Kanchanaburi....Part 2...

We've now made it to Friday 9th November, the first day where we managed to wake up fairly early, around 7.15 actually. Using the outdoor shower was quite an experience particularly forgetting to turn the water heater on, oops. After breakfast we headed back into town to rent a car for the day, a Toyota truck type thing and we started out to Erawan National Park about an hour north of kanchanaburi, a fairly uneventful journey as the roads were quite quiet. In the National Park there is a huge waterfall that has 7 official steps to it and I'm sure several more unofficial ones, it had some quite spectacular falls and views to match and some less spectacular trails to follow, the tarmac path soon turned to just a worn track over rocks and tree branches with some rickety bridges and ladders (European Health & Safety would have a field day!!). We eventually made it to the uppermost step and we were rewarded with a quick dip which was refreshing but it is a little uncomfortable having your feet nibbled by fairly large fish, something couldn't get used to. Every time one went for my foot, although they are harmless and are just after dead skin, it made me jump which meant i was slipping around like some sort of idiot! After that they was the small matter of walking back down; I did keep hoping for a nice cable car back down, but no such luck!

The next stop on our day of sightseeing was the infamous Hellfire Pass, part of the Thailand-Burma railway built by Second world war POWs, and also a lot of locals from Thailand and the surrounding countries. We had a look at the museum which explained a lot more about the Japanese plan for the railway and also the treatment and conditions endured by those that were forced to build it. It made quite harrowing reading particularly when we thought of all the heat and humidity and looked out at what was effectively jungle that they had to clear and build through. The hellfire pass itself was blasted through many feet of solid rock and this and another 3km of the track are still walkable through the jungle, although no longer in rail use. Danielle and I walked part of the way before heading back to collect the car and meet the others part way along the route, where it meets the main road. This was a fairly eventful journey where we got, predictably lost, and eventually caught up with them over an hour late, just before it got dark, understandably we were all a little stressed, particularly as we were fairly close to the Burmese border!

Our mini adventure in the Thai jungle meant we couldn't fit in a trip to the bridge in the daylight (we may get a chance to go back on our way down through Thailand to Malaysia), but we did luckily make it back to town in time to return the car and get the last bus back to Bangkok, phew!