Exploring Caves of Murder

Day 26 (25/04/08): Kanchanaburi & Bangkok, Thailand

Another lazy morning. I didn't sleep very well in the night, the foreign food finally starting to play havoc with my stomach (it was only a matter of time). As such, I didn't get up for the dawn service (no real suprises there!). There is another famous cemetry just outside of Kanchanaburi, as well as a well known Buddhist Temple with a cave. The recommended way to explore these is to rent bicycles, so shortly after a late breakfast, Helen (my current travelling buddy) and I rented two bicycles and proceeded to explore the Kanchanaburi countryside.

It was great to be back on a bicycle, even if it was a crappy rent-a-bike. We cycled down a country lane, passing through some farmland before coming to Chungkai Cemetry. This cemetry was very similiar to the one from yesterday, a very neat and immaculate garden, with a large number of graves for the Allied Servicemen who died in the construction of the Thai-Burma Railway.

Back on the bikes and up a small hill (no mean feat in the heat and humidity) to the temple complex of Wat Tham Khao Pun, one of many cave temples in the area. This one is particularly famous for a 1995 incident where a drug addicted monk murdered a British tourist and dropped her body in a sinkhole. The cave system itself is very impressive. Small little holes lead through to big chambers which house statues of Buddha, altars and other Buddhist iconography. The floor has all been leveled and concreted in places, and a number of lights provide illumination. A large number of stalactites hang overhead the large Budda statues. It is hard to describe adequately, and photos can't really do it justice, but it was very impressive. It rained briefly while we were in the cave, and we emerged to the end of a short rainshower.

Back on the bikes and down the hill. We had passed a sign that said 'Kanchanaburi Monkey School' and decided to investigate. Down the end of dirt road was a small place that had a few monkeys chained up. It didn't look very nice, and neither of us wanted to support that kind of animal treatment, so we didn't enter. However, the dirt road had taken us down to the river, and so Monkey School aside, we were treated to a beautiful view of the river and the mountains. Made the whole side trip worthwhile!

Back to Kanchanaburi, and I did one quick bike ride to see the bridge for the last time. It was mainly just an excuse to go fast on a bicycle again, something I am missing dreadfully. I raced down the street, and even overtook an old lady on a scooter!

We had checked out of our hostel, and caught an organised minibus to Bangkok. Normally tourist transport like this is a rip-off, but in this case it was about the same as a taxi to the bus terminal, and the bus ticket. So a good deal, and a lot easier! We arrived in Bangkok in the early evening, right at the (in)famous Khaosan road, the mecca and gathering place of all travellers, backpackers and hippies. The street itself is a sight to behold. Packed to the gills with all sorts of people, from all age groups, nationalities, cultures and backgrounds. Street vendors hawking food, drinks, clothes, jewellery and other tourist trinkets. The buildings lining the street are all restaurants, pubs or hostels. Neon signs light up the night, and music fills the air, as each streetside bar tries to woo their customers. The cheapest drinking places are merely some plastic tables on the side of the street, with someone selling all sorts of cocktails and drinks from a small cart. Walking down the street is a minefield, as you try to ignore all the touts trying to sell you taxi rides, tuktuk rides, tourist trinkets or trying to get you into their bar. It is a crazy, mind-blowing, strange, exciting and disturbing experience. It makes Oxford Terrace in Christchurch look like a Kindergarten.

We found a hostel, right on Khaosan road that is really cheap. It is little more than a square room with two beds, a door and a ceiling fan, but you get what you pay for (a beer from a restaurant costs the same as my room for the night, about $3.75NZ). Apart from that, it is actually reasonably clean, although the term 'steel re-enforced sandbag' would be more appropriate than the term 'mattress'.

The night was spent drinking in one of the roadside 'pubs' (some plastic chairs under an umbrella) and talking to other travellers. Perhaps the craziest, yet sanest thing of all Bangkok, is that all the places shut at 2am, and shortly after this the place is pretty dead. The good news means that you can actually go and get a good sleep, wake up in the morning and be ready to explore and go sight-seeing. Even if you are sleeping on a sandbag.

Hunting Tigers

Day 25 (24/04/08): Kanchanaburi, Thailand

I had planned to get a lot more done today, but with all the travelling I had done recently, I ended up sleeping till almost lunchtime. I had some food, and spent an hour or so relaxing in a hammock overlooking the river. At 2pm the hostel had organised a minibus out to the 'Tiger Temple', a Buddhist Temple oustide of Kanchanaburi where the monks look after a large menagerie of animals, including of course, tigers!

The place isn't really a zoo, just a large open area, mostly dirt and dust, with a few scattered trees. Wandering around in here is a large collection of different buffalo, cattle, wild pig, goats, deer, chickens and peacocks. The animals are pretty tame, and you could walk right up to them and take photos or pet them. Especially cute were all the wild piglets which were scurrying about all over the place.

