Our Day Tour of Kanchanaburi

Yes, for some reason we decided to go on another package tour of the area around Kanchanaburi. I guess we were getting lazy again. Or maybe a bit cheap since the two things we wanted to do, if we did them separately, would have cost more than this day trip everyone advertised. I guess we figured that we get to do both Erawan National Park and riding the elephants as well as a couple other things we thought would be a bonus.

First stop was Erawan National Park, which is home to a 7 tiered waterfall. Sounds nice? IT WAS!

Picture all the movies which are in a lush tropical setting. You see a shot of a nice 20 foot waterfall into a pool of bluish green water.

You see two people swimming in the water, standing around and under the waterfall itself. Relaxing, laughing all that good stuff.

Kinda cheesy if you ask me...but this place was just like that. Tiers 2-5 were big enough to swim in and we took a walk to see which one we wanted to go into and it turns out #3 was the best! A nice high waterfall into a large pool. A small rock island beside the waterfall, and a rock slab the water falls onto. Nice.

We were lucky to be here in the rainy season and the falls were nice and wide. Check out Jenni's blog for the pictures.

Before we headed up, we were warned that there are fish in the ponds and not to worry if some of them come up and bite you. They weren't pirrahna's we were told. Great...

It is such a funny feeling to have these little guys nibling on your feet and legs and arms...really weird. I kept thinking I'll start to feel pain but it wasn't too bad. It was just so weird that everytime it happened we both started flinching and scared them all away.

Well, it was a great time there. It started to pour rain just as we were finishing up. Definitely could have used a couple more hours there, but we were on a tour so off we went.

Next stop, elephant riding and a bamboo raft down the river.

We get to the elephant camp I guess, and we're told we'll do the raft first. No problem. They hustle us down to the river side and we see these "rafts" coming to dock and the first thing I notice is the pontoons supporting the bamboo! WTF is all I have to say. On top of that, they have a boat to tug you upriver about 500 m then let you go. WTF again? Why bother.

Anyways, back on shore, we head off to do our ride. The elephants are big, but not as big as I would have thought. Either way though, it was a long way to the ground if we fell off and there's no seat belts or anything. But strangely enough, I felt safer doing this than our camel ride in China.

The ride was ok I guess. We went in a big circle around this park. I don't think I would have called it a "trek" though. But it was fun. Their kinda cute animals. And the guide let Jenni get on in front for half the trip. Hahaha...here's Jenni trying to hold on, our guide has one thumb and forefinger holding her shirt (Yeah buddy, like you'll stop her fall like that!), and me sitting back in my seat taking all these pics.

All in all...not bad, but again, a little more would have been nice.

Next stop is this cave which has a Buddha in it.

Yup, that's all it was. Next.

Our train ride on the death railway. This line was built with a lot of POW's and local people in WWII and a lot of them died making it. It's got a lot of history and I thought we'd be getting on a special train which would give us a bit of info on the line and such but as the train arrived, it's a regular local train. Except that it was jammed packed with tourists and we ended up having to stand in the little space between the cars where there are no windows. Nice.

Well, that was pretty much it. On our ride back, we both felt a bit ripped off but I guess that what these tours are like. See a bit of everything.

Hopefully we'll remember this experience before we go with these day trips again.