The day before we were to meet our group and tour guide we met a very amicable canadian who had paid for the services of a young Thai lady, to which he was then going to 'retire' once he returned to Canada and started his warehouse job again. He was ok until we had a few buckets of whisky, then turned into a bit of a tool! But you live and learn! Was a funny night, as George was wearing his Ghana football shirt and got spotted by a Ghanaian, to which they both did the local special handshake! Also met 2 girls who were going to be starting uni at leeds...small world.
The next evening we met in our hotel with the group of 6 other people we would be touring with and our guide "Mai" who was a local Thai woman. Once the initial meeting was over we went out for a group dinner, which was a rather quiet affair as no one knew each other, everyone tried but as always with these sorts of situations can be a slow process...unless alcohol in introduced! Being pro's in this area, after dinner we went with the others to a few bars and ended up in an upstairs bar overlooking Khoasan road, it had live music and was a decent atmosphere we had already sunk a bottle or two and then not by our recommendation a few of them bought some of the infamous whisky buckets, suffice to say this was sufficient 'social lubrication' to get people talking and it seemed like we had a good few people to go trekking with. Unfortunatley the night didn't end until abour 2am and we had to be up and check out by 9am.
We arose the next morning George had some mad stomach cramps (nothing to do with the alcohol though, we deduced it was the poorly heated spring rolls we had the afternoon before) so he wasn't feeling tip-top but carried on. The first stop was the bus station which we got to by taxi, the bus was shiny and had air conditioning which was nice. It was a 2 hour ride to 'Sams guest house & floating hotel' in Kanachuburi and it was a great little place situated on the River 'Kwai'. Once we had dropped out stuff off in our rooms we had ameeting to discuss what we'd be up to then went on a 'long tail power boat' which consisted of a small wooden pointed boat with enough seats to fit about 6 people and then they had strapped what looked like a 4.5 litre turbo charged engine to it with a 10ft propeller shaft at the back.
This gave it a wicked look and some serious speed out on the water. First stop was the 'JEATH' museum which was a reconstruction of a PoW hut where English, Dutch, American and Australian PoW's were kept in very severe conditions during the second world and were basically kept there to build the 'Death' railway that was to link Burma and Thailand as a supply route, it was a very mellowing experience and as it was soooo hot that day we got a very small glimpse into what the conditions might have been like.
Once we left there, again on the power boats we were taken down river to the limestone caves near a Buddhist temple. The Caves originally had loads of gold that was to be hidden from thieves, many small passage ways that could easliy leave you lost and confused, there were many Statues along the way and also some really noisy and boistrous eastern europeans who wouldn't shut up, making it hard to hear all about the history from our guide Mai.
They were cool but nothing that special to be honest. After that we went to the War cemetery, were hundereds of graves had been laid out impecccably honmouring fallen soldiers from what seemed to be Holland, England and Australia. Funnily enough or not....this is where we had our first group photo. Next was the Bridge over the river Kwai which was 'bridgey' and went over the river Kwai... it had to be seen though, being a famous landmark which was a key target for the allies to stop the supply route from Burma to Thailand during the war. There is also a film about it some of you may have seen!?
That evening we had a little wander around the local area and had dinner again, after a few drinks we came back to hot rooms with ceiling fans that sounded and looked like they were going to fall off any moment, also the racket from the insects and frogs outside made it near impossible to get a good nights sleep...I think I got more sleep than Neil though, as I woke up a few times each time the fan was either on or off, so I'm guessing neil was being kept awake by the fan and then getting too hot!
The next day we were all of to Erewan falls which was in a national park...sorry I forget which one! Basically there are 7 levels to the waterfall 5 of which you can swim in. It took us about 1hr - 1hr 30mins to get tot the waterfall in the back of a pick-up truck called a 'Songtaew' - a cool way to travel. Anyways we got there about 10.30-11am and it was a scorcher of a day, no breeze made it feel even hotter. We started making our way up the path, the whole journey to the top(7th level) of the water fall was about 1600m and quite steep in places.
The place was really quite busy, mainly with locals all messing about and having fun in the pools below the waterfall. We thought we'd get all the way to the top and check out each level and then swim in each one on the way down as we knew we'd be super hot and sweaty bettys! This plan proved to be successful. The colour of the water was awesome, like a light turquoise colour most probably caused by the limestone that the water was cascading over.
