St. Patrick's Day

We decided our best bet for celebrating St. Patrick's Day was in Bangkok. We had a sweaty 2 hour bus ride from Kanchanaburi with no ac, we were crammed in like sardines & by the time we arrived our clothes were soaked in sweat. We checked into a guesthouse that we found out catered to Danish travelors, but they still gave us a room. We were pretty wiped so we spent the early evening in the guesthouse's "DVD room" watching the movie Open Water, a low budget film about two divers that surface in the middle of the ocean to find that their boat has left them. It is based on a true story, no one knows what really happens, but the movie's take is that they were eaten by sharks around dusk. We were glad we did our night dive before seeing this movie.

Our St. Patrick's celebration started off by taking a wild tuk tuk ride to O'Reilly's. Tuk tuks are like a three wheeled motorcycle with rickshaw seating on the back. Our driver enjoyed quickly accelerating to unreasonable speeds, followed by questionable swerving. Our hair was a little wind blown when we came to a skidding stop alongside our Irish Bar destination.

We couldn't help but laugh when we entered O'Reilly's to see that their St. Patricks Day special was a two-for-one deal on... Coronas (there were yellow Corona balloons everywhere). Levi met a Thai law student last year in Hong Kong at the Vis Competition, named Ken. He joined us along with two of his other Thai friends & a Japanese friend. Ken's Thai friends had met the Japanese friend while studying in Germany so it was easier for them to communicate in German, rather than in English, Japanese or Thai. The bar also had a great Irish band that in addition to playing U2 hits, also busted out American classics like Sweet Home Alabama. Ended up being a delightfully random night full of odd international twists.

Reminiscing Already...

Lately blogging has taken a backseat to our Bangkok/Chiang Mai adventures, but mostly we've just grown weary by the activity packed days, thick heat and daunted by the task of conjuring up a witty comment or two. A long the way we've also left out a few details we wanted to document on the blog before they're forgotten.

As far as Thai cities go, Kanchanaburi holds a small place in our hearts which is why we feel the need to go and document a few things we enjoyed about it:

By LP's recommendation we stayed at Blue Star Guest House, since Kanchanaburi's hot heat was the type you could choke on we treated ourselves to an AC room, this alone could be the root of crush on the city - anyhow we've said this before. Below is a photo of Blue Star's tree-house style bungalows that border the river. There were so many small things we liked about this place, one of Jen's favorites was the bi-lingual talking birds caged on the open air deck that would converse with the guests. They would speak phrases in Thai and also knew a few in English but strangely they said them with Thai accents. One of their accented English phrases was "I liiike yooou" and when the guest house kitties would stroll past their cage they taunted them with "meow meow meow meow".

Kanchanaburi also had great riverside restaurants where you could watch beautiful sunsets. Instead of dinning riverside you could book a seat on a dinner barge that was pulled up and then back down the river while you and dinner and watched the sunset. We knew you could do this in Chiang Mai and Bangkok so we opted to do this later.

Ooh I almost forgot, we took a photo of this gas station to depict how different things are here in Kanchanaburi. This gas station sells tall glass bottles of gasoline while doubling as a vendor cart that sells soups and meats.

"Bridge over the River Kwai"

Growing up Levi watched many old WWII movies with his dad, Dave. Today, we visited the namesake of one of those movies, "The Bridge over the River Kwai."

During WWII the Japanese invaded Thailand and needed to establish a supply route over land because the allies were successfully blocking their routes over water. The British, who were in Burma (Myanmar), had considered an overland railroad before, but abandoned the idea because the terrain was too difficult. The Japanese proceeded with the engineering feat. The Japanese had an almost unlimited supply of man power from their conquest of Asia coupled with their growing numbers of POWs. They were able to complete the railroad, but it came an extreme cost of human life. Around 100,000 people died completing the bridge.

We visited the Thailand-Burmay Railway Centre, which was a very well done museum detailing the rise of the Japanese before WWII, their invasion into Asia, the need for the railroad, the challenging conditions & the brutality of the POW camps. One of the most moving displays was one containing many railstakes, where each one symbolized 500 deaths. Jen was also really touched by the display showing the prisoners personal belongings (letters from their loved ones, carved chess pieces, diaries with faded drawings, etc...). The prisoners kept most of their records in the cemeteries because the Japanese would not let them openly have personal belongings. The Japanese would not enter the POW cemetery for fear of the dead.






