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Day two in Bangkok started early with a trip out to the River Kwai. My tour bus driver picks me up not long after 0700 and we scurry across the street dodging traffic as we go. I seem to be the only person who speaks English as a first language but it's all good. Seems to be a habit of mine. Last time I was in Thailand I went white water rafting with a raft full of Russians but that's life overseas.
The first stop on the tour was Kanchatburi war cemetery [insert link] (well it was actually a service station for fuel but you don't need to know that. I bought a cornetto. It was nice). The cemetery holds the graves of allied soldiers who died in WWII in the area, in particular, Australian, Dutch, Indian and British. It was raining a little while we were there so we were not allowed to walk the grounds.
Next stop on the journey is the river Kwai. The guide pops her head into the van, quickly rambles off the plan in broken English while here, everyone in the van looks at each other puzzled and questions each other what exactly was said. We all agreed 1230 was mentioned at some stage, which was about an hour away, and decided to meet back at the van at that time. At this stop we take in the JEATH museum [insert link] and the actual bridge over the river kwai. Trivial fact: The film The bridge over the river kwai was actually filmed in Sri Lanka. This fact reminds me of the episode of the simpsons where radioactive man is filmed in town. The set crew paint horses to look like cows and when asked what they use for horses he says "we just tape a bunch of cats together". Things are never what they seem in movies. Anway…
To be honest I didn't really know what was in store on this tour other than the bridge so I just went with the flow. Next stop, lunch floating on the river. I grab my feed from the buffet and take a seat on a raft that is tied to the floating "restaurant" and watch the river flow by. Quite a strong current too. The peace is interrupted by the staff dishing out life vests and ushering us all on these rafts. No one is sure what's happening but we all take a seat on the rafts (there's about 3 tied together) and they're attached to a long-tail and we're towed up river for about 10 minutes. The long-tail detaches and we float back down river and past the restaurant. I should mention that we have 2 thai guys with paddles helping steer us down stream and the long-tail is not far away. We notice an elephant farm (is it a farm?) and the long-tail pulls us up to the nearby wharf where we're told to make our way up to the elephants. We stand around in the middle of the 'farm'wondering what the hell is going on while the thai families that live here continue on with their business. Turns out we were here to ride the elephants. There were 3 japanese girls on one of the elephants who were being picked on (in a playful way) by their elephant pilot? Driver? Skipper? He must have been no older than 10. He'd have one of the other elephants touch the girls with it's trunk and the girls would squeal in that way Japanese girls do. I'd give an example but I can't think of any right now so just use your imagination.
The drive back to Bangkok is supposed to be about 2 hours but we hit some horrendous traffic on the raised highways that lead into the city. It took about an hour being stuck in the traffic jam to reach the drop-off point near Khao san road and the democracy monument. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I'd had to change vans at least 5 times between the elephants and khao san road, one of which involved jumping in to the back of a ute. Disorganised seems to be the flavour of the day. I get ushered into a another van to be taken back to my hostel only to be stuck in more traffic and moved from the van into a private car 3 lanes over to be taken back to the hostel. Great fun
Tonight I make my first trip to Khao san road. I haggle with a tuk tuk driver to take me there and get him down from THB300 to THB150. Probably paid more than others have paid but oh well. Khao san road is chockablock full of stalls and tourists, mostly westerners. Most of the bars are full of tourists knocking back singha and chang. The street has hawkers selling everything from pad thai and kebabs to cheap suits and wristbands. Tonight I take a seat in the Center Khao San bar and enjoy a singha whilst watching the mass of people go by and eavesdrop on the various conversations going on around me. There was nothing interesting said. I head back to the hostel around 2300 and grab a pad thai froma street hawker on the way. Second best pad thai I've ever had too.
Tomorrow, the ancient Siam capital of Ayuthyya and my final day in Bangkok
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Jane Sounds like a fun day had