Our first couple of days in Bangkok have been fairly busy as we were trying to get a lot accomplished, so the next day it was time to slow things down a little.  We don’t have anything scheduled for the day, so it is a chance to sleep in, catch up on a bit of work, do some blogging and hang out at the rooftop pool.

Later in the afternoon we start to wander in the streets and we do not get very far before I realize that the ladies are going to turn this into a shopping trip.  I would rather eat some deep-fried crickets than spend the rest of the afternoon looking at fans and bags, so we decide to split up and go separate ways for the rest of the afternoon.

I spent a little more time walking around Khaosan Road and the general area we are staying in, walking through a couple of Wats and generally doing a bit of people watching.  Some late dinner rounds out the evening and our nice relaxing day is complete.

Our last day in Bangkok is going to be another one of those long days.  We have a day trip planned and will also be flying out to Southern Thailand at 9pm, so we need to be up, checked out of the hotel and ready with all of our bags by 8pm when our driver is picking us up.

We have contacted Mr. Sawang, who we have used as a driver on previous stops in Bangkok and luckily he is available for our day’s adventure.  Our first stop is to see a floating market so we head out to Damnoen Saduak, one of the more well known floating markets near Bangkok.  We visited this market before when we came here a few years ago with the whole family, and it was quite interesting to see the chaotic dance of the boats with all the tourists and vendors.  For those looking for more detail, my original blog post about the floating market can be seen here.

Erica is amazed by the way that the people live and the huge array of different goods, spices, food, etc. that is offered by the people along the banks of the klong and also directly from their small boats.  It is still astounding to me to buy meals from people cooking them in boats, but we find a lady selling our favorite Mango with Sticky Rice (a huge plate for about half of what it costs in the city) and Erica and I get some Tom Yum soup from another boat vendor for a ‘snack’.

When we were planning the day we have tossed around a few different ideas on where to spend the rest of the day out east of Bangkok, and when Mrs. Columbus and I started talking about the various options our travel mate Erica perked up when we were talking about Kanchanaburi.  Apparently her dad is a bit of a war buff and when we talked about the River Kwai bridge and the rest of the war history out there she thought that she would really like to see it.  Mrs. Columbus and I quite like the area so it was not a hard sell for us to go back there.   In addition to the day trip we did with the kids, Mrs. Columbus and I spent a few days out here a couple of years ago so rather than cover all that detail again, my previous narrative of the area can be seen here, here, here, and here, and I will just cover the highlights.

Initially we did not think that we were going to be able to catch the train that goes over the river and up to Nam Tok because we started our day a little later than we should have, but the Thai trains are notoriously late and that works in our favor today.  Mr. Sawang’s ability to weave through the traffic and the late train work together and we arrive right at the Kwai Bridge station about 10 minutes before the train (now over an hour late).  We have a few minutes to look around and take some photos before getting on the train, riding across the bridge and heading towards Nam Tok where the end of the line is.

Mrs. Columbus is a bit antsy on the train because while only mildly interested in the history she does remember very clearly the fresh doughnuts that we got a couple of years ago on the train, and from her perspective the entire day trip will be worth it if she can get some hot doughnuts.  I remember them myself as a small bit of heaven all covered in sugary goodness, freshly cooked, and still hot – Uncle Si and the rest of the Duck Dynasty hunters would be happy, happy, happy with a plate full of these!

A few stops into the journey and Mrs. Columbus is starting to look a little long in the face because we have seen vendors for all sorts of food and trinkets, but no doughnuts.  I am sure by this point Erica thinks we are a bit crazy, but then hallelujah we see the doughnut guy wander into our railcar and the day is saved 🙂  The vendor has a good smile as we order enough doughnuts to feed a small tour group, and he probably thinks these silly farangs (foreigners) must not have eaten in days.  By now Mrs. Columbus is almost vibrating with anticipation, and if Erica did not think we were a little crazy before, this may seal the deal, until…… we watch her take her first bite of one of these golden pieces of heaven.  Let’s just say that from the look on her face if the circumstances had been different she might have needed a cigarette and a quiet room!

After our delicious snack we settle in with full stomaches for the rest of the trip, and as we have seen before the scenery does not disappoint.  It is hard to capture in just single pictures, but the views of the river and the rugged country side as we get farther north are quite amazing.