After we left the museum we went across the street to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. The Thais donated this land so known graves of Dutch, English & Australian POWs could all be honored together in the same place. There was a plaque that said the unknown POWs were honored in a separate war memorial that was placed in Hong Kong. Levi visited that memorial last spring on his trip with Kirt Marsh.

Congrats Tim & Laura!

Today on the bus ride to Erawan Falls we looked at the time, counted 15 hours back (as we often do) and realized everyone would be sitting down to eat dinner at your reception right then. Oh how we wished we were able to be in two places at one time or have the ability to zip quickly back for the party and to see your new house! We hope it went well and can't wait to see the photos and hear the stories. Congrats guys!

In celebration of today here's one of our favorite photos of Laura & Tim:

Erawan Falls National Park

So far we're really enjoying Kanchanaburi, the Thai to westerner ratio is far better than the previous touristy places we've visited. The weather further north has been quite hot and muggy. Today we ventured out to Erawan Falls, which is a 7 tiered waterfall, each of which you have to hike to see. The first five tiers drop into deep aqua swimming lagoons, thick with large fish that nibble at your toes as you swim.

We made two mistakes with today's venture to Erawan, first we decided to visit here on a Sunday which is when all the local Thais come to swim and picnic with their families. This mistake was unavoidable as we're leaving here tomorrow , but while there were swarms of jovial Thais everywhere it was quite nice to see the Thai people outside of their 12+ hour tourism driven jobs. The crowds were easily escaped by climbing higher in the tiers of falls. Tier five was the most picturesque, with water running off the tall lime stone rocks into the lagoons surrounded by a lush jungle, except this was mistake number 2. Both Levi and Jen can be absent-minded at times, but this rarely happens simultaneously, however today we both failed to grab the camera on our way out to one of the most picturesque destinations of our trip yet! Shoot. Shamefully the photos here were lifted from other people's blogs :( Tier four was our favorite because the limestone rocks at this one had more of a slanted (steep & tall) natural water slide shape to them that we took full advantage of! This reminded us of the Silver Apron above Vernal Falls in Yosemite from last summer - so fun :)

Strangely on the rugged path to the park there was a casual Thai guy taking photos of people walking by, later when we were walking that same path out we realized why. This guy took photos of tourists, cut them into a circle and then glued them to the inner circle of a cheesy Erawan Falls small plate (see photo), but it wasn't like this was a photo you were aware was being taken or posed for in front of an attraction of sort, it was an unsolicited photo of you walking a 1/2 mile beaten path to the falls with the sun beating down hard and sweat pouring off your face. Because of the randomness of it all and probably in spite of Jen's protests Levi felt compelled to buy his plate for a whopping $3 U.S.

Tonight we're heading to Kanchanaburi's night market. We're expecting blocks of food stalls, music, stands of (hopefully) authentic, less touristy handicrafts, etc. We'll report more on this later and hopefully have some photos of our own this time to show for it.

We're at a bit of a cross road here, we had our trip figured out through Kanchanaburi with two separate options for the next remaining 6 days before our final 3 days (reserved for Bangkok). Option A: Head Southeast for 1 night in Trat and then 5 nights in Ko Chang an island in the SE Gulf of Thailand for relaxation and additional diving opportunities or option B: Head North to the historical ruins for Sukothai for one night/two days and then head to Chiang Mai a culturally rich large city packed with distinctive and delicious cuisine, trekking opportunities, elephant riding and fantastic markets. First we were leaning towards the island life, but Jen is craving more culture and Levi having recently faced a bout of "islanding-out" (he was tempted to buy a shark tooth necklace and baggy island pants) has decided he might not be able to resist this temptation twice :) So North it is, but first we're decided to make an impromptu stop in Bangkok for one night first where we intend to find an Irish Pub and recreate the St. Patty's Day magic both Levi & Kirt experienced on their trip to Hong Kong last year :)

First Sharks, Today Tigers, Next Elephants!

