Final Days

I arrived in Kanchanaburi in the afternoon, and after sorting out a place to stay on the river Kwai, I decided to visit the nearby Thai-Burma Railway Centre. It is a very modern and informative museum that presents the history of the building of the "Death Railway" by Allied POWs and Asian labourers. I knew little about this aspect of WWII and it was very disturbing to see the way the workforce was treated by their Japanese captors and the conditions in which they were made to live. Photos of the men could easily have been mistaken for men in a Nazi camp in Europe. No matter where (or when) it happens in the world, war is ugly and atrocious.

After this historical primer, I walked a couple of kilometres to visit the famous bridge. It was swarming with tourists, probably more so than anywhere I had been in Thailand. There was a remarkable amount of Asian tourists. Actually walking across the bridge was a frustrating process due to the number of people and the fact that the majority of them would not budge off the centre of the track. It would have gone quite smoothly if each person had put one foot in the middle and one foot on the outside of the track. People could have passed each other easily. I think most people were uncomfortable putting a foot outside the centre. Of course that meant I had to put both feet outside. That was not comfortable for me. Despite all the things I do, I still do have a fear of heights and it's a long way down to the river! On the way back I decided I was not going to budge from the centre. I would see what reaction this would cause in others. Maybe I was giving way too easily. After having a guy walk right into me and throwing me off balance, I gave up on this idea. Even with my wobbly balance and klutzy ways I felt safer walking on the 2" x 4" piece of plywood than being body slammed. All the rudeness actually put me in a grumpy mood. Fortunately, three lovely Thai girls insisted on having a photo with me. Not just as a group, but one by one. They were so adorable and giggly that my bad mood instantly dissipated. I rather enjoyed the walk back across the bridge. After that I headed to a totally wacky WWII museum which was very close to the bridge. It was the most disorganized mess I have ever seen! There were a few good bits, if you could find them! The best part was actually getting up onto the roof which allowed for amazing views of the river and the bridge while the sun was setting.

The next day I had my most extravagant day of the entire trip (not counting the Lasik of course). In the past few years I have met quite a few travelers who visited Tiger Temple while in Thailand. I had seen pictures of them posed with tigers and knew I would try to go there when I was in Kanchanaburi. According to the temple's abbot, tiger cubs were brought to the temple by villagers when their moms had been killed by poachers. They started breeding and now there are about 35 tigers at the temple, along with various other animals. When I looked into the tours, it seemed like what was offered was transport out to the temple in the afternoon allowing for about 1 1/2 hours of time out there to have a few photo ops with some very sleepy tigers and hundreds of other people. There was however, for a very hefty price, a morning program which was very appealing as it offered lots of interaction with the tigers and very few people around. I really had to talk myself into spending this much money for one day. The program is limited to 10 people per day but on this day there were only 6 of us. The morning started out by giving food to the monks (which was all provided) as they arrived at the temple. Next, we all went inside the temple and had the opportunity to bottle feed, hold, and play with the cubs. Then we had a Thai breakfast with the monks and tigers. When breakfast was over, we walked some of the older cubs to a waterfall play area. These tigers might still be considered cubs, but they are big and strong! They were allowed to run freely and we were given bamboo poles with toys attached and told to play with them much like you would play with a kitten. The idea was the same, but there were definitely a few scary moments! Once the tigers were tired out, we walked them over to get shampooed. They were tied up for this part. My tiger was rather grumpy and caused me to have to run in a circle backwards in order to avoid one attempted nip at my hand. The tiger trainers are never far away and when any of the tigers get a little feisty they will intervene. After the bath it was time for some food. Again, my tiger was having none of it. He could probably sense that I wasn't too comfortable trying to hand feed him chicken after he tried to bite my hand! So I ended up having to feed one of the other tigers. After this it was time to see the big guys. We got to walk the adult tigers down to the canyon where they would have some play time. Yet again I got a feisty one who felt like climbing a tree rather than walking nicely. Once we got down to the canyon, the trainers put a chain link fence around us. I guess when you get fifteen or so full grown tigers running and jumping you should take some precautions. The fence was not a permanent structure and only went up to my mid-chest so wasn't really offering much safety. Rather I think it was just to act as a deterrent. If the tigers were interested in us, they could have easily knocked the fence aside or jumped over. It was definitely exciting to watch these gorgeous creatures frolic in the water and play. I stayed for the afternoon as well so I got to see and experience what most tourists do when they go to the temple. It really is a 5 second photo op walking a tiger and then a few snaps with the tigers while they are sleeping in the sun. My experience was much more exciting and I could understand the price differential. Prior to going to the temple I had heard that there was speculation that the tigers are drugged so that tourists can safely get their photos taken with them. It was definitely not the case in the morning as the tigers were extremely energetic and playful. I have no idea about the afternoon. It is possible. The tigers were sleepy, however, they are animals that normally sleep 18-20 hours a day. The abbot claims that it is because they have tired them out playing and then fed them their lunch. It was only after I went to the temple that I did a bit of research and found out that there is a lot more controversy surrounding this place. There are allegations of everything from illegal trafficking of tigers, to physical abuse, to high risk interactions between visitors and the tigers. It was absolutely amazing to be able to interact with the tigers in such a way. However, perhaps the tigers are paying too high a price. And perhaps someday a person will as well. I'm just glad it wasn't me!

