day 13: going for a country drive

after staying overnight in our favorite place to say in a sing song way, kanchanaburi, we hit the road again.  this time we stuck to country roads to explore the rural areas of central thailand.  we did make a quick stop at the famous bridge over river kwai before leaving town so michael could see it.  i had come here from bangkok on an organized tour four months before.  we headed up into the hills to see a big waterfall but our national park passes turned out to be expired and we didnt want to pay again so we continued on to just kind of see where we ended up.  we kept driving and driving along a curvy, country road that followed the side of a enormous resevoir.  we figured we would just keep going not knowing if the road was really going to be driveable in the loop we wanted to go.  the further we went the more we hoped we would have to turn around and go all the way back.  the road eventually left the edge of the the water and turned up to wind through the hills.  there were rock slide signs everywhere and evidence of such on the road.  we just kept hoping until finally around one bend we saw a huge rock slide completely covering the entire road.  our hearts sank at the thought of driving hours all the way back but we didnt quite resign to that yet.  there were car tracks just barely edging around the slide in the narrow mud before the dropoff.  michael wasnt too sure the rental car had enough clearance but i was determined.  we literally moved a mountain in order to pass.  we just kept moving rocks until the car could get through.  we were ecstatic and proud of ourselves for not just turning back.  we were a little apprehensive about running into another one but luckily the road was perfect the rest of the way.  we came to the top of the mountain and had a fantastic view of the resevoir below then continued down the other side into even more rural areas, passing water buffalo in the road and even an ostrich farm along the way.  everyone who saw two white faces pass turned their heads in curiosity because not many tourists make it out to these parts.  it was neat to see how people were living and the way they farmed the landscape.  luckily, the roads and our map reading all worked out and we were able to finish our country loop by dropping down into ayutthaya, the ancient capital.