We get to the end of the line and Mr. Sawang is waiting for us for the short trip to Sai Yok to splash about in the waterfall.

We are heading straight to the airport at the end of the day, so at about 3pm Mr. Sawang tells us that we should get headed back.  It is  hours until our flight leaves, so I am a bit skeptical that we need to leave so early, but he informs us that the traffic in Bangkok will be bad.  We are making great time back to the city and I am starting to worry a bit that I am going to be 3 hours early for my flight and just sitting around the airport when we hit the traffic.  Just as he predicted the traffic is nuts and in many places I could easily outpace the car on foot, and after more than an hour we finally push our way through the traffic and get to the airport at about the right time to check in and get ready for our flight to Koh Samui.

We have decided that it is going to be time to move on tomorrow, so for our last full day in Kanchanaburi we have decided to hire our driver from yesterday again and go to visit the Erawan Falls.  The falls are inside the Erawan National Park and about a 90 minute drive from the city.  The national park is quite large and there is a youth hostel there and all sorts of hiking trials and things to see, but the falls get all the attention.

The falls cascade down the mountain over a vertical drop of about 400 feet, but are spread out over 7 ‘tiers’ that we can get to.  Some of the tiers are a single drop, but others are a series of small drops over a short distance sort of like steps for the water 🙂  Each of the falls ends in a pool of varying size, some that are deep enough to swim in.  The first 2 tiers are quite easy to get to and there is a paved path that you can bicycle down if you like. It seems like a fair number of local people come here with their families and a picnic meal to have lunch or an early dinner at one of the 1st 2 pools.

At the 2nd tier/pool we see people swimming in the basin formed at the bottom of the falls, and go to have a closer look.  The water looks very blue like we are used to seeing in the mountains in Canada (from the minerals in the water) and quite refreshing, but we also notice that there are quite a few fish visible in the pool.  It turns out that these are the kind of fish that will nibble on your feet like they have in some of the spas.  Being the great adventurer that she is Mrs Columbus decides that she is going to see what all the fuss is about, and her and Brooklyn take off their shoes to put their feet in the water.  The fish immediately move in for a tasty snack, and there is suddenly a lot of squealing as the little fish tickle away at their feet.  As we learn along the way the little fish are in all the pools and by the end of the day we have all had our encounters with the fish exfoliation.  It does not hurt at all, but it is a little eerie to be floating in a nice cool pool of water and suddenly feel things bumping at your feet and legs.

After the 2nd tier/pool the trail gets a little more rugged and it is really now more of a hike to get to any of the other pools.  The full trail is about 2km long, but going uphill in the jungle in the 30+ degree heat makes it feel like a lot longer.  Nevertheless we are out for an adventure and press forward, deciding that we will hike all the way to the top, and then on our way down stop at a pool or two for a swim.  The ruggedness of the trail takes a 2nd jump after about tier 4 and this is definitely not your grandmother’s trail anymore, but we shall not be defeated, and after about an hour or so make it to the top – we are all very sweaty and have given our legs a fantastic workout, but a dip in a pool is now well earned!

The cool water is very refreshing especially after the workout on the way up, and Russ and I bob about in the water at the top for 10 or 15 mins before we decide to make our way back down to stop at some of the other pools.  One of the pools has a rock formation that is kind of like a slide, and you can climb up one of the sides and then slide down about 20 feet and land into the water, so we stop here for a bit for another swim.

Along the trail we encounter a number of monkeys that are clearly very accustomed to the presence of people.  In some places we are at most a couple of steps away from them as they sit and watch the people, or run about.  There are signs posted warning to not feed the monkeys, but just like in America, some people assume the signs are only meant for others and not for them because in a few places we see the monkeys eating fruit out plastic bags, and after checking the surrounding trees we do not see any that dispense fruit in that fashion.

After about 3 and a half hours at the falls we make our way back to the parking lot and get some street food for a snack and some cold drinks before heading back to the city.  We tell our driver that we are looking for some fruit on the way back, and he is happy to stop at a couple of markets along the way as we search for a fruit called a pomelo.  The pomelo is kind of like a cross between a grapefruit and an orange, but bigger – of course our Thai is not so good and the driver is not really sure what we are looking for, but is happy to indulge us.  After several stops, where we get a variety of other tasty snacks, we are empty-handed, but finally as we get within about 5 minutes of our hotel we find some!  It turns out that in Thailand the pomelo also has a ‘common’ name of som-oh (which roughly translates to big orange – go figure) and as soon as we saw it our driver knew exactly what we were looking for 🙂

We decide that we are mostly full from all the street food, but that a massage would be a good way to round out the day so wander off down the street for a Thai massage while Mrs Columbus gets her toes done.

