We had a very comfortable journey in an air conditioned minibus that picked us up from our hostel - I don't think we're real backpackers yet... We were dropped at some rafts/huts by the river and made the mistake of booking in there instead of looking for our own accomodation. Lesson learned... It was really nice there, lovely views, but the ants covering the room the next day had us asking for an upgrade! We've moved hostel instead - cheaper room and insect free!
One we dropped our bags off we headed straight down to the bridge on the River Kwai, had lunch on the waterfront, then went for a bone rattling train ride across the bridge! Lovely views but very sore asses. Then visited the WWII Memorial Museum - to be honest the downstairs area looked more like a junkyard, but upstairs there were some good exhibits. Ryan has taken a lot more pictures than me. You can also climb to the top of the building and look down on the whole area, taking in the mountainous jungle in the background. We went to freshen up and when we wandered back to town for dinner realised nowhere is open that late... oops. We had to walk a good 10 mins to find the fanciest bar I've seen in ages and have a drink there, still only 50 Baht a beer!
The next day on our way to find a barber for Ryan (he's given up on the long hair, the heat is too much!) we discovered a whole street of hostels and bars we didn't know existed, so much for our exploring the night before. That night when looking for somewhere to drink down there we found a roadside stall selling whiskey and coke for 10 Baht! Bargain! Proper stuff too, I can see us going back there tomorrow...
We had a tour booked for Sunday/Monday so up early to do out proper tourist weekend! First off was Sai Yok Noi waterfall - absolutely beatiful there. It's part of a national park I think, the area is packed with national parks here. Then we visited the Hellfire Pass and War Memorial Museum. Hellfire Pass is the most famous pass on the Thailand-Burma railway built by POWs held by the Japanese during WWII. It's huge - horrible to think they were forced to chisel away at the rock all day by hand.
After lunch we moved on to some natural hot springs in the area. It was a Thai day of rest so they were packed but they were amazing! You wash youself in the cold river to start with, then in to two different springs that go up to 45degrees. It was raining at the time which cooled our heads down while the rest of our body was so hot. I completely understand why people go to spas now.
Our next adventure was a 4 hour trek in the jungle and an overnight stay in a jungle village. The trek was gruelling, I don't think either of us have sweated so much in our lives! Our tour guide Tom (a local village boy) said he does this all day every day in high season - it was so busy for the past few days he didn't have time to shower for two days! It was great being in the thick of the jungle, walking through rivers and past waterfalls, bamboo everywhere! Unfortunately we didn't see any wildlife past birds, spiders and LOTS of mosquitos, but I wouldn't know what to do if I saw something run at us anyway. They fed us 6 dishes between 2 of us that night, then some very very strong moonshine whiskey which we drank like tequila shots (then gagged) but we were so tired we had to head to bed. Tom was the only one there that spoke any English, so our social skills weren't that great anyway!
This morning we had to be up early again for massive amounts of food, a wash in the river (no electricity or running water in the jungle) and yet another trek. This time only two hours, much better... I thought my feet were about to fall off as my sandals and silt from the rivers the day before had exfoliated my feet to within an inch of their life, and Ryan had so many mosquito bites he has big swollen cankles!! Like an old lady's ankles. It was easy today though, all downhill and on tracks. Thankfully. When we arrived where we had been dropped off the day before there was an elephant waiting for us to bring us most of the way back. It was weird to see a massive elephant obeying orders from a small Thai boy! All he had to do was shout and she'd go, stop, turn... We climbed on to the seat (platform?) from a rock and got on our way - be warned, elephants are a really really bumpy ride! Until I got comfortable I was convinced she'd take a step and we'd fall off, but unless it was downhill they're fairly sturdy! The sun was baking hot at this point, it was lovely. Travelled through banana plantations, coconut trees, more jungle and through the river to take us to our bamboo rafting. A nice chilled out ride down the river brought us back to a village where a barbequed chicken lunch was waiting for us and the minibus brought us on the next leg of the trip. By this stage we were smelly, filthy, mosquito bitted and sore - I don't think we were very pleasant company on the bus... The wash in the river this morning did nothing to make us cleaner, we had so much dirt on us it just spread it around instead of washing us properly! And we just got covered again on our second muddy trek. I caught one of the girls on the bus staring at my feet and realised there was mud caked under my toenails... nice.
We caught the train over a bridge on the Death Railway as the final part of the tour. The bridge was an original part of the railway that would have run through the Hellfire Pass, and is one of the parts still functional.
We got back to our hostel in Kanchanaburi a few hours ago and had cold showers to scrape the dirt off ourselves - definitely the best shower of my life. I'm going to be very happy to replace last nights hard cushions in a bamboo hut with a nice soft mattress now too...
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