Day 8

I got up early as I couldn’t sleep and headed down to the footbridge for some sunrise images. Sadly it was overcast but the mist rising off the hills in the distance was cool.

The pagoda on the Mon side of the bay

All over Thailand’s settlements you see little shrines every few blocks, which are for buildings or groups of buildings. People pray at them daily and leave offerings of food and drink. They’re a nice sight but the edibles attract plenty of insects!

I walked out to the big temple I’d spotted yesterday and went in a side entrance which took me to a big wooden hall filled with pillars and paper flags.Colourful paintings ran around the ceiling with mythology scenes.

Paintings like this covered the walls

Little-known double use for Buddhist halls!

I was lucky to see a monk come to receive gifts of food from some locals, he kneels in front of them and they take it in turn to give him rice and other food and drink. He accepts it and then turns to pray to the buddah statue. Getting sharp images was tricky as anyone walking anywhere in the building sent vibrations through planks and wobbled the tripod.

Monk receives morning’s offerings

I continued onwards past some monks living quarters. A friendly young monk agreed to have his photo taken and was very keen to see the result, a senior monk was very amused by the whole affair but didn’t object to me taking some photos of him too.

Took this one discreetly before approaching the monks

I explored the rest of the impressive temple complex, with a number of halls each with different statues and shrines.

The most impressive building from outside turned out to be a building site inside (pic above). The sun was blazing down now. I walked to the other big attraction nearby, a big golden pagoda (tower). A colourful childrens school was next door and all the kids seemed to be having a siesta in the classrooms. I caught a motorcycle taxi back to base as the heat was crazy.

The pagoda

Had lunch at a little bakery which made awesome cookies. It has free wi-fi and is a westerner’s haunt, the place was full of people my age with laptops. On the way to the bakery I came across the owner’s guest house, an animated Burmese woman who showed me her super cheap rooms, just matresses on the floor but you could rent for a month or longer at £3 a night. She regaled me with her woes of having broken both her shoulders from falling, she rotated them and you could hear them clicking – brrrrr. She warned me to take it easy so I didn’t end up like her!

Temple chedi 5 mins from my guest house

I went for another explore, going around a small temple next door which had a nice golden chedi (see above). Then I walked along the coast road and found a disused ferry station where a young couple were hanging out. I think they were a bit surprised to find anyone else there having made the effort to escape from everyone, but they were friendly enough!  It was a good romantic spot for them. I left them to it and got back before the rains began, which they did in earnest.

Upgraded to an air-con room back at the ranch and as I packed my stuff up I moved the pillow and found this guy chilling out underneath!

Look, don’t touch!

From now on, I always check under the pillows before bed! I was so knackered I needed a good rest in the nicer room I’d bought. I had a sleep and then rested on my balcony watching the river. A boy was fishing by himself from a rowing boat, using amazing balance to run up and down it and cast his net, using a paddle with one hand when he drifted away. He spotted me watching and shouted “Fish!”. Sadly for him he didn’t get any luck, seemed a shame with all the effort involved, every time you cast you have to reel in the whole net, untangle, fold and do it all over again.

Day 7

I woke up to the sound of hammering rain. As I’d seen the main highlights of Kanbanchuri already, I saw no point wandering in the wet, I can always return in the dry season.  Mark had told me further west was a cool place, Sangklaburi, right by the Burmese border – so I decided to use the bad weather to travel there.

A wall of jungle

After a deluxe motorcycle taxi ride (this kind had a sidecar frame bench with a polythene cover!), I arrived at Kancanchuri bus station. Then I hopped on a local mini bus. I was given the front seat, privelidges of a broken shoulder/lots of luggage I guess. The rest was filled with Thai people. It only cost 4 quid for around 4 hours up into the hills. A proper monsoon began as we drove, sheets of rain pouring over the windscreen. The roads were in great condition until we got quite high up and then erosion started to show and the driver had to swerve around potholes.

