Kanchanaburi Adventures

Kanchanburi Province

Earlier this week a potential four-day weekend was dangled in front of me, causing me to come up with exciting plans for a spur of the moment trip to Cambodia. Unfortunately, on Friday our boss discussed all the work we would be doing together on Monday... no long weekend. Since my roommates and I had already been in the mindset of getting out of Bangkok for the weekend (and because we wanted to celebrate my roommate Emily's birthday in style) we decided to quickly pack our bags and head to Kanchanaburi.


Allied P.O.W. Cemetery, Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi has two main draws, the first is that it lies along the banks of the River Kwai-- yes, the one from the movie. In Kanchanaburi there are cemeteries filled with allied POWs from the UK and Australia as well as several museums and monuments commemorating their sacrifices during the war. The other draw is its proximity to Erawan National Park. This park has a lovely series of seven waterfalls that are extremely popular amongst Thais and tourists.


Outside the Hellfire Pass Museum

On our first day in Kanchanaburi we hopped on a purple bus and headed out into the countryside to see the Hellfire Pass Memorial. To give you a bit of background, during World War II over 60,000 British, Australian, Dutch and American Prisoners of War along with 270,000 Asian laborers built a railroad stretching between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzat, Burma. From October 1942 to October 1943 these workers were forced to work as much as 16 hours a day in the jungles of Thailand and Burma under terrible conditions-- little food, poor sanitation, inadequate medical facilities, and brutal treatment from their captives. By the time the railroad was completed,12,399 of the Allied POWs and 70-90,000 of the Asian laborers had died. In 1984 one of the POWs came back to Thailand and searched for Hellfire Pass, one of the cuttings that the men had made during the war. Once he found it, he asked the Australian Government to dedicate it as a historic site. Over the years this site has been redeveloped to include a beautiful and informative museum as well as a 4km long walking path along the site of the former railroad. We arrived at the museum 45 minutes before closing so we had to rush a bit to get through it. We then took our time walking through Hellfire Pass. As it was pouring rain and late in the afternoon, we had the pass all to ourselves. Walking through the misty pass and looking at the monuments to the men who lost their lives building it was fascinating and quite moving, I'm glad we went out of our way to see it.





On our second day in Kanchanaburi we woke up and headed straight to The Bridge. The bridge that now spans the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi is actually not the same one as the one as was made by the POWs. That one was bombed to pieces by the Allies. That makes visiting it much less exciting but it was still a necessary stop during our trip.



Our big day trip on Day 2 was up to Erawan Falls. These falls are located in a national park about an hour and half from Kanchanaburi (yes, another long bus ride.) and are extremely popular with Thais. Since it was a holiday weekend I suppose I should have expected the crowds, but I really wasn't prepared for the waterpark-like atmosphere we were met with. Kids, food, watertoys, etc. littered the park.



There are seven levels of waterfalls. The further up you go the less people you find-- they stop selling concessions after level two after all. Unfortunately, we didn't really have all that much time to explore the waterfalls, just a bit under two hours before catching another bus back to Kanchanaburi. We decided to stop our hike at the fourth waterfall and jump in for a swim. The water was cool and refreshing after hiking in the heat of the Thai jungle but it was impossible to relax too much. As soon as you stopped swimming fish would start nibbling at your extremities. This didn't really hurt at all but certainly had a bizarre sensation and threw me off guard a few times. I eventually settled down, sat on a rock, and let them bite my feet.


Biting fish!


I slid down this rock into the water!

Our trip ended with a 1.5 hour ride back to Kanchanaburi and a 2 hr minivan ride back to Bangkok. I believe we spent at least ten hours in vehicles for a grand total of four hours of sight seeing over two days, but I'm not going to complain! I loved the relaxed pace of Kanchanaburi and really enjoyed the long leisurely bus rides through the Thai countryside. That part of the country is so different from Bangkok, I'd really like to have more time to explore it.



P.S. A few hours after we arrived in Bangkok on Sunday night I was informed that I didn't have work for the next two days.