There are many more things to see around Kanchanaburi, but they all seemed to involve waterfalls, rafting, or swimming with elephants. Since I was forbidden from swimming due to my surgery, I decided to head to Ayutthaya for a day. I rented a bike for my last morning in Kanchanaburi to take in a few more sights and check out yet another museum. Then I took the afternoon minivan to Ayutthaya, the second capital city of Thailand. Largely destroyed by the Burmese in the 18th century, the old city is filled with the remains of many temples. I spent a very hot day biking around exploring the ruins. For some reason I seem to draw Thai students to me like a magnet. At many sights throughout Thailand I was approached by students to ask me questions in English for a school assignment. This day I attracted a whole class of kids! They were about 8 or 9 years old and on a school trip from Sukothai. We were able to converse a bit and have a few laughs. One of the boys felt it necessary to show me his monkey impression. I'm not sure whether the heat and humidity had actually increased or whether it was because I was paranoid about getting sweat in my eyes (since this was strictly forbidden), but my last few days in Thailand seemed so much hotter than the rest of the trip. I had decided to take the train back to Bangkok so had a bit of a sweaty walk to catch a quick ferry over to the train station. Unfortunately, the train was running late. Not only that, but it didn't arrive at its rescheduled time either. Finally, more than an hour after the train should have arrived, I could wait no longer. I had to use the toilet. Wouldn't you know it, but in the couple of minutes that I was gone, the train came and went. Luckily there was another one in about an hour so I once again sat down to wait. Finally I arrived back in Bangkok at about 7:30 PM and tried to make my way back towards the hotel I was staying at. I had planned to take the subway most of the way and then get a taxi. Stupidly, I walked the wrong way when I got out of the train station and had to walk quite a way back by the time I realized I had gone wrong. I was really hot and sweaty by this time. My big pack hadn't bothered me for the rest of the trip, but in these last few days, it just seemed too much. In the meantime, plans were coming together to meet up with Christian, yet again. We did our usual, "meet you at the McDonalds on the corner of such and such roads" and went back to my hotel to check in and dump my bag. Then it was off for some goodbye beers in the nearby red light district of Patpong. We started out sensibly at an Irish bar. However, after a couple buckets of beers and a challenge from Christian, I found myself in a ping pong bar. I had heard all sorts of stories about ridiculous cover charges, huge fees to leave if you didn't drink enough, and even of being robbed in these places, so we were careful to clarify things before we went in. 200 baht for a beer (close to double the price of a beer at a non-ping pong bar in the area) and we could leave anytime we wanted with no further cost. It felt very awkward when we went in as we were the only foreigners! I suppose by this time it was pretty late as we had stayed at the Irish bar until they closed. However, we had to live up to our end of the deal. So we ordered a beer each and sat to watch the show. The show consisted of the girls using their vaginas to open bottles of Coke, smoke cigarettes, and shoot bananas across the room. I am not even going to get into a discussion of the evils of the sex industry, but the time to drink one beer was more than enough for me. I had seen what it was all about and I was ready to leave. I think one more bar rounded out the night before I said goodbye to Christian for the third and final time.

My final day in Bangkok meant packing my bags for the last time and going to my final follow up appointment at the Lasik clinic. Not surprisingly, I overslept (from 5 until 8:30 AM) and had to call to change my appointment time to an hour later. That had been my original appointment time anyway and we had decided that I should come earlier so I had more time to make my flight. When I eventually made it to the clinic, I was told that everything was healing nicely and I was free to fly. I had planned to take the airport express bus since it conveniently stopped just down the street from the clinic. I got someone from the clinic to phone to double check on where I had to catch the bus. I was told that a bus would be there shortly. I made my way to the bus stop and waited for quite awhile and no bus came. There was an information booth nearby and when I asked the man there, he confirmed that I was at the correct spot to catch the airport express. I figured I had just missed one, and if I stuck around, another one should come as they were scheduled to come every hour. Eventually a Thai woman asked me which bus I was waiting for. When I told her that I had been waiting for the airport bus for more than an hour she looked worried for me. She went to speak with the man in the information booth as well. He told her the same thing that he had told me. She seemed overly worried for me. I thought about jumping in a taxi, but if I did, it would take the rest of my Thai baht and I would have no money to eat lunch. It wasn't time to panic yet as I had been wrong about the time of my flight. It was actually 3 hours later than I thought it was. Still, after an hour and a half of waiting, I was doubting the existence of the airport express bus. The Thai woman told me of another way to get to the airport. I could take the Skytrain to the end of the line and then catch a minivan to the airport. I decided to wait for 15 more minutes. When no bus came I headed for the Skytrain station. This turned out to be a very efficient way to get to the airport as you zoom above most of the bad traffic while on the Skytrain. Once I was at the end of the line, I only waited about 5 minutes and an airport minivan arrived. So easy!!

As I finally arrived at the airport, hot and tired, it started to sink in. My Thai adventure was over. It had been full of ups and downs as all travels are, but I had enjoyed myself thoroughly. I had met some amazing people, done a lot of fun and crazy things, and experienced many different aspects of Thailand. I would not miss the Bangkok taxi drivers or the hordes of tourists. However, I would miss the food, the people, and the simple beauty. It had been another fantastic journey.