RAWBangkok

Sunset over the River Kwai

My favorite go go dancer (mfggd) and I went on a three-day-weekend trip to Kanchanaburi Province over the King’s Birthday weekend.  I described the first day of that trip in Part 1.

One thing I didn’t mention about Friday was that we spent some time with the lady at the Felix Resort Hotel who arranges tours.

Booking our tour

We had discussed the idea of a tour or two in Bangkok, and had looked at some brochures on the bus traveling up to Kanchanaburi.  On Friday afternoon, shortly before dinner, we went to the tour desk to arrange something for Saturday.

There were a number of interesting options available, but it was clear that mfggd put her #1 priority on visiting the 7-stage waterfall at Erawan National Park.  This is a place that I had planned to visit in 2005, but had canceled the trip because my mother died and I had to fly to the US abruptly.  So I was happy to head to the falls.

But she and I were also both interested in a sunset barbecue dinner, and frolicking with the elephants in the river.  The problem was that we couldn’t take the standard Erawan tour and get back in time for the dinner.  The tour planner suggested taking a private car to Erawan (cost of 2,900 baht from car and English speaking driver) which could ensure that we arrived back in time.

Yeah, that sounded okay.

I pretty much had decided, but casually asked the total price before telling her to book it.

She hit the keys on the calculator and said 8,500 baht.

No, that has to be a mistake, I said.  She ran the numbers again with the same result.

“How much for the dinner?” I asked.

2,650 baht per person was her reply.

Holy Fuck!

I’d been reading the tour brochures sittting in the bus on the way to Kanchanaburi and seen the exact same dinner for 690 baht per person.  I told her we’d go to the room, change for dinner, discuss exactly what we wanted to do on Saturday, then come back to book it.

We did all of that, except for the part about returning to book it at the hotel tour desk.

Instead, from the room we called the tour operator listed on the brochure, and after some discussion decided to take the full-day tour that focused on Erawan, and to skip the dinner with the elephants.  At 1,090 per person, the entire day was gonna cost a comfortable 2,180 baht, which included lunch and entry fees to the park.  Sweet.

Based on the massively inflated pricing, I can definitely recommend NOT booking tours at the hotel desk at the Felix.

The company that we did book the tour through was called something like “Happy Times”.  I brought the brochure back with me, but now I can’t find it.  I looked at my call log on my mobile phone, however, and the number we called to book the tour was 081 555 2014.  The office number was 03 455 1000.

They were able to speak English over the phone, had perhaps a dozen different tour packages, all reasonably priced, and the actual tour was well organized, though the customers seemed to be primarily backpacker-types.  Okay with me…

Saturday Morning: Elephants and Bamboo Rafts

In any event, we got out of bed at 7 a.m. after a decent (but not great) night’s sleep.

The only problem at the hotel (aside from pricing) that I encountered was with temperature; the hot water wasn’t hot and the air conditioning wasn’t cold.  This made bathing somewhat uncomfortable, as I like hot showers even in the middle of Bangkok summers, and definitely in the current winter weather.

Sleeping was tough for mfggd because the room was simply too hot for her (though I was okay).  No matter what we did to adjust the air conditioning, it did little but blow mildly warm air around the room.

I should have spoken to the hotel management about it, but I never did.  Perhaps both problems could have been easily fixed.  We’ll never know.

We got to the lobby at the stroke of 8 a.m. to meet the tour van — we’d lolligagged in the bed so no time for breakfast.

Waiting for us was a large and somewhat overweight krathoey (ladyboy) in a bright flower-print shirt, and what I’m sure was a long black wig.  He was our tour guide for the day.

Thankfully, Eileen was a good tour guide, though he spoke a rapid form of ungrammatical English that made him unintelligible to all the members of our group except for me.  I have had lots of practice in 4 years of living here, but the half dozen backpackers and three Thai people that rounded out our group generally had no clue what he was on about.  In that respect, I really got a day-long private tour.

With a van full of people, we drove to the first stop, which was an “Elephant Camp.”

It had 24 elephants that did a variety of things, but the bread and butter activity was short rides for tourists on the back of an elephant.

Mfggd had been on an elephant once before in Koh Chang on a holiday with another bar customer.  I’d done it in Chiang Mai back in June, so this was the second time for both of us.

It turned out to be fun.  Our driver was young and talkative, and mfggd engaged him in a lively conversation.  Mfggd got out of the seat mounted on the elephant’s back and rode on the elephant’s neck for most of the 25-minute trip.

