Kanchanaburi

Well, I've been traveling for one month now, but I finally feel like I'm on vacation. Kanchanaburi is a town (and province) two hours west of Bangkok. I decided to spend a few days here visiting my friend Molly, and seeing some of the ecotourist side of Thailand.

Kanchanaburi's claim to fame is the bridge over river Kwai... there are a lot of museums here that talk about the area during world war 2. I visited the JEATH Museum, which showed pictures and gave info about the several thousand POWs (mostly Australian) who died here, and the thousands of Thais as well. Most died from diseases and inadequate medical supplies. It has an interesting story for those of you who haven't read the book or seen the movie. The POWs were being driven by the japonese to work 18 hours per day, but living in terror of being bombed by the Americans.

Kanchanaburi also has quite a selection of ecotourist excursions. I signed up for one, and left on a day trip with a small group made up of swiss, german, french, and british travelers... It was a good group and I made some new friends. We spent the morning at a waterfall called Erawan waterfall. I've been to a few waterfalls in my traveling, and this is by far the best. At times I thought it was fake. I hiked to the top, which took about an hour, then on the way down I stopped to swim in a few of the pools. The waterfalls had some natural rock slides, so we had some fun climbing up and sliding down. There are fish in the pools, both big and small, that swarm to you when you swim, and eat your dead skin off. It feels like theyre nibbling at your skin, and while it only just tickles, the occasional big fish takes a bite that stings.

After lunch, we went to an elephant camp, where I rode on the back of an elephant named, boombay. I got to sit on her head, while the tourguide walked ahead. At first it was a little frightening, but she walked so slow and had such a sturdy step that I wasn't worried about falling off any longer. I think elephants are fascinating, and it was fun to see them up close.
We had a few other stops on the tour, including a bamboo raft, and a train ride on the "death railway" (the one built by POWs during WW2).

Back in town, I met up with Molly, and the Thai "mother" she lives with, Peoria. They took me out to dinner, and showed me some new thai dishes that are delicious (som dtam plaad grobe, moo yan, ptom yon goon..... translated this is spicy papaya salad with crispy fish, fried pork slices with sticky rice, and a mushroom and shrimp soup). It's nice to have people around who know what to order... and for cheap too! After dinner we met up with some other teachers that work with Molly. A guy from scotland, a guy from Turkey, and a girl from Germany. They were all interesting and had positive teaching experiences to share with me.

I've spent some time exploring the city here too... My first day I rented a bicycle and cruised around town. It was nice to be out of the crowded cities of Pattaya and Bangkok, and see the rural countryside of Thailand. Today, Molly and I rented motobikes and cruised up through the mountains and on some backroads. It was a lot of fun to see the people working in the rice fields, driving goats across the road, rural temples that are being overgrown with plants, roosters strutting around. Everything was picturesque. And then there's the motobike... Extremely fun and a bit frightening all at the same time. We rented the bikes for 3$ each... they weren't difficult to drive, but it was still interesting to navigate the roads. Driving on the left, passing others and being passed, trying to read signs written in thai. It was tons of fun. Molly and I stopped at a small restaurant on the side of the road for dinner... There was no one else around, we sat on the side of the road under grass canopies, and watched the sun go down behind the river. Unreal.

Tomorrow I'm taking a minibus to Bangkok, an overnight train to Surat Thani, a bus to Krabi, and a ferry to Koh Phi Phi (an island in southern thailand). It will be almost 24 hours of traveling... yikes. Wish me luck!