Thailand #3: Kanchanaburi

An uncomfortable night...yes....but it could have been worse. We were lucky that the train was mostly empty. We were each able to lay across two economy class seats (although it took quite the contortionist attitude), and get an adequate amount of rest. We had to switch trains in Bangkok, and boarded a 3rd class car to Kanchanaburi. The trains in Thailand are all quite old. 3rd class REALLY shows it. Wooden bench seats with fans that may or may not be working are the norm. Most simply open their giant windows for the ride. Luckily there was no livestock in ours, but I towards the end of our trip I do remember seeing crated chickens being loaded into a 3rd class car. At each of its annoyingly frequent stops, salesmen/women would either board the train or come to the windows and try to sell everything from what may have been pad thai to fried chicken feet. We passed...again and again and again. After 3hrs that felt like 5 we arrived in Kanchanaburi, and split a ride with 2 french girls we met on the train.

We arrived at our intended hostel only to find it completely booked. Walking with the French girls, we ran into the same situation 2 or 3 more times. Each place had no rooms for rent, but seemed to have one "extra room" that they could make available for an absurd price. Since when do hostels in an out of the way, day-trip from Bangkok town book up? We're pretty sure they were just trying to take advantage of us. We finally found one that had two expensive units available, but we decided the ambiance was worth it. We stayed in quaint, stilted bungalows that stood over a marshy area of the river Kwai for $10 a person (yes, I know its still cheap...but not by Thailand backpacker standards). The atmosphere was very cool.

The next day we we walked down to the Bridge over River Kwai, which was rebuilt, using mostly original timbers, at the end of the 2nd world war. It is now a gigantic tourist trap of a place, but if you avoid the souvenir shops it's still quite beautiful. Christy and I walked over the bridge (which despite being done by hundreds of people a day is potentially risky due to lose planks, narrow, uneven walking surfaces, and a complete lack of railings...crazy considering 50ft drop just 12inches to side) and then followed the train tracks for about a mile on the other side. Once you cross the river, the tourists disappear. We were flanked only by palm trees and farm fields. We had a really nice walk down a local highway, and Christy found a large flower that smelled exactly like vanilla frosting. We spent all day walking around the lesser visited areas of the town. We must have covered a good 8miles. At one point a local woman even stopped her motorbike and said something along the lines of "I saw you walking this way from the other edge of town. You walk TOO FAR!" That night we went to a restaurant looking for some spicy food. Korean food has mostly desensitized us, but Thailand is supposedly notorious. We had yet to find anything that even made us sweat. All the restaurants in Thailand have signs that say something like "It OKAY! We can do NO spicy". The restaurant we chose had the same sign, but we told the waitress to make it "Thai style". She said, "Maybe you like little spicy?" We said, "No, we want it VERY spicy." When our curries came to the table, we were pleasantly surprised. Indeed, they were nice and spicy just like Korean food. We had also ordered a papaya salad (a Thai favorite) and told the waitress to also make that "VERY spicy" also. What we got was hell on a salad. It was a large salad. To our credit we finished 75% of it, but before we were half way through, we knew we were in for some pain. The temperature in our mouths just kept going up. It didn't level out like it was supposed to. What started as a salad with kick, ended up kicking our asses. It was ever bit as hot the "Insanity Wings" you try to trick your friends into eating a Buffalo wild wings or comparable establishments. It was a rough recovery.

The next morning we decided to go to a Erwan National Park, about 65km outside of town. It's famous for a 7-step waterfall chain that stretches through the jungle. We had to catch a train out of town at 3pm, so we decided to motorbike it. Off we went on a beautiful country ride. An hour later we arrived at the park, and were on our way to the top of the climb. The walk up was beautiful. The water was a clear blue/green, and the temperature was great. We hiked past monkeys and scenic overlooks, all the way to the top, before getting wet. It was amazing, and once at the top, we had plenty of time to pool hop our way back down. My favorite part of the swimming was the abundance of what the Korean's call "Doctor Fish". They are commonly used for messages (glorified tickling) and to treat dry skin/psoriasis here in Asia. These sucker fish are like elderly piranhas who forgot their dentures. They swarm you, and gum at any flesh they see. It's a strange, but very cool sensation. We swam in many of the pools down this stretch of jungle paradise, and enjoyed ourselves the whole way. While we were in the water, we were enjoying the assaults of these fish...while we were out of the water we had another, less enjoyable predator to keep an eye out for...monkeys...."Fierce Monkeys!" These pint-sized simians were enough of a nuisance that the park had posted signs all over advising visitors to hold tight to their belongings. We had seen a few on the way up, but had no issues. On the way down, a troop of 6 or 7 was entertaining onlookers as we passed by. I reached into my bag to get my camera, and the crunching noise from my bag of banana chips was a ring of the dinner bell. An adult male (still only about 20-30lbs) jumped down within an arms length of me to investigate. It got closer and even looked as if it would lunge as I tried to zip up my bag and back away. Despite having several millions years of evolution, opposable thumbs, and 140lbs to my advantage, the little thing was menacing. Would you want to get between a monkey and a tasty bag of banana chips? I quickly jumped over to a group of tourists, and it finally gave up. Safety in numbers.

A short time later, having returned to the safety of our motorbike and Thai traffic, we buzzed back to town. Our train was on time (used up our luck), and we were heading back to Bangkok en route to Ayuthaya, the old capital of Siam.