Day Seven - Kanchanburi to Phitsanulok

Day 7 - Kanchanburi to Phitsanulok

We got up early to leave the jungle today. Last outdoor meal for a few days but I think I'll miss the jungle for its lush green foliage and birds and bugs ;)

This little fellow joined me in the shower today...walked right over my feet while I was washing my hair...he's  about an inch long in the body ;)

We are travelling today with breaks every couple hours to stretch our legs and use the 'happy place' as Perez calls the washrooms here. The service stations that we stop at have a 7 Eleven and a restaurant and usually a couple random stores with shoes or hardware?!! Strange combination but serves it's purpose I guess for those that travel through or live in the area.

This is a couple of the things you'll see in the 7 Eleven...you need to purchase and travel with toilet paper as most public washroomschool don't have that for you to use.

This is a first...cream version of deodorant in a soft pack...

Before we stop at the monastery, we pulled the bus over to a road side stand, typical along all the rural areas in Thailand to sample some field rat...yup!

OK, now that you're grossed out...let's move on...LOL

The ancient Buddhist monastery, the Wat Pa Lelai on the banks of the Suphan River...

Perez is showing us the incense, pure gold leafing and flowers that the Thai people bring or purchase at the Temple.  

Flowers are left at the alter or base of the Buddha images/sculptures...incense used to be burned inside the temple, but they don't do that anymore as the confined space makes it difficult to breath and bad for your health!

The gold leaf piece you get can be applied to this sculpture of a Buddha for good luck and fortune...

 Inside resides the Luang Pho To, a depiction of Buddha revered by many. Twice a year pilgrims flock here to pay their respects.

This Buddha is huge! Can you see why people come here to pay their respects?

As visitors, Perez told us we could take photos in the temple as long as we sat or kneeled. It is a sign of respect to do so, as standing over the Thai people and taking photos is not!

People make offerings in these little posts, with coin, for each of the Buddha images for each of the days of the week...usually for their family...but it looked to me like they covered every single pot. 

As we continue north, we made a slight detour for lunch along a river. Had another International Buffet which may or may not be getting a little tired at this point LOL

A few more hours driving and we are making our way into Phitsanulok and our Hotel Topland. There is a small 5 level mall attached to our hotel but nothing too impressive as my Baht stayed in my pocket.

Can you guess what we had for dinner? Another International Buffet you guess? You're right!

To top off the evening we all loaded Ricshaws and were taken around the city by our drivers,with a police escort too! 38 Ricshaws in a row and the police stopping traffic as we passed through intersections.

We stopped in the night market to try some snacks!

Deep fried insects, yup, I tried a couple...silkworms x2 and a giant grasshopper x1....Maria took a video of it and Sally snapped a couple photos. They were surprisingly pretty good...I can see if you lived here and this was your normal, that you would enjoy them as a snack.

We walked through the night market which was mostly food and FRUIT FLIES!!! It was super gross only because of the flies...they were all over the raw and cooked food and as you walked through there were swarms of them...you need to close your lips and breath out through your nose so you don't inhale or eat THEM!  Yuck!!!

We had to find our driver, load up again and then we went to a open restaurant? I'm not sure what it was really but it was a drink, snack and show let's say...they cooked 'morning glory' which is a plant or vegetable or root? in the swamps and fry it with oil, broth and garlic...then the guy frying it tosses it through the air and another person catches it.

For fun a bunch of kids got to catch the snack...

Back on the Ricshaw, back to the hotel...goodnight :)

Day Six - Kanchanburi

No wake up call today but we needed to be on the bus by 9am...I was up throughout the night as it is very loud with jungle noises here!

If you don't like bugs and geckos you might not enjoy your stay here ;) They are in your room, not in abundance but there...I named my gecko Dobby...because he's kinda like a house elf...taking care of my bugs and spiders...and by that I mean he is probably eating them as my room seems relatively bug free :)

The restaurant is outdoors here and by breakfast time it was approaching 29°C. Breakfast buffet consists of egg friend rice and soup if you want...with lots of vegetables and noodles if you want...pork, chicken, fried egg and cut up weiners...fruit of course and sometimes yogurt. The coffee here is excellent...they are Rockstars with their coffee! This was as westernized as I could get it this morning ;)

Bus loaded and we are on our way to the Hellfire Pass, where POW's once used hand tools to chip a tunnel through surrounding rocks and mountains.

It was a surreal experience walking through the pass and seeing the 75 meters of rock that was primarily hand chipped out at 25 meters deep! To realize that thousands of slaves and prisoners of war were forced to work till they collapsed and then repeat the day over and over...to read about the thousands of deaths as a result of that was very sad.

The museum has photos of the men in loincloth only and extremely malnourished and they still worked all day with little to no food or water...in the extreme heat we have felt here, I can't even fathom.

Today was a pretty mellow day as by 11:30 or so, as we made our way to lunch, the temperature was just 39°C and humidity at its  highest as per usual!

But we had one last trip to take on the Death Railway, in an actual train car, with all the windows open...which didn't make it feel any cooler if you're thinking that?!!

