Thailand: Kanchanaburi and Death Railway

Ep.46

“Vacation used to be a luxury, but in today's world it has become a necessity.” – Anonymous.

BKK – Bangkok, Thailand.

7^th-11^th May 2012.

Feed the Elephants

Day 2 : we started it by booking a tour from the hostel to Kanchannaburi, which is out of Bangkok already. The main idea was to ride an Elephant and by booking that tour, we also got to travel on the train through the death railway. The price for the tour itself was THB 1900 per person including pick up and lunch plus a tour guide. As it will be a one-day tour, we start early, at 7 am.

Ochie and I

Both wearing t-shirt (new from last night) and shorts plus back pack. We were ready to rock Kanchannaburi. We wait and wait and wait and 45 minutes late from the supposed pick up time, we finally picked up. We were taken by a van, approximately 2 hours driving from Bangkok. It seems that the tour that we book is the budget one so that we were actually gonna meet the whole tour group in Kanchannaburi. Never mind! As long as you took us there. We finally reached River Kwai, where we gonna meet the rest of the group. And there the are, as soon as we stepped out from the bus, the tour guide welcomed us, she said that we did have a choice whether we would like to enter the war museum, or just to shop around. There are a lot of jewelry stores around and there is River Kwai railroad. It was build during the World War II and became one of places of interest in Kanchannaburi. 

Locomotive and me.

The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma. Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre.

ladies on vacation.

After taking tons of pictures (all thanks to Ochie that she brought the extension cable to afford us to charge all the gadget we got since the room only provide one power socket), we shopped (of course we do!). Both of us, which were a very kind of daughter, loving sisters, and family person, bought some souvenirs to those we love back in Jakarta, Indonesia. It seemed that we passed the limit already since we were the last who enter the bus and the rest of the group has been waiting for us. And guess what? All Korean!!! We were merged with Korean tour group. Annyeong!

on my way to the bamboo raft

on the railway

20 minutes of bumpy ride we arrived at the place called Ban Chang Kaew. There, we were split into two groups, one will do the elephant riding first and the other will do the river raft first. We were on the second group. So we went for the river raft first. We took off our footwear and board a traditional boat first. The boat took us against the current to… in the middle of nowhere. Haha! The boat is the traditional one, cater only up to 10 people maximum, I guess, and operated by 2 persons. It took us along the river and by the riverside, some of the villas and bungalows were visible. Wasn’t a fancy kind of villa or bungalow, but it was quite nice to see. And after around 15 minutes boat ride, we were transferred to the raft. It was a bamboo made raft with awning in the middle made of straw, it doesn’t have ant motors on it, so it took two person to use the bamboo oar to pedal the raft. Now I got it why we should be taken there on a motorboat first, if these people have to pedal against the current, with 6-7 people on the raft, they will die in instance. The river’s current was became our power and brought us back to the point we board the boat in approximately 10 or so minutes.

Elephant riding

Now we go to the real deal. Elephant riding. One elephant could carry 3 people at maximum. A Korean girl, who travels by herself, was assign to join me and Ochie for the ride. Of course we wont mind. there were some sort of a cushion put on top of the elephant, that was our dedicated seat. We got on the elephant and the sensation was just amazing. I have been on camel and horses, but riding an elephant is another story. Its skin was dry and think, rough fur in one another place. If the camel rocks forward and backward, horse rocks up and down, then elephant rocks you side to side. We were riding this elephant on its track with one jockey up on its neck. In the middle of the track, the jockey climbed down and offered us a favor: “would you like me to take a picture for you?”. It was like seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Brilliant! He took us some pictures. Anyway, I’m gonna give him some tips later!

doggie

Finished with our elephant riding, we got off the elephant at the same point we got on to it. Ochie handed the tips to the elephant jockey. By the time we were back on the ground, there was a boy offered us our printed picture, the one that usually to be sold on any spot of tourists’ attraction. I bought the picture for THB 100 baht and bought a bunch of banana to feed the elephant. (I just found out that elephants eat bananas). Ochie and I agreed to split the bananas into half so that we could take turn to feed the elephants. I fed them first. But after seeing me fed the elephant, Ochie withdraw her willingness to fed them. So, I fed them the whole bunch of banana. There were 3 elephant in total, mom, dad and son, I guess, that I fed. They took the banana by its trunk and rolled it up to their mouth. Cute!! Even though the tips of their trunk were considerably always wet, I still think that they were cute big animals.