We dismounted, took some photos with a 74-year-old elephant with impressive tusks, then tumbled into the back of an old sawng taew for a short ride to the river.

At the river we donned life preservers and hopped onto a bamboo raft.

Again, I’d done this before in Chiang Mai, but it was a first for mfggd, and something that she had been very keen to do.

It turned out to be more intersting and enjoyable than my first experience in Chiang Mai because the scenery was more beautiful and the river was faster-flowing.  We took a couple of dozen pictures and some of them came out great, with fantastic scenery in the background.

After 20 minutes or so, we put in at the side of the river, said goodbye to the young fellow who had piloted us, and it was ont the road again.

This time we had a longer ride ahead of us, as we were heading to Erawan National Park about an hour away.  We took the sawng taew back to the elephant camp, then tumbled out of the truck and back into the van for the trip.

The Erawan Waterfall

I mentioned earlier that I had planned to visit  the Erawan National Park back in 2005 but that that trip was cancelled when my mother died.

So, I was as interested to go there as mfggd was.  We arrived around 11 a.m., and we had about two and a half hours alloted to explore the area.

We’d missed breakfast, so mfggd and I discussed it and decided that we ought to have a bit to eat before attacking the waterfall.  The clear emerald green waters of the waterfall eddied among the rocks in beautiful pools here at the base, and there were a number of bamboo platforms built for having a picnic or a nap, and a number of food vendors.
Being a holiday weekend there were a large number of Thai people cruising the area, and it was alive with activity.

I staked out a bamboo platform while mfggd ordered a bit of food.

I had suggested a ’snack’, but she came back with lunch!  A quarter grilled chicken, somtam, another spicy Isaan vegetable dish, two packs of sticky rice, and a tube of bamboo with sweet sticky rice packed inside, plus two bottles of water.

A school of fish in the fast-flowing stream

We enjoyed the feast beside the crystal pools, watching fish dart around, and chatting to a family that was sharing our platform. They were intrigued both by my ability to eat spicy Thai food and by my limited ability to converse in Thai.

We probably spent 25 minutes eating and enjoying the space before attacking the climb up the waterfall.  We discussed it later and agreed that we were glad we did.  It would have been a long and less pleasant climb on an empty stomach.

There are 7 stages (or “steps”) to the waterfall.  You can’t take any food or drinks above the first level, and your bag is inspected before you are allowed to climb.  You can take bottles of water with you, but you have to pay a 20- baht deposit for each bottle, that is only returned to you when you show your bottles on your return to the bottom.

I had some fruit (Som-oh) in my bag, but I had to leave it behind and pick it up when we’d returned to the bottom.

Mfggd and I climbed steadily, but we took our time, pausing to enjoy the beauty of the place.  We frequently walked or swam in the very cold water, or watched the fish, or simply sat and admired the beauty of the trees, rocks and water.  We took dozens of photos.

Each of the steps of the waterfall (Nam Dtok in Thai) is uniquely different from the others.  Some have high sheer falls or caves, while others meander in a genle fashion over a web of rocks and boulders.  At some stages there were deep placid pools of water for swimming, while others featured fast-flowing streams.

For some reason we seemed to take photos of the less spectacular parts of the falls.  Perhaps because we seemed drawn to the quieter spaces.

But this is one of the world’s wonderful day-trips.

Beautiful water, abundant fish, lush rainforest, (relatively) easy climbing.  I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is in moderately good health and loves nature.

At the very bottom there was a large sign with a photo of the falls at each step, with a chart of how many meters one had to climb to move from each stage to the one above it.

As you climbed, at each stage there was clear signage in Thai and English to tell you where you were, and how far it was to the next stage.

Mfggd and I climbed to the 5th stage before heading back down.  Our decision to turn around wasn’t due to fatigue, but to time considerations.  We were part of a group tour and couldn’t linger as long as we wanted to.

In fact, this was an area where mfggd surprised me.

For most of my life I’ve been drawn to petite women.  That has often manifested itself in girls who needed to be helped and protected, and who often admonished me to be more cautious (like staying away from the edge of the cliff, or not climbing on wet rocks; you get the idea).

Mfggd was very very different.  On our Erawan Waterfall adventure she was usually out in the lead.  She climbed — if not tirelessly — at least steadily and happily.  She clambered over rocks like a boy.  She delighted in the physical aspect of what we were doing.

