Death, waterfalls and some silk

We finally reached Kanchanaburi after a long hot bus ride, which was supposed to be on a "VIP" bus with air-con but turned out to be a old, smelly ride with this pitiful amount of air that wouldn't cool a camel in winter. Luckily, it was only a couple of hours and the scenery was beautiful enough that we didn't care too much. Its always interesting to see the quality of long distance travel is in each country but I had expected a little bit better in a place with as much tourism infrastructure as Thailand. But we did decide to take a government run bus. All our guidebooks said to avoid the tourist buses that left from the Khao San Road area like the plague so we were willing to take our chances with the Thai government than their travel agencies.

But we quickly forgot our bus ride once we stepped out of it. Bangkok was like another other big city except maybe with more palm trees but it didn't really have enough to really give you a feel of what Thailand is like so it was great to get out of there and experience the country. Kanchanaburi is a little town with 2 or 3 main roads and stretching about a kilometer long and the complete opposite of Bangkok. It was a real laidback place with people sitting on their porches and motorbikes puttering past. We decided to book into the Blue Star Guesthouse, a small quiet place overlooking the Kwai River. It was so great to stand there and take in the scenery with nothing but crickets and munching cows in the background. Ahhh, peace and quiet. You really can't put a price on that.

Yay! Our first bungalows in Thailand!

The view from our front porch. Well, actually we were too cheap to get the bungalow with the view but it was a very short walk away. Basically the same, right?

Kanchanaburi is famous mainly because its the site of the Death Railway Bridge. During World War II, the Japanese used prisoners of war (not necessarily Thai people as Ang aptly pointed out to me after laughing for about 10 minutes at my expense - thanks, Ang!) to do manual and construction work like building this one railway though the conditions were horrid and many people lost their lives. Its a sad moment in Thai history though the bridge itself is pretty unremarkable. Its just a bridge covered with tourists, though I guess that's a sight to be seen in itself. We were obliged to snap photos ourselves but our hearts weren't in it.

And here's the bridge. That's pretty much it.

Probably the best part of going to the bridge was seeing the sun set over the river. That was really nice except for the annoying floating karaoke bars and restaurants in the way. Like I said, lots of tourists here!

The real reason Ang and I had put Kanchanaburi on our preciously short list of things to do was to see the 7-tiered waterfalls in Erawan. Especially in that heat, we were pretty excited to swim under beautiful waterfalls. Really, in the humidity, there is nothing better than taking a dip! And the waterfalls definitely delivered. It was a long hot hike up to see each of the 7 waterfalls but each was beautiful and well worth the slippery rocks and oozy mud. The swim was even better.

Waterfall #2. Just look at the color of that water! Each waterfall was small enough to swim in the pools below so it was just perfect.

Posing in front of waterfall #4. It looks pretty lame but its hard to come up with new poses with so much travel!

This could be on a postcard! This is #5. It has pools on either side of these falls so we decided to swim here.

Walking across the pool. There were tons of fish in the pools that kept nipping at our feet. We were freaking out and dancing around the water. This DOES NOT bode well for scuba diving!

Finally made it to the top! The climb to #7 was slippery (we each fell at least one really hard on the butt) and muddy but it was definitely worth it. You can see the sun above the top of the falls and it was just perfect. I've seen lots of falls in my trip and these were definitely the best swimming ones!

We also saw the funniest lizard with a blue head. Its really blue! What??

We didn't have that much time in Kanchanaburi though we were able to find the night market and sample some pretty crazy foods. Having 2 people is way better than 1 for eatings since you can try twice as many dishes. The market was definitely not geared towards tourists so we spent a lot of time, scratching our heads and trying to figure out what was being sold, though it was awesome to get the local experience. At least the locals took pity on us and let us sample or buy very small portions of things. We ended up trying papaya salad, weird meatball things, miscellaneous meat on a stick, sticky rice balls with coconut, lots of indistinguishable fishy fried things and some of the strangest crepe-like desserts that came with gooey green stuff. Everything was absolutely divine and it was quite an adventure. But food is my thing so I was in heaven.

Look at all that meat on a stick!! We had the most amazing bbq pork and these weird meatballs that were sooo good.

We headed back to Bangkok to catch our overnight bus to Chiang Mai but we had some time to kill so we decided to see Jim Thompson's house. Jim was an American who settled in Thailand in the sixties and was instrumental in opening Thai culture to the West and introducing the wildly popular Thai silk worldwide. Before he mysteriously disappeared in 1967 (most people think he was probably run over by some Malaysian truck driver who then hid the body) he amassed a collection of Thai antiques, including the buildings of his house, which was then converted to a museum. It was interesting to see the house as it was with all the antiques, beautiful landscaping and tasteful decorations. With all the gaudy kitch in Bangkok it was nice to see something with some class.

The lush greenery outside the house. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any photos inside but the grounds were really lovely.

The house itself is an antique and was disassembled and reassembled in its current location. How do I get a house like this??

And next is Chiang Mai! Though there has been some flash-flooding in the north, we still want to go up and do some elephant-riding and trekking. We've heard some pretty great things about Chiang Mai so rain or shine, we're going!