Monday, February 25 is a Buddhist holiday - Makha Bucha. It is a public holiday so no school! We decided to travel for the long weekend. Plan A was relaxing on the beach at Koh Samet, after finding out all hotels were booked. We moved onto Plan B - Kanchanaburi. We had been to Kanchanaburi during orientation week back in October, when we rode elephants and floated down the River Kwai. This time we had a different location to visit - Erawan Waterfalls, a series of 7 tiers of falls.
We left Saturday morning and headed down to Victory Monument to find a van for the 3 hour trip. It was much quicker finding the correct van this time! We got prime seats (near the vent) in the van so no sweating for us! The 3 hour trip went pretty quick. After being dropped off at the bus station we found out it was only 1km walk to our hotel, so we start walking. We settled in to our room then headed down to the pool for some relaxation.
Sunday, after breakfast we made our way back to the bus station to catch a 50 baht (less than $2) bus to Erawan National Park. Having been in Thailand for 5 months, the bus we rode didn't surprise me at all; no ac windows open, wooden floor, rusted body, the broken door that were fastened open. We made the 1.5 hour trip up into the mountains, people getting on and off the bus along the way. Because we have a Thailand work visa we were able to enter the park at the Thai rate which is 40 baht instead of the foreigner price of 200 baht. Once paid and in we all got off the bus and started making our way to the first tier of the waterfall.
 |
| Door wide open as we drive. |
It was a bit of a walk, with so many people on the first and second tier of the waterfall we decided to continue moving up. We stopped at the third tier to dip our legs in, then kept moving up. The four tier was great! Two massive rocks acted as the water slide into the deep aqua blue pool below. We each slid a few times and swam a bit, kicking often to keep the fish from nibbling the dead skin off our feet. Time to keep moving, we continued to make our way up on the rough rocky path. We briefly stopped at the 5th tier, then kept moving up. We came to a fork in the road and saw three little monkeys playing in the trees. We took the path leading to the seventh tier. This was turning into quite the hike - rocks, tree roots, wooden bridges and shaky wooden steps. Glad we decided to go all the way to the top - the view was gorgeous! Waterfalls gently coming down from the mountain that surrounded it. After the long hike up we again jumped into the cool blue water, swam under the waterfall, and climbed up another waterfall. We had a lot of fun!
 |
| 3rd Tier |
 |
| Josh on the natural waterslide |
 |
| 4th Tier |
 |
| 5th Tier |
 |
| 7th Tier |
We started to make our way back down the path. It was easier coming down, but still took some effort! On our way we quickly stopped to peak at the sixth tier. Finally down, we changed and hopped on the bus and headed back to town. Our seat was right in the back of this old run down bus, the door wide open. Gotta love Thailand buses!
 |
| 6th Tier |
Once back in town we enjoyed a very late lunch at a great little place and walked through the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery where almost 7000 allied troops were buried. They had died during World War II while building a railroad and bridge over the river near this town. They were imprisoned by the Japanese. Most of the fallen soldiers were British, Australian, and from the Netherlands.
Later, we got a massage to relax our hard worked muscles (we hiked about 2 miles in the mountains in flip-flops.) A great end to a great day! Oh and did we mention - our bed is soft, our pillows fluffy and the water is hot - so we are living in luxury and loving it!
No comments:
Post a Comment