In the morning, she had required no encouragement at all to climb on the neck of the elephant.

As much as this is unusual in the general group of women I’ve known in my life, it’s nearly unheard of in my actual experience with bar girls, who — even more than the average Thai — love nothing so much as to spend the day sleeping.

I have to say that, for as much as I liked mfggd before this trip, I liked her even better after watching her scrambling over rocks, climbing trees and difficult slopes while never once asking me to help her or scolding me for taking chances.

Once I did actually slip and fall.  She didn’t scream “Be careful!”

She laughed.

I nearly died, but she was laughing.

I don’t know whether it’s fair to say she was monkey-like, because she was perhaps not that nimble, but she showed the naked enthusiasm for play and exploration that I associate with ten year old boys, along with the same fearlessness.

A nature climb with her was good fun.

We enjoyed it so much that I promised mfggd that we can come back again sometime in the next year and stay the full day at the falls, climbing to the top and enjoying an entire lazy day in the pools and currents of Erawan.

The Death Railway

It’s probably obvious that I would have been happy to spend the balance of the day exploring the falls, but it was not to be.  We had to meet the rest of the group for lunch, then move on to the next stop.

Having already eaten our fill, mfggd and I stayed on the falls as long as we could, arriving 20 minutes late for lunch, and then not eating anything — just having a bit of fresh fruit and fruit juice.

At around 2:15 we all piled into the van for the next leg of the journey.

We went to the “Death Railway“.

As discussed in Part 1, this is a stretch of Railway that was built by POWs and Asian labor that was conscripted by the Japanese in the latter part of World War 2.  The name, Death Railway, recognizes the tens of thousands of workers who died slaving to build it.  The infamous Bridge Over River Kwai is just a very small part of this rail line that runs more than 400 kilometers through Burma and Thailand.

Our tour guide gave us a bit of the history of the railway, but in his tortured English no one really understood him except for me.  (By way of example, he didn’t know how to express the concept of  “front” and “back” and would instead talk about the “top” and “bottom”.  At one point he was encouraging the Australians in our group to “move to the bottom” of the van.  They truly didn’t understand that he wanted them to get into the back until I finally translated.)

We were free to roam around for about 30 minutes before the train arrived at the tiny platform.  It would take us on a short 15 minute train ride.  Until then, most people spent time clambering on the train track which ran along a curving cliff wall, perhaps 60 to 100 meters above the river below.  It was a bit nerve-wracking walking along the trestle when I had to pass someone walking in the opposite direction.

Finally, at 4 p.m., the train arrived.   We boarded the train but it was standing room only.  Once everyone was on board, the train moved very very slowly along the stretch of track pictured above… I believe this was to facilitate views and picture taking rather than out of any particular safety concern.

We had to travel to the 4th stop before getting off.  After getting past the picturesque section above the river the train moved at a normal fast speed and we covered a lot of ground.  There was little to be seen in this section except fields of sugar cane.

Mfggd sat next to me on the hard wooden bench, holding my hand and looking out the open window of the non-air conditioned train.  I was thinking how terribly uncomfortable it would be to travel across Thailand like this in the middle of the Thai summer season.  Now, in the winter, the temperature was pleasant, and in this rural setting there was plenty of fresh air blowing in the large open windows.  Withthe cool weather, the sun pouring in the windows felt — not brutal — but welcome.

But I definitely realized that I would never want to travel any real distance in Thailand on a third-class ticket.

Back to the Hotel with the Australians

After the ride on the “Death Railway” it was back into the van for the final leg of the day’s journey.  The hour long ride back to the town and our hotels.

In our particular group we had four male Aussie backpackers.

I have to say that I found them both irritating and offensive in equal measure.  Without going into too many specifics, I will say that they rarely, if ever, stopped talking.  Riding an hour in a van with a chattering group of young Aussie yabos is not my idea of a good time.

Also, I think there’s  a certain etiquette that is recognized among most civilized people where MP3 players is concerned.  I think that the proper etiquette is that if you want to listen to your music, use some fucking headphones.

One of my offensive young countrymen used the MP3 functions of his mobile phone to crank out a tinny but loud stream of music every minute we were in the van.