To see the tigers, you walked into a large canyon (appropriately named 'Tiger Canyon'). At the bottom were about a dozen or so tigers, all sleeping and chained on a short chain. The attendants would take your camera, and then lead you to a bunch of different tigers, which you could then stroke as they took photos of you. You had to leave your bags, hats, sunglasses, etc behind the barrier, as these were 'toys' to the tigers. The tigers were all pretty docile, and having lived there their whole lives, were ambivelant to the hordes of tourists stroking them and taking photos. I must say it was quite an interesting experience. Some of the tigers were quite small, obviously younglings, but some of the big adults were pretty huge! I remember looking at the paws, which were the size of my head, and realizing that these animals do really mean business!

At another place you could look at a few baby tigers. One was being walked around on a leash, and like any boisterous dog was pulling the 'owner' around, as it tried to chase after all the little piglets around the place. Other than that, there wasn't much more to the place. We did stay to watch them walk the tigers back from the canyon (from a safe distance of course!) and then got back on the minibus to Kanchanaburi.

I am now quickly writing up this post, before I head off to dinner. I am an unsure how much longer I will stay here before going to Bangkok. There are still a few things around the place I want to do. Tomorrow is also Anzac day, and I am toying with the idea of getting up for the dawn service, but you know what I am like with mornings....

The Bridge over the River Kwai

Day 24 (23/04/08): Kanchanaburi, Thailand

After ten hours in the bus, it rolled into Bangkok bus station in the early hours of the morning. I hadn't got a huge amount of sleep, but sleep is for the weak. Helen was planning on skipping Bangkok for the moment and going straight to Kanchanaburi, and I decided it sounded like a good idea. I really wasn't ready to face the bustle of Bangkok, and a quiet river town sounded like a good place to recharge my batteries.

We managed to buy some tickets for a 5:30am bus to Kanchanaburi, leaving us only 10 minutes to find it. We ended up running around the station, asking different people where the departure terminal was. We got pointed in multiple different directions, finding three places that were labeled as 'Terminal 10'. Fifteen minutes later we found the right place, and luckily the bus was still there. The bus trip was pretty uneventful, and two hours later, still early in the morning, we arrived in the small Thai town of Kanchanaburi, on the banks of the River Kwai, and obviously, the famous bridge.

We found quite a nice backpackers to stay at, right on the river side. It has a nice lawn with hammocks and deck chairs overlooking the river, perfect for relaxing. The room I was staying in was right on the river as well, literally. It's on a small floating platform, which you reach via a short gangplank. The plank is quite a test of dexterity, as it is hinged in three places. I wonder how many people have fallen into the river.

We decided that a couple hours of powernapping was definitely the way to go, and I crashed onto the bed, happy to be horizontal for the first time in a long time. A few hours later we were both awake and keen to explore the town. The first place we walked to was the 'Thailand-Burma Railway Museum'. A private museum setup recently to explain and give information about the construction of the famous railway line. For the uneducated in the audience, during WW2, the Japanese used a large number of Allied POW's and local forced labour to build a railway line linking Thailand and Burma. The working conditions were terrible, food scarce, and medical supplies non-existant. As such, thousands of the prisoners died from disease, malnutrition and violent beatings. The bridge over the river Kwai (one of eight bridges built), is the most famous due to a novel, and later a movie based on its construction. The museum was really good, it presented an excellent overview of the whole railway, its history, background, construction, effects, aftermath etc. While a lot of the information was very sobering, it served as a very good reminder of the inhumanity of war.

The second stop, right across the road from the museum, was the large cemetry housing the graves of close to 7000 Allied servicemen who died in the construction of the Thai side of the Railway. After the war, there had been a huge operation to recover the bodies of all the dead POWs and bring them together to be housed in one large cemetry. The cemetry is incredibly well taken of, the gardens are immaculate, with several full time gardeners constantly attending to it. At the cemetry were a few Australian soldiers, practicing for what I assume is an Anzac day demonstration. Anzac day is only 2 days away, and there are some signs around town advertising dawn services. I am not sure how many NZ'ers died working on the railway, they weren't listed anywhere, but a large number of Australians died. Quite a large section of the cemetry was Australian.

In the heat of the blistering afternoon sun, we walked the 3km across town to go and see the famous bridge. The bridge itself isn't that impressive as far as bridges go, but its the history behind it that is interesting. The bridge itself was covered in tourists, most arriving in the big package tour buses, snapping silly posed photos before being herded back onto their buses for the next destination. All around the bridge were touts selling all sorts of maps, books and other tourist trinkets about the bridge. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but something a little more somber to honour the dead would have been nice.

We walked back and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the lawn, watching the river and reading books. Going up and down the river was a small boat towing a large barge that looked like a large floating gazebo. It was packed with Asian tourists, singing some truly awful kareoke. I realised that my bed was right on the river, and hoped they would stop singing by bedtime.

It was the middle of the week, in the off season, so the town was pretty quite in the evening. Apparently Kanchanaburi is quite a popular spot with Thai weekend holidayers, so there were a number of pubs and restaurants around the place, all pretty much empty. So after a quiet dinner, I retired to bed to read my book.