We all jumped in at the top level, each level wasn't connected, which would have been cool, but the water was really cold and refreshing, we spent a little while in the top level, had a wander a little further upstream and then worked our way down. The 5th level was probably the best as there was a natural slide that you could take down the rock face! There wwere also small fish in each of the pools that liked to nibble on your feet, whcih was a little disconcerting but harmless all the same.
After a few hours we headed back to the floating hotel, I just crashed out for a few hours and Neil chilled and spent some time writing in his journal. That evening Neil, Stefan and I headed into the local night market and got some food. This was a cool experience, a little simliar to Japan where there was a hot plate on the table, we went to choose what food we wanted, from sausages to shrimps, liver and veg even fries. Put it all on plates and took it back to our table. The waiter brought over a large barbeque bowl(this is the best way to describe it)
this was filled with water and had a heated ares in the middle so you could cook veg etc in the water and fish and meat on the top. It was a hot way to eat but good fun. After stuffing ourselves, some more than others! we had a little mooch about the market bought a pair of shorts and some cool glasses then met the others from our group in a little bar and played some pool. good end to a cool day.
Bangin' Bus Journey
The next day was an early start as we had about 4-5 hours of Bus journeys ahead of us. All public transport. We had no idea what to expect but when the Bus turned up it was all chromed and had a massive sound system! We got some decent seats at the back, so we had some legroom. The bus filled up pretty quickly and some were left standing. The firdt part of the journey took about 1hr and 30 mins we had a quick stop before connecting to the nexty bus which was much emptier. Both buses were hot as there was no air-con but the breeze coming through the windows was sufficient so we were dying from another hot day(not that we're complaining!) The driver was a bit younger on this bus and put whaqt seemed to be his favourite mix tape on. It was some banging thai music, with a really heavy beat, some trumpets and more indiginous instruments and a girl singing over the top. For most of the journey it was pretty cool as the sound system was huge, but about 30 mins before we arrived it did start to grate just a little. This was more so for the Australian couple who were both looking pretty glum and had their hands over their ears! We arrived in Auyythaya about 2pm dropped our bags off in our room and came down for lunch. Once finished it took some time to decide what we were all going to be doing.
The deal was though, that Auyythaya used to be the capital of Thailand and as such had many Temples to go and see. We did only have limited time before we had to catch the overnight train and also take a dip in the hotle swimming pool. We decided on 3 to go and see and they were definitley worth it, they were very similar in design to those we will be seeing at Ankor Wat but was really cool to see. We also saw a massive gold budda sitting about 12m tall! Following this we headed back to the hotel, had a quick dip in the pool which was soooo refreshing after a hot days travelling and sightseeing.
None of us really knew what to expect from the overnight train which was going to take 12hours to get us to our next big destination - Chiang Mai... however it turned out to be a right laugh. We picked up a few bevvies for the ride, boarded about 7.30 and found our seats. Our guide had got us all real close together. The train was simliar to those in england - aisle down the centre and two pairs of seats facing each other on each side of the train. After we had bneen seated for 30mins waiters came round to take our order for food. There was a set menu of 3 choices each sounded great and came to our table in about 30 mins. We had only just started playing cards when it all arrived. Again the food was delicious and much better than airplane food! We devoured that pretty quickly and opened a couple of cans, before you could say "how's your father" the train staff were coming round to sort out the beds for us. There was a top bunk that folder down and the seats stretched out into a lower bunk....spot on! We weren't obliged to sleep straight away, so we stayed up till about 2am aplying cards and getting more drunk.
There were however, 4 of us crammed into the lower bunk to play cards and the rest of the train carriage had gone to bed. Mai, our guide was asking loads of questions about us and England and we were happy to answer, some questions were quite probing but I think she was quite tactical in asking these after we had a few beers inside us. All in all a good train ride.
That waterfall is pretty awesome. You've got some brill photos.
ReplyDeleteWater fall and boats look wicked! Nice tat too... is it on Neil?
ReplyDeleteStill haven't been to get those CD's off your Mum...lol!
Spk soon, Kate