If we shared a taste in music I might have appreciated this.  But our tastes, unfortunately, do not coincide, and I found myself spending 30 or 40 minutes at a stretch with my teeth on edge considering how likely I would be to do jail time if I actually murdered the punk while we were in the van.  He played some obnoxious form of metallic rock while another Aussie carried on a stream-of-conciousness narrative of their adventures in South East Asia with frequent sexual references with complete disregard for the five Thai women in the van.

I was embarrassed to be an Australian, and angry that I had to suffer through both the non-stop crap music and the non-stop stream of bullshit about the holiday. The trips in the van were damned near unbearable.

Anyway…

Mfggd and I had been the first people picked up in the morning, and we were the first to be dropped off in the afternoon.  This meant that it was the first look any of our backpacker friends had of our accommodation.

While it may not be a world-class standard 5 star hotel, the Felix may well be the best that Kanchanaburi has to offer, and as we turned into the extensive and well-landscaped grounds the Aussie’s non-stop stream of consciousness turned to the resort.

“‘Strewth!  Who stays here… no one in this car I reckon!

Shit, eh!  The driver’s stoppin’.  What do you reckon, we pickin’ up some posh passenger?  None of you lot stays here, right?”

Wrong.  Mfggd hopped down from the van, and I gave the Aussie boys a grin and a wave.  I’d been in the van with them for an entire day, and I was, frankly, glad to be getting away from them.

Home Again

It had been a long but enjoyable day, and it was good to get back to the hotel.

My first act, after getting in the room, was to take a long shower.

Afterward mfggd and I discussed our plans for the evening and tomorrow.

We decided to have dinner in the hotel restaurant, and by acclimation agreed that on Sunday we would sleep late, make love, and check out as late as we could before hopping the bus back to Bangkok.

That’s just what we did.  We ate dinner, but I got hit with a killer headache so I didn’t much enjoy it.

Getting back to the room mfggd announced that I had a fever.   She was right; I was sick, and it had come on fast.

She was lovely, using a wet cloth to cool my brow and massaging me to make me feel better.

Nothing, though, was making a dent in the headache and I was getting suicidal.  I am now convinced that it was brought on by listening to the music and banter of the Australians all day, but at the time I thought I had some sort of 24-hour bug.

In a final desperate attempt to kill the headache I had sex with mfggd, which, given the pain I was in, was more challenging than it sounds.

And it worked.  Shortly before my splattergun discharged my headache simply disappeared.

Now *that’s* a headache cure that would sell a million.

By 9:30 we were both deep asleep and not likely to wake up before morning.

Sunday

After getting to sleep early I guess it was inevitable that I would wake early.  I was up and out of bed around 6:30 a.m.

I decided to use my free breakfast coupon.

I shook mfggd awake to see if she wanted to go with me.  Not a chance; she just wante to sleep.

I went to breakfast, but didn’ t make much of a dent in the available food before my stomache started to rumble.  After sitting for a couple of minutes trying to control it I decided I needed to get back to my room and onto the crapper.

I barely made it.  Fumbling with my pants and breathing with laboured breath I discharged a massive spray of diarrhea that somehow managed to all find its way into the toilet.

I have no idea what caused it, but something had played havoc with my guts.

This became the theme of the day as I made multiple trips to the toilet throughout the morning and then a long busride where I kept my fingers crossed.

We managed to check out of the hotel around 1 p.m. and then paid 180 baht for a return trip to the bus station.

In an effort to explain why the Felix doesn’t really rate as a proper 5 star hotel let me offer this small example.  When we checked out I asked the question, “What’s the best way to get from the hotel to the bus back to Bangkok?”

The hotel said that they would arrange a car for me.  Good insofar as it went.

The car dropped us at the bus station, but when mfggd inquired she was directed to walk another two blocks to the traffic light intersection where we could get the express bus to Bangkok.  It seems that all the buses at the station were of the local variety.

So, because the driver hadn’t dropped us 2 blocks away, mfggd and I humped it a couple of blocks in the middle of the afternoon hauling three small bags with us.  Not really a big deal, but not the kind of service that really elevates a hotel in the estimation of it’s guests.

We bought out tickets and ten minutes later the bus was moving and carrying us back to Bangkok.

Mfggd came up to my room, and we chatted and cuddled for a couple of hours, but at 8 p.m. she grabbed her stuff and headed home.

It had been a nice weeked, and now I turned on my bedside lamp, grabbed the novel that I’d been reading on the bus and read a few more pages.  It didn’t take long before I was sleeping soundly — the sights, sounds and smells of Kanchanaburi just one more pleasant memory.