After our bus arrived in Bangkok, we hopped on another bus for a 2 & 1/2 hour ride to the town of Kanchanaburi (west central Thailand). When we arrived in Kanchanaburi we thought we had negotiated a taxi ride to where we were staying, but found out that the 55 year old man we had been talking to was actually going to ride us there on his bike pulling a modern day rickshaw. It was like 90 degrees out (also 90% humidity) & this guy pedaling us & our huge bags was an amazing feat. We decided to up the 50 baht ($1.50 US) he had agreed on and give him a full 100 baht.

We are staying at Blue Star Bungalows on the River Kwai. The prices are much cheaper here than they were on the islands so for the first time on our trip we decided to upgrade, which meant by spending 100 extra baht ($3 US) we get air conditioning. Total our room is 350 baht (about $10 US), it also includes another first on our trip, a hot shower, but with the heat we don't think we will be using this feature much.

After we checked into our room we booked a 45 minute taxi ride out to the Tiger Temple. This is totally a tourist trap, but we had to go. The story goes, a villager came across an orphaned tiger cub many years ago and brought it to his local Buddhist Temple because there was no where else to take the cub. The monks took very good care of the tiger, word spread, more cubs were dropped off, now the monks take care of many tigers (& several other animals too).

Because it is still considered a holy place, Jen had to wear long jeans & a t-shirt (no tank-tops or shorts for females). Several volunteers also live with the monks and help take care of the tigers & facilitate visitors. We were expecting a huge line, but it wasn't too bad. After waiting about 5 minutes, we were individually led into a canyon where the tigers spend their afternoons (a volunteer holds your hand, while another volunteer takes pictures with your camera).

Jen went first & Levi enjoyed watching her face light up when she was able to kneel down and pet the fur of a 300 pound Bengal Tiger. The pictures tell the story better than we could write it out.

The tigers seem to be well kept and the large amount of donations the monks get are building new tiger areas.

Similan Islands

We booked a one day two-dive tour of the Similan Islands with an outfit called Sea Dragon Diving. We were on a pretty big boat with about 15 other divers from about 4 different diving companies (including 2 Japanese diving companies & 1 German company). The boat was big enough where we were not tripping over each other (we enjoyed quite a bit of time out on the sun deck) & it was well stocked with snacks (cookies & fresh pineapple). We were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were the only 2 divers through Sea Dragon, which meant we had our divemaster, Ben, as a guide all to ourselves.

Ben is about our age, is from London, but has been living in Khao Lak & working on live aboard dive boats for about 4 years. It was about a 2 & 1/2 hour boat ride out to the islands & we had a good time visiting with Ben about being a foreigner in Thailand. He had a great story about waking up to a King Cobra in his bathroom (& then having one of his Thai friends come break its neck).

Our first dive was off of Similian Island #5. Because the islands are so far away from the mainland, the visibility in the water can be up to 45 meters. We had about 35 meter visibility, which was about 15 meters better than we had experienced in Kho Tao. Our first descent down was surrounded by breathtaking purple & orange coral. Besides the coral, other highlights of the dive were seeing a sting ray, ribbon eel, garden eels & a family of clown fish.

Our second dive was off of Similian Island #7. The highlight of this dive was seeing a leopard shark. Ben led us out to a shelf that was about 23 meters deep, when we looked over the edge we saw this big tail flip around that belonged to a shark that was hovering about 10 meters below. The shark turned a full circle giving us a real good profile & the ability to see his spots. We spent the rest of the boat ride back sitting with our legs over the railing looking for flying fish, we saw quite a few, those little suckers can fly a good 15 meters. We got back to Khao Lak about 7:30pm, ate dinner, then waited at an internet cafe until 9:00pm to catch our night (public) bus to Bangkok.

One night bus to Bangkok can make a hard man humble. When the bus picked us up the only two seats left were in the very back (which were over some hot part of the bus, not sure if it was the engine). The bus had air conditioning, but Levi still felt he was having a heat stroke because he had limited his water intake at dinner so he wouldn't have to go to the bathroom the whole bus ride. Jen appeared not to have a problem with sleeping soundly, but Levi is convinced the Chinese torture Falun Gong by making them ride 12 hours in the back seat of a public night bus to Bangkok. We arrived at Bangkok at 9:30 am, Jen looked like she had got a good night sleep, Levi looked like he had been rode hard & put away wet.