Day 5

Mark had recommended some towns in the west, so I hopped on a morning local train to Kanchanburi. Fortunately getting on was painless as the staff spoke basic English. There was only one other Western couple on the whole train so I felt immersed in the experience. The carriages were 3rd class, quite rickety with fans on the ceiling. An old chap befriended me, he seemed to be a tranny without makeup or maybe he just had a weird fashion sense. He spoke a few words of English but we managed to communicate through signs.

A drinks hawker patrols the train

The 3 hour journey took us past rice fields, temples and towns, towards the end large forest hills dominated the landscape. On arrival I lugged my stuff to a recommended guesthouse, annoyingly realising afterwards I was next to a building site! Many of the guesthouses have rooms over the river on stilts. The tourist part of Kanachanburi is a characterless concrete strip filled with touristy bars and shops, so I went wandering into the main town. I found one of the big war cemeteries for the prisoners of war who died building the Burma/Thailand railway. Kanchanburi is the location of the Bridge of the River Kwai. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners and labourers were enlisted to build the railway and something like 90 thousand died due to the terrible conditions.

I found a traditional Thai cemeterary next door and explored it. Some graves have photos of the inhabitants which is quite touching.

Further into town I saw a big school music show going on, some of the kids were excited to see a farang around. I came across a fresh food market and put my photography to the test in dark conditions. There were lots of fish (some huge), eels, and even frogs.

I headed down to the river past some impressive temples and discovered loads of floating restaurants. As it wasn’t the weekend or evening, they were all moored up in rows. They are quite big and some are two storey. Apparently at the weekend there are floating discos which cruise along the river, sounds great. I found a road bridge which gave a good vantage point of the nice river scenery and rafthouses.

You can see a floating building being tugged there on the right.

A long walk back to the tourist area and I managed to get to another bridge to catch the end of sunset, the image at the start of this post. The blue lit up bridge in the distance is the Bridge on the River Kwai.

Keeping this blog updated and staying on top of my photo management is proving harder than I thought! Often I’m just too tired or don’t have the time or internet connection. So once again here’s a bunch of posts at once!

Day 3

Lugged my bags to a guesthouse right next to Khaosan Road. Then I roamed the streets determined to eat some street food for breakfast. I stopped at a likely stall and realised as it was a “made to order” place I didn’t know how to explain what I wanted (there aren’t obvious things to point at at these stalls). As soon as I started miming the guy immediately pointed to the next stall down the alley so I went there. The guy there spoke a few basic food words so I ordered noodles, chicken! I was annoyed to fail at the complicated stall but happy to get something authentic and cheap – street food is at least half the price of any restaurant. Whilst I was scoffing my delicious dish, a passing guy gave me a friendly punch and smile, clearly impressed to see a farang (foreigner) eating as the locals do!

The easy kind of street food, you can just point at what you want!

Spent the rest of the day chilling out in my room and sleeping. A proper monsoon hit in the afternoon and this was the first of many to come in the following days. Never seen such heavy rain even in Costa Rica. Unfortunately having slept too much in the day I couldn’t sleep at night and woke up at 5am!

Monsoon

Day 4

I walked North for a few hours in search of a palace where there’s a free traditional dancing show. On the way I found a small Wat with some nice shrines inside. People in the Wats tend to be quite friendly and say hello, and there were a few monks around, some of who were giving blessings to visiting Thai.

After getting a bit lost (glad I brought that compass now!) I found the palace. Unfortunately an armed guard explained to me it was closed today! Gah, a gruelling walk wasted. Still the place was good to look at from outside and next to it was the zoo which I wanted to see. Outside the palace there were hundreds of policemen gathered for some training or induction or something. There were street vendors selling them belts, badges and other bits and bobs, guess the police here have to equip themselves!

As I was taking photos of the palace some nutter was running laps around the statue in the huge area in front of it. The sun was blazing down and the guy was baretopped and looked like he was about to die. After about twenty minutes he gave up and stopped to pray at the statue. Maybe the gods are punishing him, because you wouldn’t see me do that madness!

Just then I ran out of battery and to my horror discovered all my spares were out too. Novice mistake! I headed back to the guest house to recharge and met Mark for some refreshment. Later he took me for dinner to a local place over the river and we ate some firey Northern Thai food including a great herb soup. I got the local bus back, complete with roof fans.

