First Adventures

Halloooo everybody, or sa-wat-dii khrap!!!

So, we did our first tourist tour, and probably the last!! This is not how we like to travel!!!

The first day started at 6h30, we got picked up with a minibus, in which we had to sit the next 2,5h. The first stop was in Kanchanaburi: the cemetery for the Dutch and the British people, who fight against Japanese, during WWII. Not very exciting…

The second stop was a museum, with the famous Kwai-river-bridge. Again, not very exciting, but a nice market just close by.

The weird part of this trip is that they never told us before what was going to happen! So when they drop us suddenly at the train station without luggage, we didn’t know what to think… But, it was just to have the train experience in the jungle…. After 1 hour they took us again in the little buses –where the luggage was untouched- to a primitive floating house restaurant, where we finally got lunch served. The afternoon programme was the most interesting part of the whole tour: “Wat Luang Ta Bua Yanna Sampanno” or in English the “tiger temple”, the famous monastery-refuge that cares for orphaned tigers. That was such a great experience!!!! When it was Joske’s turn for a picture with the biggest male (300kg), he suddenly woke up!! The adrenaline was rushing big time!!! But the volunteers did their job good, and in 2 seconds she was surrounded by 4 guys and safe, thank Buddha!!! –This whole thing is possible because the tigers play first a lot, eat than a very big meal, and after that sleep for two hours: the only time the public is here aloud-.

After this freaky but very cool experience, we could play for a while with two baby-tigers of 2,5 months old: a dream comes true!!!

We passed the night again in this weird kind of floating house on a river, a bit more upstream than the restaurant, which was really cosy, and rocked us to sleep.

The second day started by the Erawan national park which contains 7 waterfalls, sread out over a mountain of 1550m high. We had a good refreshing swim in the clear water on the way down, despite the huge fishes who suck on you if you don’t move enough. “Lucky” us we met also a Royal Cobra on the way down!!

In the afternoon we visited a cave, meditation place for Buddhists, and house for bats.

On the way back to the place we slept, we stopped at the elephant camp for a quarter, to play with a baby elephant. Mum was not impressed, but she was chained, little one had fun, and pushed very hard!! The third and final day we had just a morning program: a local river motorboat tour, and after that a more quiet raft on a misery bamboo boat. But raft in Thailand means go with the stream and enjoy the moment. To close the tour, we finished by three quarter elephant riding. You don’t sit on the animal, but in a little chair on it’s back: weird sensation and not really stable. Very impressive to see how the animal listen to the voice of the Thai, sitting on his neck.

So, that was the tour!! In the afternoon we traveled to Hua Hin (south), 2 hours in the little bus, 4 hours in the train, and that’s where we write this (long?) article from…

The excellent pictures made by our new camera EOS 400 D can be found in the Kanchannaburi folder.

Cheers, big kiss, us.

O yes, some funny facts from Thailand: - The electricity wires are hanging just 2 meter from the ground, not protected, and sometimes lightning can be seen!!!

- Still hot, but beside ocean it’s better..

- The airco make us sick so for the future we'll choose just van room...