Kanchanaburi

As you may know the flooding was very bad in the south of Thailand. After Kho Tao, we were going to go to Surat Thani for a 10 days silence meditation course but basically, it was underwater. Instead we made new plans and went to a number of places around Bangkok. The first place we went to was Kanchanaburi which is an amazing place. If you ever go to Thailand, go there as trust me it has everything. Temples, cycling, historical stuff and trekking up waterfalls. This is one of the main places that I wanted to go to since the beginning of the year. On the first day we rented some bicycles and went to a temple which was about 7km away. It was a very hot day but the views were stunning. 

 Once we arrived we had a bit of a rest before mounting the challenge of climbing too many stairs. It took some effort but we made it. 

 At the top we were told to keep our shoes on (?) and follow a man to the back of a cave where the Buddha was. As we flowed him we realised that there was other stuff further on and that he was guiding us through a cave system. If was going fine until we came across a small hole and a bit we had to crawl through. It was lucky we weren't wearing long skirts and good shoes! After that we had to climb a ladder back into the sunlight. The cave was quite cool and going back into the sun was not the nicest feeling as it was so hot. We were then taken along a path back to where we started. Quite a fun adventure. After we had finished we then slowly cycled back to the town stopping every so often to take picture and have a breather and increase the sunburn! 

  The next day we went on a package tour to see a number of different things. To start with we were taken to Erawan Waterfall which is also known as the seven steps waterfall and the thing I have been waiting to see so I was excited. :) Once we got there we were told that we had a couple of hours until we had to be back for lunch. We decided to trek to the top first and then on the way back down go into the waterfalls.

It was a wise decision as we were early so there weren't many people to get in our way and it wasn't too hot. It took us about 1 hour and by the time we got to the top we were so hot it was unreal. It took so much willpower to not just jump in every waterfall we came across. As soon as we got to the top we jumped straight in. Let me tell you, well worth the wait. The only problem were the fish. They are were the sort of fish which eat your dead skin so they kept on 'kissing' our legs and feet. It tickled so much that every time one touched me, I would burst out laughing. We then started to make our way back down to make it back in time for lunch. The next waterfall we went in was one which was full of the fish. We went in anyway. After a while I managed to get used to the fish and before long, you couldn't see my feet as they were covered in fish. After a while they must have finished with my feet as they started to slowly make their way up my legs! After that experience we went in one more waterfall to take some pictures and then went off to lunch. Now, our tour was meant to be the waterfall, a cave and then the death railway. The only problem was that we were in a van with people doing a different tour which included elephants and bamboo rafting and was more expensive. Our guide was amazing though and managed to let us go with then for no extra cost! A good deal in my opinion. After lunch we went to ride the elephants and go bamboo rafting. 

 Following this we went to a cave by the death railway which was used when constructing it and then went on a train along the death railway (ominous name I know).

  We survived though and were then taken back to were we were staying. The last and final day was more relaxed. We started off by going to a different waterfall but as it was the hot season there wasn't much water there so we then moved on to Hellfire pass.

 This was also a part of the Death Railway. A quick look at the pass and we them had to rush back so we didn't miss the last bus. Thankfully we didn't and that evening we met up with some other volunteers and tried out this 10 Baht bar (about 20p). Some of them were not good but we managed to find one that was drinkable. The name was 'Black Cock' with strawberry. We ended up chatting for a while before stumbling back to bed. A good 3 days and my new favourite place in the world.