War, wild cats and waterfalls
Trip Start
Aug 13, 2010
1
14
Trip End
Sep 22, 2010
Kanchanaburi, Thailand
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Although I wanted to stay on Koh Tao longer, Naomi really wanted to visit Kanchanaburi- (about 2 hours west of Bangkok and close to the border with Manamar/ Burma) because of its historic past and natural beauty.
On our first day we walked to the River Kwai, which our guest house pool actually backed on to. We explored the Jeath War Museum and then walked the length of the 'Death Bridge' so called because of the thousands of PoWs that were forced to build it, under the hard and brutal force that were the Japenese. As a consequence of tropical disease, malnutrition, torture and being made to work 24/7, over 100,000 people died (Asian workers included) whilst constructing the Thai-Burma Railway during the Second World War.
We found that the Bridge, made famous by the film; 'Bridge over the River Kwai', was a stunning peice of engineering considering the tools, time constraints and physical barriers, but it was impossible to look at it without reflecting on the huge human toll that was so quickly sacrificed for its creation.
This was also brought home after visiting the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, one of three the small town has, to honour the PoWs, which holds thousands of mostly un-marked graves.
The following afternoon, we decided to visit the Tiger Temple. It was a hard choice for both of us, as after ENP we have become much more aware of the relationship between the use and abuse of animals for the tourist dollar. However, Lek had told us to visit such places and find out just how animals in Thailand are being treated, by seeing for ourselves.
The temple, run by buddist monks, was given its first tiger cub several decades ago when local villagers found it without a mother. Since then, the temple has grown as more orphaned cubs were donated to the temple and the monks were able to teach the tigers from a young age how to interact with humans and be somewhat domesticated. The tigers are chained by a collar round their neck whilst they are on show to the general public but we were reserved when being encouraged by staff to go up and stroke them. They are awesome animals and whilst we wanted to enjoy them, we also wanted to respect them. We were promised that the animals were not doped up with sleeping pills and that there was a program to release some back into the wild.
Whilst we remain sceptical about these details, it was breathtaking to get up close and personal with Asia's apex predator.
On our final day we visited Erawan National Park and climbed the 1500m to the seven tiered waterfall, said to resemble the head of an Hindu elephant god. The falls were awe-inspiring, particularly the seventh and most difficult to reach. Whilst we had been told not to go swimming due to heavy rains the previous day, we had to have a little paddle in the mythical water, reputed to have healing powers.