ISO 160, 28mm, f/11, 1/400 secs, polariser

Day 2

Got up at 6am in a vain effort to get to a temple for opening time (for people-less photos), with only two hours sleep. I’ve had better mornings! First one of my little combo padlocks on my bag won’t open. After messing with that for half an hour, half asleep and hung over, I gave up. Then wandered around like a zombie with all my bags looking for a cheaper guest house. You can find everything from a western-style hotel to the converted upstairs of someone’s house with padlocks on the doors. I soon got tired of hauling my gear one-armed to find an ideal place and settled for a really basic hotel closer to Khaosan Road.

Old fort
ISO 160, 20mm, f/11, 1/50 secs, tripod

By the time I walked to Wat Pho (the temple) it was 9am and the crowds had descended. The streets were rammed with tour buses and massive groups of tourists and school kids in uniform. Mark said in the past few years the tourism from China has exploded and now the Golden Palace and other big sights are swamped. It’s mental, I was still walking past parked coaches half an hour down the road. I stopped at a park and tried to use my big zoom lens to photograph someone flying a kite… only to find it wouldn’t focus properly or take a photo. It’s my largest lens and worth 300 quid so I was annoyed it had died on day 2! Thankfully now it’s alright. Mark explained the temperature change from an air-con room to the humidity outside can cause fogging inside lenses, so I tried it again last night and sure enough it’s fine now! Phew! You’re supposed to keep them in zip bags or wrapped in clothing. Lesson learned!

Outside Golden Palace
ISO 160, 14mm, f/11, 1/200 secs

With my temple chances ruined I wandered down towards China Town. I soon reached the river docks there. It’s a beehive of activity with guys running around with massive baskets on trolleys full of smashed ice, fruit and vegetables. There’s people sat around sorting through massive heaps of chillies and chopping other vegetables and fruit to sell. I found a big warehouse market where they sell flowers for the shrines and temples, very colourful.

Get that in yer belly!
ISO 200, 38mm, f/8, 140 secs

I felt like a complete outsider behind the scenes, I was the only westerner around and it was exciting to explore – though I felt completely out of place and a bit apprehensive about taking out my camera. Although the scenes were fascinating to me I struggled with photos because most of the points of interest are manned stalls or people at work.

Photographing strangers when travelling is something I’ve never really had to do before and I felt really uncomfortable with it. A lot of them are working on things to sell and to me it seemed quite rude to want to take a photo of them hard at work for my own benefit. The westerner guilt complex also kicks in,  I feel bad that these people are slaving away and me with my riches is peering through the lens at them. In these tight alleyways you are inches away from the people too which makes it worse. I’ve read tips before about how to tackle photographing strangers in travel, and in the UK I’ve tried it a bit, but here I found it much more of a problem. It’s something going to have to force myself to try, and get over that barrier. Mark says most Thai people will be quite happy to get their photo taken which is good to know.

ISO 1600, 20mm, f/5.6, 1/25 secs

Through my exploring I found myself at a pier, so I caught the river ferry. The signs and timetable at the pier were colour coded and there were a few English words so I could figure it out. And as I’m quickly learning, if you’re not sure about something just watch what the locals are doing and follow their lead! I love boat travel so the ferry was great. It was rammed full of a mixture of Thais and tourists, from rich Chinese slinging expensive cameras to scraggy western students.

These cats were super friendly
ISO 160, 20mm, f/9, 1/160 secs

Old fort                                             ISO 160, 20mm, f/9, 1/500 sec, polariser

I spent the rest of the afternoon trudging up and down the shopping streets of Khao San Road and Rambutti Street. They’re lined with stalls and shops selling cheap clothes and travelling gear, aimed at beach party lovers and young backpackers. I bought clothes I needed (my haggling needs work!). Hot, bothered and in pain at this point I chilled out during the afternoon rain at a massage shop. Lying on a soft recliner on the street, I got a Thai foot massage and watched the world go by as my troubles faded away for the moment.

Khaosan Road,  street food vendor in the foreground
ISO 400, 20mm, f/10, 1.3 secs, tripod

I met Mark and his friend Danny in the evening for drinks. We stuck to Khaosan Road bars which was pumping because it was Saturday night. Great vibe. Mark warned me about stray dogs when you’re walking home, they go around in packs and sometimes attack people. It’s fine, I’ll just shoulder barge them to death. Got back around 3am and passed out whilst trying to drunkenly organise the days’ photos!

Mark and Danny