As we got higher the terrain became impressive dense jungle. The hills and cliffs were completely covered.  We passed through a number of army checkpoints where they checked the whole bus and looked at passports. They’re there to stop Burmese immigrants and smuggling, only one guard was interested in the farang with the broken shoulder.

We started to skirt a huge reserviour. This was made in the 80’s and they flooded whole valleys. What’s cool is you can still see the tops of dead trees poking out.  Floating villages are visible from the road. I wondered why they floated – a few days later I learned that in the dry season the water levels drop dramtically so that way they stay level. The views were pretty awesome with cloud covered mountains in the distance. The weather started to clear and the sun came out at last.

The reservoir (this was actually taken on the way back when the weather was better!)

As we reached our destination we drove past some big golden buddahs built above Sangklaburi, and some golden temples glimmering in the distance, poking out of the  jungle. The descent to the town was so steep they have a run off in case of brake failure. On arrival I lugged my stuff towards the guest house area – the only taxis here are motorbikes. I can’t carry my big bag on my back so I can’t use them. The main town is quite small and nothing to look at, just a few blocks of markets and shops. A fat weathered-looking American in a café called out “Welcome to the neighbourhood!”. A long road leads to the river and the guest houses. It hadn’t looked far on the map but it turned out to be about a gruelling half an hour in the searing heat with all my luggage. After my original choice had a building site, I ended up going all the way back up the road to a nice hillside resort which slopes steeply down to the river, called the Burmese Inn.

I went for a super cheap fan room, and you get what you pay for, a rickety row of budget rooms on stilts with wooden walls and exposed to outdoors through many gaps. A lizard the size of a computer keyboard lept away as I entered the toilet! After some lunch in their charming wooden restaurant overlooking the river, I headed out to explore in late afternoon.

The bay, you can see the main footbridge top right.

These houses are only accessible by boat

From the guest house road down the hill is the river and bay leading out into the reservoir. Across the river is a wooden footbridge, leading to a much bigger one which crosses the bay. The side walkways were rotting but the center was ok and seeing the locals happily using the brigdes I knew it would be alright. The views were great and you first notice the floating houses in the bay, connected by floating bamboo walkways to the land. Some of them were half-sunk so I assumed they weren’t used until I saw a girl striding out along them.

Main footbridge

The one on the left doesn’t look too stable right? Well that’s the one the girl merrily hopped along!

Longboats puttered around the bay and the bridges were quite busy as school had finished and uniformed groups of kids headed home. I got quite a few hellos and some boys who were chatting to me agreed to have their photo taken.

I only saw a few westerners walking around, looked like they were in a tour group. I thought I could make it to the impressive temple in the distance before dark and wandered through the Mon village on the other side of the bay. The Mon people are from Burma – but couldn’t get into proper Thailand due to the immigration laws when they arrived . Out in this region there are a number of large refugee camps for Burmese people – Thailand is not part of the international standards for treating refugees. The women have powered faces. Their village is a bit more run-down looking than the other side. I wandered the streets occasionally getting a hello from the locals in their homes. I headed beyond the village and a western woman on a motorbike stopped to say hello and pointed out the correct way to the temple. As it was getting dark I headed back for the guest house.

Typical street scene in towns like these. Most dogs lie in the road nonchalantly with traffic whizzing inches past them.

The streets of Thailand are always riddled with dogs. Some are friendly, some are scared of people, some are aggressive. There’s a lot of strays on this side of the bay and as I was walking back one seemed quite afraid of me so I knelt down and put my hand out which most dogs usually respond well too. Not this one, he barked and growled and all the other dogs started barking too. As I walked away quickly he went for me! I got lucky, he took a chunk out of my raincoat and ran off when I bent over to the ground (you are supposed to throw stuff at them or pretend to, to scare them off). Lesson learnt, be wary around the strays!

