Train Ride and More History

The train
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We enjoyed the included breakfast at our hotel and then set off for the train station in Kanchanaburi. The hotel was kind enough to hold our bags for us for the day. The one downside to the hotel is that you can't walk into town, or get a cab on your own. They called a cab for us at the premium rate of 150 baht for a 5 or so minute trip. The driver arrived with a pickup with covered seating in the back. We hopped in for the nice open air trip. He dropped us off near the train station and our first order of business was to do a little shopping. Sometime yesterday while at the elephant park, I managed to loose my sunglasses. A quick stop at one of the stalls gained me a cute pair of sunglasses for a mere 120 baht. Costs less for the sunglasses then the trip from the hotel! At another stall for around the same price, I got a hat. Jeff just loves the hat (yes the sarcasm is intended!) :). Keeps the sun out of my face and my head cooler! We got tickets to ride the train and waited around. The train here is a third class train only. That means wooden seats and no air-conditioning. For tourists, the train costs 100 baht. There are cars on the train labeled "special cars" and these cost 300 baht for foreigners. The only thing that we could see about them that was special is that you have to pay more to ride there. I think that it gives you a guaranteed seat. We couldn't figure out how to obtain those tickets though.

Its crowded in here!
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The train arrived and it was PACKED. We managed to wedge ourselves (standing) into one of the cars and began the multi hour journey towards Nam Tok. The walkway of the train is a busy source of commerce with people coming through to sell hats, t-shirts, food, and drinks. Not having a seat means that you play a constant game of moving around to let everyone and their good through. It was a bit warm in the train too. Finally, after about an hour and a half, we hit a popular stop for tour groups to get off and pretty much everyone seated in the car that we were standing in got off (they were all in the same tour group). The last bit of the ride was much more pleasant. We arrived at the last stop, Nam Tok and after a bit of haggling secured a round trip taxi to go to Hellfire pass.

Me in my new hat
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Hellfire pass was a very difficult area of the railway for the POWs to build. They had to manually make their way through a thick wall of rock and level part of a cliff. The museum here is free to visit and they even have an audio tour. To get the MP3 player and headphones needed for the tour, you have to leave a form of ID and a 200 baht deposit at the front desk. The deposit is returned when you return the player. There is a small indoor exhibit and then you can walk down to the pass. Like most other indoor activities here, you do need to take your shoes off at the front door. We only had about an hour before we had to leave to catch the train, so we headed down to the pass. Walking through it while listening to the audio tour was amazing. The amount of work done here, in a short period of time, by men who were in poor health is incredible.

Hellfire Pass
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We got back in the car for the ride back to the train station and convinced the driver to take us back to Kanchanaburi instead. The train ride would take a few hours and we were hot and tired. Clearly, he doesn't get asked to do that much as he was very excited. His wife and son joined us for the ride. They didn't speak a lot of English and we don't really speak Thai (beyond a few phrases that we have picked up), but we managed to have conversation and a delightful ride. The hotel advertised free transfers to the bus station, so we just had our friendly driver leave us at the hotel. We collected our bags and freshened up before requesting transport to the bus station. We discovered at that point, that although they do have transport to the bus station, it is only at certain times and this was not one of them. A little upset, we paid the 200 baht to go to the bus station. Had we known, we would have had our previous taxi take us there.

Hellfire pass from above
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The bus back to Bangkok is a first class bus (padded seats and air conditioning) and we got to sit! The ride took about two and a half hours, but was much more pleasant than the train ride! We arrived at the bus station in Bangkok and were quickly offered a taxi ride. After an argument over price, we settled on one that made us all happy and hopped in the cab. That cab ride ended up being the scariest ride in a car I have ever had! I think the best way to sum it up is (for those that have seen the show) is any team on the Amazing Race would have been thrilled with this cab driver. He was highly unconcerned with anything expect getting us to our destination as rapidly as possible (and we we certainly didn't ask him to do that!). At one point, we were curious about how fast we were going, but discovered that the speedometer was broken. We arrived (alive!) at our hotel after finding the correct place to check in, we headed up to our room.

We are staying at the Conrad Residence, which is within the Conrad hotel. The residences are apartments with a kitchen, but since they are within the hotel, you get to use all the hotel services. They are also cleaned daily like a hotel room. The room is beautiful with a kitchen, living room, bedroom, and nice bathroom. Our luggage was quickly delivered to our room and after settling in a bit we head to bed.

I did see some interesting sites on vehicles today:

Motorcycle: 2 adults and 2 children, but one of the two children was being breastfed as they were traveling down the highway

Pickup: 9 adults and a motorcycle in the back

Tuk-Tuk: Only one passenger, but the person must have been moving as there were a ton of bags and boxes in the seat with the passenger and even a desk strapped to the back of the tuk tuk-tuk!