Needless to say, it was very scenic and lovely to pass through the rural area and see more farms and homes.

We passed over a couple of WOOD bridges which was a little scary, I'm not gonna lie there.....the name of the railway did cross my mind as we passed over them.

I'm a hot sticky mess with a headache by 2pm...back at the resort everyone headed to the pool for a cool down and then down to the room for a feet up and nap:)

Dinner in the open restaurant and then off to bed...we are packing up and heading Phitsanulok tomorrow with a quick stop at the ancient Buddhist monastery of Wat Pa Lelai on the banks of the Suphan River.

Day Five - Kanchanaburi road trip

Day Five  - Kanchanaburi road trip

So another early morning wake up call, 5:30am today…time to pack up and move out of our Royal Genja Hotel. Bus is loaded at 7am and we are heading into the Bangkok morning ‘traffic jam’  :)

It wasn't too bad this morning as our driver took a couple shortcuts Perez said ;)

We are travelling south-west and stopping this morning at an authentic Thai country home where they sell knick knacks and make coconut sugar…lots of bartering and beautiful items for sale…

Also a multitude of animals, chickens and roosters, budgies and a couple squirrels in a cage…not sure what that was all about? Perhaps an appetizer ;p

On our travels we saw the salt fields and coconut farms…the northern areas are primarily farmers and farmland. I have to admit it never dawned on me that there was such a thing as a salt field…they pump the water from the China Sea and only produce the salt during the summer months…rainy season spoils the salt which would seem like common sense only after our Tour Guide Perez said it LOL

Off to the floating market via Thai speedboats…8 people per craft and we traveled down canals, winding our way to the market…it was an interesting 20 minutes and we were able to see many traditional stilt homes and stores along the waterway. Of course the water is not the most appealing in colour as it’s a chocolate brown but we had a great breeze to keep us cool and it was partially shaded along the way.

The stilt homes varied in terms of repair but you certainly saw their pride the Thai people have in their homes as many had beautiful lush gardens and flowers. Most of the residents along the canal vend at the floating market. So every day they load up their boats and head down the canals to the market area.

I was extremely tempted to purchase the sticky rice and mango but of course we have been told to stay away from street food…spending time on a coach during the day doesn’t lend itself well to travellers diarrhea!

Like many places in the world I’ve explored, markets and souvenir shops all hold the same items, in the same country, generally speaking. You will see a variety of prices for the exact same things…this floating market is more expensive than the previous spots we’ve stopped but when you actually calculate the Canadian dollar equivalent for the item you need to remind yourself that EVERYTHING in Thailand is very inexpensive…a t-shirt for $8 and Thai elephant pants for $8-$16…if you can negotiate a good deal with the locals, as we did :)

Yes, you can even hold some animals...

I’m finding myself not bartering too much as I feel guilty seeing as the prices are so minimal…Thai people work as vendors setting up their shops in some areas at 5am and getting packed up at midnight or later in some places where they have a nightmarket. Such hardworking people….when you see seniors in the streets selling home cooked food and gifts you realize that they are still working in their 80’s which makes me sad.

I have not seen any begging, only people selling…which says quite a bit about the people and their culture here. They have free transit for low income people and homeless people as well.

Quick stop for a lunch before we saw a Cobra Show! 

Lunch was, you guessed it, International Buffet again...but the restaurant was funky and it had some great signs and decor :) 

Now if you’re not a huge fan of animals in captivity then this show may not be for you…it is four quick ‘sets’ of men interacting with the snakes…the last one was a Mongoose fighting a Cobra! The men needed to intervene three times over maybe 2 minutes max of ‘fighting’…which was mostly the Cobra trying to get away from the Mongoose!

Back to the bus we go as we make our way to the fourth largest province in Thailand, Kanchanaburi.  

We stopped at the JEATH War Museum. The name represents Japan, England, America & Australia , Thailand and lastly Hungary...which is dedicated to the victims of the Death Railway Bridge.

We were not allowed to take pictures in the museum but this is what the area outside looked like...

We stopped at the World War II Cemetery before we reached the bridge over the river Kwai.

The bridge that is currently standing is a reconstruction of the original Death Railway Bridge, built under tortuous conditions by WWII prisoners of war to connect the segments of the Japanese empire.

The bridge over the river Kwai...

The view from the center of the bridge...

History lessons everywhere here...the Death Railway, the bridges that were destroyed and rebuilt...the thousands of men enslaved and prisoners of war forced to work for the Japanese, and all the lives lost because of them...

We were supposed to hop onto the Death Railway train car and travel in the direction of our next hotel...but after standing and waiting at the station for about 20 minutes in 40°C temperature...plus humidity...we discovered the train would be another 45 minutes as it was behind schedule...so we decided to get back onto our coach and get there with air-conditioning instead!

We are at the Pung-Waan resort in Kanchanaburi...which is in the rainforest and right on the river...here's my room...

A long, tiring, hot and sobering day to say the least, sawatdee ka.