Hello again family and friends! This is the site for my new travel blog that will follow my travels through Thailand. This time I will be accompanied by my good friend, Brent Whitley. We will be traveling for 15 days. I will try to update this site as much as I can throughout the trip. Happy New Year everybody and see you when I return!
-Alec
January 16, 2010
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Kanchanaburi
January 14 - 15
Days 3 - 4
We departed the train station in Hua Hin at 6:30am. It took 4 hours until we reached Ban Pong and we connected to a bus that would take us Kanchanaburi. We didn’t realize the city was so vast when we arrived there. Our hostel was way on the other side of it so that took another hour just to get there by taxi. Our hostel was kinda creepy. Maybe three people working there with a bunch of small dogs following them around and we happened to be the only guests there. This place was located in the middle of the forest too… But it turned out the people there were really nice and they were not scheming to cut us up into little pieces and rob us of our goods.
The owner was an old man who took us around the place in his beat up Jeep. Our first stop was at the monk’s Tiger Temple. This place was like a preservatory for human-tamed tigers. The monks who live in the temple grounds raised the tigers from birth so that they would not fear humans. The tigers, water buffalo, pigs, peacocks, and all sorts of other animals roamed around the temple grounds. We got to touch the tigers which was pretty cool. Later, one of the volunteers working in the temple offered us a deal for travelers who are not with guided tours. After the temple closes it’s doors for the day, the volunteers and interns working the preservatory bathe and feed the tigers in the wash. They put up a 5 ft metal fence in front of us and we were able to watch them play with the tigers, nudge them off the rocks so that they fall into the water, and feed them. There were about ten tigers running around playing and diving into the wash.
From there we took a short ride to the famous Bridge on the River Kwai. It was pretty amazing being able to walk the bridge back and forth knowing that it played such an iconic role in WWII history. There were tourists from all over the world walking the bridge and taking photographs. The war museum was close by so we went and checked that out too. We saw weapons, automobiles, and old photos of the Chinese army who enslaved the Thai to build the bridge. Before we left we also took a quick look at the war cemetary that held the burials of all the soldiers who died protecting Kanchanaburi during WWII.
The next day we checked out of our hostel and took a taxi back into downtown Kanchanburi. We hopped on a bus headed towards Sangkraburi. That took around 4 hours. But it was an amazing trip because we drove through the mountains so the scenery was terrific. Sangkraburi was a nice little town with not much going except for the giant lake and reservoir that rested below it. We stayed at the Burmese Inn which had a great view of the reservoir and was only a few minutes walk from it. We walked the reservoir then took a water taxi ride around the lake. Later, we got some food and drinks, wrote postcards, then went to bed.
