Kanchanaburi

We set off from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi in a moderately pleasant bus. The 2.5 hour trip went by fast and we got an overweight lady to take us to our hotel in her bicycle taxi. Its amazing that she could be overweight with that job, pulling an extra 200kg or so more than what one normally has when biking, and doing it many times throughout the day.

After a 10 minute ride we arrived at our hostel. It looked very small from the street, but discovered that it went about 250 meters in, all the way to the river. After descending some stairs we walked across a long walk way 2 meters above swampy algae and weed filled water. On either side of the walk way were 2 levels of bamboo bungalows, Swiss Family Robinson style. Ours was at the very end of the walkway facing the river, which was nice. It was very private and had a definite "I'm in Thailand!" feel. We had a nice porch were we could sit and watch the river while having a drink. It was late, so we didn't do much that night, we just ate and read books. That night Anita became very concerned about largish creepy crawlies shuffling about room so she couldn't sleep, but I didn't hear much and slept fine.

The Next day we went to a 1-day Thai cooking course we signed up for. The lady spoke very expressively, which helped us get through any poor English quite easily. There were 6 people in total in our group, a young British man, an older Aussie, and a young couple people from the Netherlands. First, we went to the traditional market to look at ingrediants. It was a very raw place, with things like skinned frogs, but nothing we were not prepared for. After we got to the kitchen we made pad thai, green curry chicken, spicy chicken salad, thai fried rice, and tom yam (spicy soup). We kicked ass at making all the dishes, but of course she held our hand while making them and we will likely screw them up when we try to replicate them at home. Our green curry in particular was awesome. I scalded my mouth quite badly when trying to taste it, leaving a painful burn in my left inner cheek for the next week or so.

The next day was animal day, dubbed such because we were going on an elephant ride trek, and to go to the tiger temple (yes, a temple with many tigers). The elephant ride was awesome. We had a huge elephant and a very experianced elephant trainer who let me ride atop the head of the elephant. It was even more fun when the elephants went for a bath in a clear river, with us atop of them. Whenever the elephants dunked, we went under as well. We soaped up and scrubbed their heads with rough brushes before other dunkings. It was good fun. Later in the day we went to a Buddhist temple where they have been taking care of orphaned tigers for decades. Now, just as Buddha would have wanted, the are used to draw in hundreds of tourists every day to take robotically calculated photos while touching them. It was fun touch them for a couple of seconds before being escourted to the next 10 second photo op. All in all, the elephant ride was much better, as it was less crowded and more personal.

The next day we departed on a 13 hour journey to Chang Mai (and we saw a huge iguana just outside of our bungalow on the walkway when we awoke early that morning, probably 1.5 meters head to tail, it scurried away when it saw us).