As the rains came again I took photos in the dusk of the bridge and headed back. The mossies were eating my feet.  Back at the guesthouse eating dinner the jungle noises were all around and under each side lantern sat a gecko soaking up the heat. My only company in the restaurant was the very friendly hotel dog and occasionally the girls from the guest house. I didn’t get much sleep again thanks to the shoulder and the heat.

People returning home over the footbridge. Youths like to hang out on the bridge, smoking and fishing.

Day 6

As I’m a solo traveller getting to areas out of town can be expensive, so I booked a day mini-bus tour taking in some of the main attractions of the Kanchanburi area. There were only two other people on the tour; some German students, and we were whisked off straight to the Bridge on the River Kwai. Our tour guide’s English accent was so bad you could only understand a quarter of what he was saying!

Tally ho wot wot don’t let the Japs get you down son!

As an attraction it’s boring but still cool to walk along the same place that the Brits slaved over. The place is a tourist trap but we only hung around for ten minutes before continuing to the Sai Yok waterfalls about an hour away. The falls were nice, just one set, but didn’t rate compared to others I’ve seen.

Setting up a tripod on underwater rocks with a broken shoulder is not the easiest of tasks!

Then it was off to Hellfire Pass, up in the hills. This is a section of the wartime railway that had to be manually hacked out of the rock. The conditions were appalling especially when the timeframe for the completion was brought forward and prisoners were working around the clock. Many died and this outdoor museum is an audio tour as you walk through the cuttings and hear first hand interviews with ex-POWs. It’s really well done and amazing to imagine what you are walking through was hacked away by hand and explosive. Some of the stories from the POWs are quite horrible. Further along the railway the jungle opens out to this amazing view over the jungle to the mountains (Burma lies behind these).

The weather was scorching, at least it wasn’t raining as usual! We continued to an elephant centre and had an elephant ride through the jungle including wading through a river. When we were going through the river the second elephant decided it would be fun to have a wash and sprayed mud with its trunk behind it, spattering me completely with chunks of mud. Brilliantly one bit landed smack-bang in the middle of my camera lens!

This elephant’s manhood is the length of my arm.

Next was a short bit of bamboo rafting. You sit on a tiny plank a few centimeters above the water and a guy poles you along the river. Good fun. At this point I was wishing I’d brought my waterproof camera as we slammed into rocks and went through rapids. Oh well, I thought, at least my camera would die happy if the worst happened!

We collected some girls afterwards who had done a jungle trek and stayed overnight in the jungle. They had seen tarantulas and sampled the killer local homebrew whiskey. Then it was off to the “Death Railway”, a stretch of the original WW2 railway which is still in commercial use, over a cool cliffside bridge. As we waited for the train we explored a nearby cave shrine.

Jumped out of the tracks as the train arrived but still failed to get a good photo of it! Then stood on the steps of the doorway to get a great view. There are handles so it’s safe as long as you don’t have a death wish. The train journey took us a few stops through the countryside.

One of the girls from the tour

Then it was back to Kanchanburi. I was determined to try and get some decent golden hour shots of the river piers so, knackered from the day, I got my first motorbike taxi. We bombed through the streets dodging traffic but unfortunately I had shown the wrong place on the map and we ended up at the ferry pier. It seemed interesting so I stayed to check it out. Locals were fishing from the pier and the ferry was just a basic flatbed boat which people and motorbikes piled onto, chugging across the river every few minutes. Unfortunately the poor weather meant there was no good light, but it was nice to experience the place.

I wandered back as it got dark, through a busy food market and picked up some kebab things. I had trouble finding a motorcycle taxi, since then I’ve learned that they always have a numbered top on. Eventually one turned up and the driver, not speaking English, turned off in a wrong direction. I thought I’d wait and see what he was doing as the map I’d shown him was quite clear. Turns out he took me to his taxi rank and handed me over to a driver who spoke English and they split the fares. So sometimes it pays to put faith in your foreign help! Had a restless night thanks to the overwork I’d given my shoulders.