Kanchanaburi: Left for Kanchanaburi with my friend, Joe, and his sister, Kate who was visiting for a while. It is very well-known because of its involvement during WWII. It is located about 2 hours northwest of Bangkok and close to the Myanmar (Burma) border. We arrived there by bus at around 3:30pm and checked in to a guesthouse( room with fan =150B($4.00)). We walked around the town for a while and went to the Bridge on the River Kwai, or Death Railway Bridge.
Death Railway Bridge: This is very famous because during WWII it was built by British POWs under the control of the Japanese. The Death Railway Bridge was bombed several times and restored after the war. About 16,000 POWs died building the bridge Even though the numbers of POWs are high, about 90,000-100,000 labourers died from Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Indonesia. We went back to the guesthouse for some dinner, and ironically, they played the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, so we watched the story behind everything that we just saw. We woke up the next day and arranged a tour.
Erawan National Park: It includes the most impressive and famous waterfalls in Thailand. We climbed up the mountain and visited all seven levels of the waterfall, the biggest being at the top. It took about 90 minutes to climb the mountain, but it was well worth it. It was one waterfall with its source on the seventh level, but the terrain contributed to the seven waterfalls, each with a pool of water at the bottom that we could swim in. The water was completely clear-blue, which was odd to see because we were in the middle of a mountain. It almost seemed as if it was something man-made in Disney. When we reached the the top at the seventh level, we climbed up the rocks and swam in the pool where the waterfall first dumps in to. While we were there, there were about 20 Buddhist monks (around 20 years old) climbing up also. We got to the top and had a 30 minute conversation with them, some Thai, some English. Then we took about a million pictures with them, swam around a bit, and made the trek down the mountain.
After the waterfalls, we went to one of the stations on the Death Railway and took the train alongside a cliff on the mountain for about 30 minutes to a temple. While waiting for the train, we saw a huge cave on the side of the mountain next to the tracks that housed a huge Buddha that we went into, and the only way to get to it was to walk on the tracks that were on the side of a mountain overlooking a river.
WAT THAM KHAO NOI (Tiger Cave Monastery): This temple sat up on a large hilltop in the middle of nowhere. It was no ordanary monastery though. We entered the comlpex surrounded by a huge wall and found out it was pretty much like a zoo, but none of the animals were caged, except the tigers and cougars. After walking along the road, we came across a few Buddhist monks who let the tigers out of their cages so we could pet them and get our picture taken by them. The monk then asked if I wanted to walk the tiger back to its cage, so I put him on his leash and we were on our way. They had all sorts of animals: gibbons( like furry monkey), peacocks, reindeer, warthogs, water buffalo, monkeys, and cows, just to name a few. After the monastery, we were off to the bus station to come back to Bangkok. We weren't even there for a full 2 days, but it was well worth the trip and we saw a great deal in just a day and a half.