While we are finishing up our massage Mrs C has struck up a bit of a conversation in broken english with the shop owner discussing some food that she makes and sells on the street side. Mrs Columbus tells us it is called yum-yum and that the lady has demonstrated how she makes it but the language gap is broad enough the we do not know exactly what is in it.  There is some noodles, and a sauce that is made up of a variety of Thai spices, and a selection of ‘meat’ that you choose from.  We are not overly hungry, but figure we should give it a try so decide to order one and split it.  There are about a half dozen different ‘meats’ in the bowl we can choose from but Russ says no mussels, and Mrs Columbus decides no wieners, so we end up with a dish where the only meat we really recognize is shrimp – it turns out that this was not such a good plan as some of the things were outside even my palate.  Even now there are at least 2 or 3 ‘meats’ that were in there that I could not tell you what they were.  The dish was tasty enough, but if there is a next time I think we will go with the items we can identify even if they don’t seem like they belong together (like wieners and shrimp).

Tomorrow we are moving on to Chiang Mai, so we have arranged with the driver who brought us out from Bangkok to come back in the morning and pick us up for the return trip.  We will have a few hours in the morning to laze around a bit before we have to pack up and head out for our late afternoon flight to the north.

We got a little earlier start this morning and after a little discussion at breakfast we have decided that we are going to take the train over the Kwai River and up to Nam Tok.  Nam Tok is the last functioning station on the original Thailand-Burma Railway as the rest of the line into Burma was torn up years ago and there is no longer a rail link between the two.

Although slower than traveling by car, the train ride is very scenic and in places follows the path of the river – in some places so close that the track is laid on trestles that hug the cliffside on one side of the train and drop straight down to the river on the other.  The train ride is great and nowhere but here have I seen vendors get on and off the train at each station and and walk up and down the train selling hot food, drinks and souvenirs.  One vendor in particular has a try of doughnuts that look awfully tasty, and so we buy a couple to try – they are soooo good that we anxiously await his next pass of our car to buy some more, but sadly he is sold out by now 🙁  The good news though is that at the next station someone has brought him another fresh tray, so we promptly gobble down 4 more 🙂

The very friendly and helpful staff at out hotel have arranged for a songtheaw driver to meet us at the end of the train ride and take us to a few attractions we have on our list.  The train is late getting in to the station, but our driver is there patiently waiting for us to arrive!

Our first stop takes us a little farther down the road to the Hellfire Pass historical site.  The Hellfire Pass is a ‘cut’ through the rocks where the original railroad line to Burma ran through.  During the war the Japanese were in a hurry to complete the rail line so that they could move war supplies into Burma and increase the pressure on the British colonies in Burma and India.  After conscripting tens of thousands of POWs and and tens of thousands more local laborers the progress was still not going fast enough so they started working the crews 24 hours per day – the cut got it’s name because at night the light of the torches reflecting in the cut made the men feel like the were working in hell.

The cut is one of the biggest on the railway and is close to 100 feet deep in places, and about 2000 feet long and tons of rock had to be hammered and blasted out and then moved by hand – you really need to stand in the cut to fully understand the size of the undertaking.  This is last of our ‘war’ stops so the trip gets a little more upbeat moving forward, but I am very glad that we took the time to see some of this – there is a lot more we could explore here, but time is limited so it is off to our next stop.

On the way back to Kanchanaburi we make a stop at the Sai Yok Noi waterfall.  We were here before with the girls, but Russ did not see it, and it is conveniently close to the main road so we stop in for look around and to dip our feet in the refreshingly cool water.

Our last stop on the way back to the city is the Krasae Cave.  The cave is basically a huge cavern in the side of the rock face that the train ges right past.  The cavern is easily big enough to fit a 4 bedroom house inside and there is a Buddha statue and shrine inside.  You have to walk out on the railway trestle to get inside the cave, and the walk also provides a great view of the river, and the railway trestle clinging to the side of the rocks.  We have come late in the day after the train loads and buses full of tourists have come through, so we mostly have the place to ourselves and get to enjoy some peace and quite while looking around.

