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A big thankyou for emails and comments via the blog site while we're travelling - it's good to feel we are in touch with friends and family so please keep up the contact!
Updating our travels....
Kanchanaburi - River Kwai Area
Happy Australia Day spent on the train journey - we started quite early from our Bangkok hotel to make it to the railway station to buy our A$3.60 tickets for the 7.45am to Kanchanaburi. A delightful surprise waiting at the platform was a young couple from Finland (Mika and Vilja) who we'd palled up with on the riverboat coming back from the jungle in Taman Negara, Malaysia. We enjoyed the train trip all the more for their company and agreed to meet up for dinner after finding our way to our respective hotels. Ours was quite a luxury to enjoy - Pung Waan Resort and Spa - we settled in, looked around, read/sleep/enjoy a nice swim, then picked up a motorbike to find our way to a rare post office for a 4.30pm deadline and send a 4kg box home with various surplus luggage and purchases! We spent a poignant hour at the War Cemetery reflecting on the shocking sacrifice of so many young lives lost, we find a "Dunn grave", and also that of a Chaplain amongst Australian soldier POWs. Later we met up with Mika and Vilja and enjuoyed a lovely Thai dinner - meals, sweets, drinks and coffees for 4 - all for A$24.
Saturday 27/1 we started slow with a long read in bed - Mark finished "Les Miserables" and really enjoyed it. Lots more detail in the story than in the musical of course. We headed out on the motorbike towards Erewan Falls believing it to be about 30kms but after 1/2 hour we saw signage - another 60kms!! And we and our little bike are not quite up to that distance so we aborted that idea and called on Ëlephants and Friends" conservation park (www.elephants-friends .com) - we met John, a volunteer from Brisbane, working with six beautiful animals (aged or abused). The 20 year old male bull roars at us with one flimsy bit of wire separating us - it is sometimes an electric fence but probably not that day!! Back to town to do the Bridge over the River Kwai and the War Museum - returned the motorbike and a big walk 1 1/2 hours back to our resort for a swim/spa/cool down. We dined in and listened to a local artist crooning songs from the Carpenters. An observation from the day : Thai people generally have a happy disposition and laughter is universal across all languages.
Sunday 28/1 We moved on that day so a relaxed brekkie/pack up and a momentous decision - Mark ditches his faithful Clarks sandals (from England days!) having purchased new ones in KL... he feels like he's betraying an old friend - they've done 3 trips to India with him but the time has come... and pragmatism demands that we keep our packs at under 15kg for forthcoming Air Asia flights. Thoughts of Pilgrim today with this being the last of 10am services for the summer season - from memory Darryn preaching and Gail leading - and very aware that the mood at church will be starting to crank up for another year with committees and groups etc soon resuming their activities. Go well everyone!
We taxi to the train, buy tickets back to Bangkok and sit in the cool of a garden cafe - only to be engaged by a woman called "Meow" who arrived on motorbike looking for her friend, the owner of the cafe. After 10 minutes of engaging conversation she invited us back to her home, just 10 mins away. We had three hours to kill before the train so this was a welcome interlude. She is a doctor/academic lecturing in business studies at the university, single, warm, generous, engaging and typically entrepreneurial. She served us coffee and showed us around her B&B project-in-the-making, and she was glad of our feedback re bedding and general facilities. After coffee and various fruits (including introducing us to tamarind - a sweet chewy sticky fruit) she dropped us back to the station for our 2.30pm train.
Back at Central Station Bangkok we awaited our 10.00pm overnight sleeper connection to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. Jan listened to music and Mark read til midnight - we were quite comfortable and relaxed - the last sleeper train Mark was in was the overnight from Chennai to Cochin in South India, so this experience brings back those memories for him. Our 8.00am train b'fast of toast, eggs, pineapple and tea is served while the sleeping carriage is transformed into a sitting car. The train made steady progress and we arrived in Chiang Mai around 1pm, having a taxi transfer to the local ÿouth hostel" as recommended by a Heathcote family we'd met earlier.
More adventures to come - but beware the fateful curry in Chiang Mai....
previous travel blog entry
Andrea J says:
Happy Birthday Jan for today (5th). Wonderful to hear about your experiences, especially Thailand. Sounds like you're getting to some interesting places. The war cemetery visit certainly brings out emotions. Keep enjoying the trip and stay safe.