Trip to Kanchanaburi, Thailand

After a disastrous trip to Cherating in September this year, we decided to take one last holiday before we return to Bangalore for good. I was browsing holiday packages on a website suggested by a close friend when I chanced upon a picture of the Tiger Temple. It took me less than five seconds to decide the destination – Kanchanaburi, Thailand.

We flew from and into the budget terminal at Changi, our first experience with this part of Changi. After tasting the yucky food at the Han’s outlet, walking a mile after getting off the plane and spending close to half an hour at immigration, I decided that they were just being sarcastic with their loud banners asking you to “Enjoy the difference”.

Tiger Airways was the chosen carrier. The experience was pleasant for the most part except for a couple of occasions. For example, it’s not funny when your captain forgets the destination! As soon as we settle in, he goes “Welcome aboard Tiger Airways flight XX XXX to …..(Long pause)… Bangkok”. Then there was this occasion where the pilot was in a hurry to bring the plane down on our way back to make up for some lost time. It felt like I was in an elevator coming down from 35,000 feet, and I am sure that it holds a record for the only vertical landing accomplished by a commercial jet! Entertainment was no problem. There was this group of drunks holding a conference near the tail end. They had to pass comments at every object that passed by – men, women and even a friggin food trolley!

We spent the first two days on a raft cabin on the river Kwai. It was good, with a scenic view and all, but the waves from each passing boat would make the whole place wobble. It reminded me of the earthquakes in Tokyo. The people were friendly, food was excellent and it was quite affordable.



Our first visit was to an elephant camp. We were supposed to bathe, feed and ride elephants here. I was okay with the feeding and riding, but the bathing part set off an alarm in my head. If bathing my dog, which is one-tenth my size, is such a struggle, bathing an elephant definitely wont be a walk in the park. Sowmya however, was keen on taking the opportunity. She started the ritual by scrubbing the elephant’s head and he responded by putting her through the regular wash cycle – soak, wash and rinse, stopping just short of hanging her up to dry. Sowmya still thinks that it was she who gave the elephant a bath, I beg to differ!

Later on in the day, we visited the famous Tiger Temple. Human ignorance and insensitivity were on display here in full force. It’s a Buddhist monastery in the first place and secondly, you have to walk among wild animals. Common sense tells me that wild animals are put off by strong scents and I definitely wouldn’t risk wearing strong after-shaves and perfumes thereby pissing off not one but nine tigers! But people being people, I could see the wrong kind of dresses and smell perfumes everywhere. I don't know if they wanted to ask the tigers out on a romantic date. I had very high expectations from this place and it was kind of a let down mostly because of the number of people there. I still suggest this place to any animal lover, especially a tiger lover. This is the only place in this whole wide world where you can see, touch and walk amidst the most magnificent animals on Earth.

On the second day, we visited parts of the ‘Death Railway’ – Hell Fire Pass, The Bridge on the river Kwai, Krasae caves and even rode the death train. It looked dead enough for me! It was literally falling apart. Two ladies from my group got on my nerve by asking the guide as to how many people died at every single place we visited. We are talking of the Second World War lady! Hundreds of thousands died, who keeps count? Remembering the dead is a good thing, but obsessing about them?

The best part of the day had to be Erawan Waterfall. It is a seven step waterfall with each level 100 – 500 meters above the previous and you have to trek through the jungle to access these levels. It gets increasingly tough with every level and the last level is an insane obstacle course. But the sight at the top makes up for the exhaustion. I thought I will pass out due to dehydration, I even got bonked on the head by a low branch, but we survived!

We wanted to spend the last day looking at places in Bangkok and we promptly took a ‘first class’ bus from Kanchanaburi. Again, they must have coined that name as a joke because the bus did not look or feel anything like the ‘first class’ we generally talk of. It took 3.5 hours to reach Bangkok instead of the declared 2 hours. It stopped every 100 meters and in places, looked like our Mumbai locals during peak hour. Things steadily went downhill from there. We arrived in Bangkok a little after noon - hungry, tired and angry. We couldn’t get the cabbie to take us to a veggie restaurant so we asked him to take us to the grand palace instead.

The temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace are beautiful, you can spend hours looking at the place on a regular day, but not when you are about to faint from hunger! We saw the whole place in about an hour. I was wondering how all the gold, jade and glass would taste! At one point in time, I even hallucinated. Believing the whole place to be one giant cake, I was about to sink my teeth into the nearest pillar when better sense prevailed. We rushed out and met an enterprising woman who wanted to sell us some artwork. She said India was friendly towards Thailand and she would therefore give us a good discount! I didn’t know diplomacy goes down to such grass root levels! I was tempted to ask her who the enemies were, but I let it pass.

A tasty Japanese lunch followed at MBK mall after which it was time to leave. We got into a cab and we got a taste of Bangkok traffic and an average cabby’s English skills. We asked him if we could buy a Thai flag as a souvenir and he replied “Wow, why you want to buy? There are so many accidents in Bangkok, so I never ride bike”. And you thought Singapore cabbies were funny! We just prayed that he understood ‘Suvarnabhoomi Airport’ which he luckily did. That was the end of a memorable and eventful holiday.