The songtheaw driver we have is great and we ask him if he will take us farther into town for dinner.  We make a quick stop back at our hotel to get some instructions about a place we want to go to for dinner.  Bee, one of the ladies at our favorite Thai restaurant back home is originally from this area, and she told me about a place to go for a special noodle soup that is very well know among the locals.  We have the name of the place written in Thai and show it to our driver who smiles and says “yes, noodle!” and off we go.  We are happy we had the name of the place written for us as there is no way we would have found this place on our own 🙂 and it clearly caters to locals.  There is no menu, they make soup period – but it is fantastic! Full of rich flavor and different from any other soup we have had in Thailand – hopefully I can try and find a recipe or something to try and make this at home, but I suspect it will not be nearly as good.

Our driver from earlier in the day told us to just give him a call when we are ready to go back, so we wander around a bit along the waterfront and then give him a call to head back to the hotel for the end of another day.

Kanchanaburi is an area in central Thailand a couple of hours west of Bangkok in the foothills of the mountains between Thailand and Myanmar.  We visited here for a day trip 2 summers ago when we were here with all the kids to see the Bridge on the River Kwai made famous by the movie of the same name (you can see the original post here). It was our last day here and we just added it on a bit of a whim, but decided that we should go back sometime and spend a few days there to get a better look around.

With the help of some friends back at Iyara Thai in Redmond (thank you Nina, Bee and everyone) we got a lot of good tips and suggestions on things we should try to see when we are here.

Our first day here began with a late start as it was the first day we did not have a fixed agenda and we all just wanted to unwind a little.  We got to breakfast not long before it closed, but managed to get in and out before they shut it down.  We decided to take a leisurely walk up to the River Kwai Bridge and have a look around as Russ was not with us when we went here 2 summers ago.

We took a nice walk across the bridge and wandered around the market a little and then decided to take a boat on the river to see a few of the sites – this was one of the things on that was mentioned to us from our friends back home, and it did not disappoint!

Our first stop was at Khao Poon Cave and is one of the many caves in the area that has carved itself into a limestone hill.  The cave consists of 7 ‘rooms’ that are connected with stairways and passages that wind down into the hill.  The cave must be fairly popular with the tourists as it is quite well lit with fluorescent lighting 🙂  Some of the rooms are fairly large, and as we wind our way lower we start to see some bats flying about.  It seems a little eerie at first, but it is absolutely true that bats have great sonar for flying about because even with us moving around in the cave and getting fairly close in some places not a single bat hits any of us.  Mrs Columbus ever daring as usual crouched down low to enter into one room where there were dozens of bats constantly flying around, but she held her ground and took some time to marvel at the sight.

Our next stop was at one of the war cemeteries that are in the Kanchanaburi area.  The cemetery contains about 1700 graves of fallen soldiers that gave their lives during the 2nd World War, mostly POWs that died during the construction of the Thailand-Burma Railway.  The place is immaculately manicured, but it is a bit sobering to stand there among those who gave so much so that we could enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy today.  It is perhaps a bit fitting that as we arrived the clouds opened up and we got caught is a big downpour – the rain is bit refreshing and it drops the temperature a bit so maybe a fair trade.  The storm passes in about 20 mins and we know that in about another 20 we will be mostly dry again so it does little to slow us down and off we go to our next stop.

Our last stop on the boat trip is at the JEATH War Museum, this is a small museum with artifacts, clippings and photos also from the war (JEATH stands for Japan, England, Australia, America, Thailand, Holland) and the museum is laid out to resemble a typical prisoner of war camp – it is hard not to see why some many prisoners died in these camps as the conditions were horrible.

After the somber (but interesting) locations we hop back into our boat and return to the main pier by the bridge.  We wander around the market a bit buying some snacks and fresh fruit before waking back to our hotel for dinner and then a massage before bed 🙂  All in all a great first day here.

(BTW, for anyone who has been looking at the photos and thinking ‘can he make them a little bigger for older eyes’ 😉 I have gone back and fixed the links so that clicking on a photo will bring up a full-sized version)

Rather than spend another day in Bangkok for our last day here, we decide to get back out of the city and take a day trip out to Kanchanaburi.  This is the location of The Bridge on the River Kwai and the Death Railway.

