Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Bridge on the River Kwai and Tiger Temple

Up at 6:00, showered, walked to parents hotel, picked up a banana shake on the way. Got to parents hotel, we are heading to see the Bridge on the River Kwai and the Death Railway, along with a trip to a Tiger Temple. Over 100,000 people died during WW II building the bridge and the railway. As we were waiting for our tour pickup, a bunch of monks were lounging in the lobby of the hotel as well. The pickup came, and there was lots of confusion, as people were herded onto dozens of mini-vans, destined for various tours. We had to wait for about 20 minutes before we finally got assigned a mini-van.

The minivan driver was crazy, speeding past everyone, going through red lights, doing suicide passes. Mom was freaking out. It was about a 2 hour ride to Kanchanaburi, where the bridge is.

First was the Kanchaniburi War Cemetery, over 6000 graves of P.O.W.'s who died building the railway and bridge. Very reminiscient of the war cemeteries in Europe. Then the JEATH War Museum, all about the railway, and various artifacts from the period.

After that was a walk across the famous bridge.

We were then taken about 30 minutes away for a 130 km ride on the death railway, as it snaked along the river. Dad was in his glory, sitting on the steps of the train, hanging out, watching things go past. Mom was freaking out, because the train was bouncing and bobbing all over, and she was convinced my dad was going to fall to his death. She didn't like the ride!

After that, we went for lunch on a floating restaurant on a river, then went to see a waterfall, and then the Tiger Temple.

The Tiger Temple was quite neat. It was started by a Buddhist monk in the mid 1990's to take care of tiger cubs left motherless because of poaching in the area. Over time, other "in need" animals started to arrive at the site, and they now have lots of other animals walking around, wild boars, deer, cows, horses, etc.

At Tiger Canyon, the giant cats are lounging around in the hot sun, and the public can go and pet them and get their pictures taken with them. It's a very structured affair, you have to line up, and one at a time, you're taking to a number of the tigers, where you can pat them, while a volunteer takes pictures of you with your own camera. They had volunteers from Canada and Australia and lots of Thai volunteers helping out. Because the tigers have been raised as cubs in the presence of humans, they don't fear humans.

We left about 4:00pm to go back to Bangkok. We had a different mini-van on the way back, his driving was much more sane.

Got back to Bangkok about 6:45. I showered, booked a room at the Thai Cozy House for tomorrow night, then met up with my parents and we went for supper right on Koh San Road. Koh San Road is crazy busy, it's definately something everyone should experience.

At one end of Koh San Road were a bunch of Christian religious freaks, carrying bibles and yelling about how we're all sinners, and preaching about Jesus. Of course, they were being mocked by all the drunk backpackers, but that didn't deter them!

We stayed out past 10:00, then my parents went back to their room, as did I, read for a bit, then to bed about 11:00.

1 comment:

  1. Dude! Word on the street is you lost your camera. Is there any OggTours opportunity? If not, no worries. Would just like to know what the situation is. I'm taking off to Cuba in a couple weeks and won't be able to use the footage before i return anyway. So if you get a chance to shoot anything with them maybe you can just use their camera and get them to upload the footage at their leisure. But no panic over it if its just not gonna work out.

    Went to bed at 11 PM eh? Oh Todd!

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