backpack on my back

After washing our hands, we joined ourselves back in the group and (finally) the tour leader announced something that every body has waiting for: Lunch time. We got in the car and it took us to a small local restaurant in the area. As Ochie and I expected, the taste of the food is not that far away from what we had back in Indonesia. Fried rice vermicelli, sweet sour chicken, bean sprout and egg. And we got a problem here. Those Korean girl who ate in the same table as Ochie and I, they sure know how “not” to eat that much. They ate slowly and considerably, in small portion. Ochie and I would definitely do not hold back to finished all the dishes on the table, if we were not considerate enough of those Korean. Actually, we didn’t want to be labeled as greedy (alibi).

Saiyok Noi Waterfall

Next, we got back in the car and it dropped us in a place called Saiyok Noi. I had no idea about this place before, but when we arrived there, it seems that it was a tourist attraction: Waterfall. I was so into climbing up the rocks and conquer the waterfall, but Ochie chose not to and stay on the ground, taking me some pictures. It only took us 10-15 minutes to finished the waterfall session as it was too crowded. Ochie and I then decided to go around for some local product (read: FOOD) to be brought back to home. Funny things happened. It seems Ochie got an international call from a company that she applied for job for an interview, unfortunately, she missed is as we were playing too hard. In the middle of consideration, climbing down the pathway, and taking pictures (see how multitasking we are?), all of sudden someone slipped on one of the rocks and fell. Who was it? Let’s leave it as a mystery. Ha-ha! Yes we found a local product as we also need to buy a pair of short to change into (since one of our shorts were completely soaked).

wird signage.

We found some chips, and fried snacks. Hooray! The lady who sells it for THB 100 per 4 packs let us to try the samples, and we did try all of the samples variants available. We closed the deal by asking the lady to give us a free pack each if we buy 8 packs, and she surrendered. Yeah! We got our snacks on hand and it seems we need to rest a bit, so we just sit and wait by the meeting point that have been agreed before. And there they were, one of the Korean couple were definitely fought each other. Lover’s quarrel. Cute! Ha-ha! The car came and took us to another point, here, we need to pay another THB 100 for the train ticket.

Goamahamongkol Station.

The station called Goamahamongkol. Here, we will board a train to go through what they called “death railway”. The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Thailand–Burma Railway and similar names, was a 415 kilometres (258 mi) railway between Bangkok, Thailand, and Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar), built by the Empire of Japan during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign. Forced labour was used in its construction. About 180,000 Asian labourers and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. Of these, around 90,000 Asian labourers (mainly romusha) and 16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the project.

we board the train..tuut tuuut

It was an old train that we boarded and the tour leaders gave us a little briefing. While we were on the train, we found our seats and start to do our hobbies, taking pictures. The train started to move and there were a split seconds sensation that in the modern era where we were so used to with air conditioned, electric train and subways, there were still some places that cherish their traditional heritage. As we moved, we could see how could the construction process of this railway send so many people to death. On one side we could see cliff, a very steep and rocky, and on the other side, the steep cliff continue down to a big river. Across the river some civilians houses were visible. As we came nearer to the legendary part of the railway, the train got slower. Why? Because on this part of the railway, there were no other foundation for the railway, no cliffs on both side of the railway, there was just old mixed wooden and metal sustainer that holds the railway plus the train (with us in it) until the end of the corner. Ah, so that’s the point.

don't put your head out of the window?

Passed through that point, the train started to gathered up its power and speed again. When we arrived at the station we were supposed to be disembark, we bid the tour leader a warm goodbye and got into the car which will took us back to Khaosan. We slept all the way to Bangkok and as soon as we arrived, again again and again, we cant resist those temptation to shop whenever we passed by those street vendors in Khaosan market. We ended up bought some dinner, some itsy bitsy unimportant things (arrgghh! Can’t stop our evil desire to spend).

I love Bangkok.

We spent few minutes to get on line down at the hostel’s restaurant and we say hello to our pillows. There we are the second day of our trip to Bangkok. Somehow, I realize that when we do holidays without joining a tour group (I mean those tour group where you book from your hometown, pay and just enjoy the itinerary), I rather do this kind of exploration trip. Yes, it might be ended up that we spend the same amount of the money, but the experience we got, irreplaceable.

“I rather be a lost traveler rather than find my way in a boring arranged routine.” – Me.