The trip out to Kanchanaburi is about 2.5 hours by car, and we stop about half way there to visit a floating market.  In days gone past much of the trade and transportation in Thailand was carried out on the rivers and klongs (canals) that run through the country.  The Thai people would go out each day in small boats and buy and sell goods, fruits, vegetables, meats, or whatever they needed – the exchanges would be carried out from boat to boat and/or from merchants on the banks of the klongs.

Our driver takes us to a small pier where we hire a mini version of a longtail boat to run us through the market and see the sights.  Initially it looks like this may be a dud trip and prepare for disappointment because for the first 5 minutes or so we do not see any sort of boat or market activity, then we come alongside a couple of ‘shops’ that front onto the river, but see mostly the same old stuff we have seen everywhere else – Mrs. Columbus is giving me that ‘maybe we should just go back look’ when the boat turns a corner into what looks like complete chaos.  There are boats everywhere, about half are filled with tourists taking in the spectacle, and the other half are filled with goods of all varieties imaginable – there are boats with fresh fruits all cut and cleaned and ready to eat, there are boats with fresh flowers, boats with meat, boats with beverages, and even boats with propane burners and woks making fresh fried dishes.

There are times when there are so many boats jammed in side by side that it seems like no-one is going to be able to move, but somehow the Thai boat drivers seem to be able to bang their way around each other and push on ahead.  The klongs seem to go everywhere, and as you pass by a maze of endless passages seems to evolve, but the driver seems to know exactly where he is going and before long we are back at the pier where we started.  A short break to have a drink and some mango with sticky rice that we bought from a boat vendor and we are back on our way.

Thailand was not really an active participant in the second World War, aligning with neither the Axis or the Allies, although various parts of it were occupied by both the Axis and the Allied forces during the conflict.  The Japanese Army occupied much of the northern part of the country, and wanted to construct a rail link from Bangkok to Rangoon (in Burma) in order to move war supplies more easily.  As the rail line got close to the Burma border the country gets a lot more mountainous and construction of a rail line there would require crossing the range of mountains that separates Thailand and Burma.  Over 250,000 locals and Allied prisoners of war were conscripted to work on the railway, and over 100,000 died as a result of the harsh working conditions and poor nourishment provided by the Japanese.

The rail line was entirely built by manual labor (no heavy machinery was used at all), and follows the Kwai River for much of the route.  Today the line ends at Nam Tok well inside the Thai border, and the link to Burma has long since been dismantled.  There is a train that runs from Bangkok all the way to Nam Tok, but most tourists get on the train at Kanchanaburi or Tha Kilen for the trip up to Nam Tok to see the most spectacular parts of the railway.  There are places where it seems like the tracks are clinging to the side of a rock face with the river directly below and the jungle is so dense in places that you can sometimes feel leaves and branches pop in through the open windows.

The train is definately worth the $3 USD ticket price (Tha Kilen to Nam Tok) and after some lunch in Nam Tok we stop to see a spectacular waterfall that is at the end of the line – the actual original Thai-Burma rail line would have gone right past the falls, but there is now a park here and people can swim in the pools that are formed at the bottom of the falls.

From there we travel by car back to Kanchanaburi to visit the war museum and see the actual bridge that crosses the Kwai River.  The bridge that stands there today is not the actual bridge that existed during the war – the original bridge was a wooden structure that crossed the river, and later a second steel bridge was added, however, both bridges were frequent bombing targets by Allied forces during the war and both of the original bridges were destroyed.  The current bridge was re-constructed on the site of the steel bridge, re-using some of the spans and supports of the original structure.  There is a very small section of the original wooden bridge that remains on one side of the river and is now part of the war museum.

The original bridge was made famous in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai made in the late 50s, and the movie is based on the book of the same name that is the account of one of the POWs that was interred in the camp there. The movie is still well worth watching even if there are no Hollywood style special effects, and the movie was filmed in Thailand so is a great representation of the geography we have been seeing.

There is war memorial and cemetery there also that gets onto most tour routes, but we are running out of time and must start our journey back to Bangkok – our return flight to the US leaves at 10pm and we have a 3 hour drive ahead of us.

The somber note of all the war stuff seems a little fitting as we are all more than a little saddened with the thought that it is time for us to leave – it seems like only yesterday when we were arriving for what has turned out to be a great trip.