Tigers, Elephants, and a bridge

Part of the cemetery
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Today is a day that I have been waiting for since before we left. Today is tiger day!! We arranged a driver for today and he picked us up promptly at 8am. We said goodbye to the Old Bangkok Inn and headed out. Our driver took us across town (which is usually a traffic nightmare) to drop off most of our bags at our next Bangkok hotel. Today is a Buddhist holiday though and traffic was light. After making record time from one end of Bangkok to another, we sent out for Kanchanaburi. It was an enjoyable about 2 hour drive there and we arrived way earlier than we had planned. Since we had time before the tigers we did some sightseeing.

The Bridge
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Kanchanaburi was a town that was made famous in the movie "Bridge over the River Kwai" since this is where the bridge is. We went to a new museum related to the building of the "death railway". The museum was a sobering look at the conditions that the POWs were forced to endure to build the whole railway. It was a smaller museum and the exhibits did a good job telling the overall story as well as some personal accounts from the POWs that survived. Across the street is the allied cemetery and we made a brief visit there. The Japanese did allow the POWs to bury their dead and the soldiers doing the burying would try to bury paperwork identifying the body. Due to this, and the record keeping that they did, most of the allied POWs were able to be identified and moved to a more suitable location. Because of this, most of the POWs buried in the cemetery are properly identified.

We pet tigers and sit on elephants!

Big feet!
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Next we went to the infamous bridge. The bridge is still a working railway bridge and when there are no trains going across it, you can walk on it. The bridge during the war was built of wood and it was bombed many times. The current one is made of steel, but the supports in the water are the original. There are a lot of stalls selling all sorts of stuff around here. You can also catch a water taxi here to take a sightseeing trip on the river or go to another location. We took some photos and watched the train leave before hopping back in the car.

Jeff and the tiger
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Our next stop was the Tiger Temple. This is a monastery that takes in sick and injured animals. At some point, they got some sick tiger cubs and nursed them back to health. Other tigers were brought here and some have been born here. For a few hours each day, the tigers are brought to an area where people can pet them and have their pictures taken with them.

We arrived early so that we could play with the tiger cubs, who are available to the public for a short time everyday. Unfortunately for reasons that aren't completely clear to me, the cubs weren't let out. We did get to see them in their cage though. Since we got their early, we also got to walk with the last tiger and the abbot to the canyon. We both got our pictures taken with the tiger as we (and the rest of the crowd) walked. After a brief wait in line we got "standard" pictures taken where they take you from tiger to tiger and you sit behind them and smile for the camera. I was surprised at how coarse their fur was! I paid extra for a "special" picture where the monk positions the tiger's head in your lap and they take lots of pictures. The last thing the monk told me before stepping away was "be careful". Yeah, like I am going to be not careful with a huge tiger's head in my lap! It was an amazing experience and I am so glad that we went. Even Jeff enjoyed himself. :) Poor Jeff.. Everywhere we go, I come up with something that we have to do related to animals and us getting close to them. He said that he had a good time though.

Lisa pretending like she knows what she is doing
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After we successfully didn't get eaten, we went elephant riding. We started out sitting in the little seat that is strapped to the elephant, but (I think) because we had an awesome elephant driver, we both got to sit on the elephant like we were the ones driving. I was certain that I was going to fall off and kill myself! Unlike riding a horse, there is nothing to hold onto to. You just kind of balance yourself there. By the end I was a bit more comfortable and then I had to move back into the seat. Both Jeff and I made the round trip between the seat and the elephant's neck without issue. The pictures from there turned out amazing too. Our guide made us each hats out of leaves to wear, in case you are wondering what is on our heads.

Jeff does look like he knows what he is doing
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At this point, our time with our driver was nearing its end, so he took us to our hotel in Kanchanaburi, the Pung-Waan Resort and Spa. We booked through a third party website and got a big discount. The grounds to the resort are lovely. Check in was quickly accomplished and we checked out our room and headed to the pool. The hotel sits right on the river and the view from the pool was quite nice. For the size of the hotel, there only appeared to be a handful of people staying there. They have a large conference area, so that may be their main source of visitors. The staff is very friendly, but their English is not the best. We managed to communicate everything we needed to though. It is a little ways out of town, so we ate dinner at the hotel (good food, not overly priced) and then headed to bed.

At the hotel near the pool
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We have lots more pictures than will fit on here. Other pictures of our trip can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/lmbroz/Thailand. Like this blog, I am trying to update the pictures, but am WAY behind on the pictures. Tiger and elephant pictures are available though.

Amazingly, I saw nothing that surprised me on the road today. Hmm.. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough!