Today we start early at 6:30 am as we are leaving the city for exciting active tours. The hotel starts their extensive breakfast at 5:30 for us and they do have about everything. The whole group is going to be sorry as we dive in with full plates each morning. On the bus rush hour is very mild as this the the Thai New Year celebration and the city empties out so people can go home to celebrate. We drive along the roads and see the Buddhist monks out getting their morning offerings.
Our first stop after an hour is to the long-tailed speed boats that take us through the canals to the floating markets. These boats hold eight passengers and are driven by a 10-foot shaft with a propeller on the end. It has an open car engine driving the shaft. And, no muffler so they are loud.
We take off and wind around the canals that are lined with homes each with a spirit house and many temples. We go for about a half an hour until we come to the floating markets that are filled with food vendors cooking from boats and vendors of tourist and household items.
The place is packed with tourists to see the wild variety of activities. Some vendors have large Boa snakes or monkeys with which to have your pictures taken. We are told the delicacies are the sticky rice with mango and the coconut ice cream which has soft coconut under the ice cream. Of course we also had to have the coconut pancakes with were great. But, as you can expect it is hot - 38c or 100f. And very humid, so we are consuming liters of water by 11:00. Everyone is buying the very thin cotton clothing and taking off any western clothing. If you are going to be soaked all day, it is best to have something that will dry out quickly. So back on the bus to go to the River Kwai for lunch.
We got the whole story of Thai involvement with the Japanese during World War II. The Japanese had already conquered much of SE Asia by 1943 and wasn't really interested in spending more troops to try to control more area so they came to a neutral agreement with Thailand that allowed the Japanese access to various areas for development, in particularly Burmese Railroad that would run from Thailand, through Burma and into China. One obstacle was the crossing or the river Kwai which is strong flowing in the dry season, but uncontrollable during the wet season from June to December. The Japanese had lots of forced labor from 180,000 local civilians and 12,000 Allied prisoners of war. They forced the laborers and POWs to work 18 hours a day in horrible heat and 100,000 of them died from exhaustion and dysentery. We visited a cemetery with 7,000 British no-name graves.
Then off a floating restaurant with way too much local food, and here we are again loading up our plates high, eating in hot and humid open air overlooking the new metal bridge that replaced the bombed out wooden one. Movie at 7:00. Now it is really getting hot, so back on the bus to the Elephant camp.
Elephants used to be the primary large construction and production machine in these parts, but today with motorized bulldozers and tractors they have no real use for elephants and they just become a burden as they need care and feeding, or in the wild they conflict with development. There are still about 10,000 elephants here, but thgose not in the National Parks mainly serve the tourist population.
And they serve us well. They start off with an elephant show where the young elephants do disco dancing, feeling up the girls in the crowd, and massages on the tourist lying on mats on the ground. It was cute and the croud enjoyed it, nothing as cool as the rides.
A Burmese driver took a pair of us for a 30 minute ride including a dip in the river. You had to not mind getting elephant juices squirted at you as the elephants have personalities and are playful. Our driver jumped off and told me to drive which was fun for about 10 minutes but then I realized it takes a lot of effort not to fall off. Zosia and I loved it.
Since we are really sweaty and grimy from our trek, its time for a bamboo raft trip down the Kwai River. We pile on the raft but few can resist jumping overboard and drifting down the swift current. Both Zosia and I had wonderful time being hot, then cool, then hot again.
Waiting for the pickup trucks to shuttle us back to the bus, we are getting to know all the others on this Affordable Asia trip - there are 70 of us all together and everyone seems to be having a great time. We keep kidding that we are grand-pa and grand-ma with these 20;s and 30-year olds. Back to the city on our luxury buses and back to the hotel.
At the hotel we go to the adjoining shopping mall for buy and new suitcase as mine was cracking badly from the flight over - it was unlikely to survive two more baggage carriers. We bought some carry out food and just flopped down in the room. We had already eaten too much this day to go out to dinner. Good night.
Our first stop after an hour is to the long-tailed speed boats that take us through the canals to the floating markets. These boats hold eight passengers and are driven by a 10-foot shaft with a propeller on the end. It has an open car engine driving the shaft. And, no muffler so they are loud.
We got the whole story of Thai involvement with the Japanese during World War II. The Japanese had already conquered much of SE Asia by 1943 and wasn't really interested in spending more troops to try to control more area so they came to a neutral agreement with Thailand that allowed the Japanese access to various areas for development, in particularly Burmese Railroad that would run from Thailand, through Burma and into China. One obstacle was the crossing or the river Kwai which is strong flowing in the dry season, but uncontrollable during the wet season from June to December. The Japanese had lots of forced labor from 180,000 local civilians and 12,000 Allied prisoners of war. They forced the laborers and POWs to work 18 hours a day in horrible heat and 100,000 of them died from exhaustion and dysentery. We visited a cemetery with 7,000 British no-name graves.
Then off a floating restaurant with way too much local food, and here we are again loading up our plates high, eating in hot and humid open air overlooking the new metal bridge that replaced the bombed out wooden one. Movie at 7:00. Now it is really getting hot, so back on the bus to the Elephant camp.
Elephants used to be the primary large construction and production machine in these parts, but today with motorized bulldozers and tractors they have no real use for elephants and they just become a burden as they need care and feeding, or in the wild they conflict with development. There are still about 10,000 elephants here, but thgose not in the National Parks mainly serve the tourist population.
And they serve us well. They start off with an elephant show where the young elephants do disco dancing, feeling up the girls in the crowd, and massages on the tourist lying on mats on the ground. It was cute and the croud enjoyed it, nothing as cool as the rides.
Since we are really sweaty and grimy from our trek, its time for a bamboo raft trip down the Kwai River. We pile on the raft but few can resist jumping overboard and drifting down the swift current. Both Zosia and I had wonderful time being hot, then cool, then hot again.
At the hotel we go to the adjoining shopping mall for buy and new suitcase as mine was cracking badly from the flight over - it was unlikely to survive two more baggage carriers. We bought some carry out food and just flopped down in the room. We had already eaten too much this day to go out to dinner. Good night.
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