brandon finally got here late thursday night, and we stayed around bangkok until saturday. we took him to get a thai massage and to eat at outback (although that part didnt go very well… i know i’ve already mentioned how terrible the food is, but i dont know if i’ve mentioned how much worse than that the smell is. it is foul people. i guess we’ve gotten a little used to it, and we didnt think about the fact that his stomach hadn’t been around it yet. it wasn’t pretty. lets just say he didnt get to eat at outback…)
saturday we took an early bus to kanchanaburi, a town about 2 hours north of bangkok. our hostel there was less than amazing- we thought it’d be cool because they were floating river rafthouses- but they were not cool. they were not cool at all. they were flooded and muggy and mosquito-y and they tried to sqeeze us all in one room with a double bed. not cool. so we moved up to the stone bungalows, which were more bearable. and for $2 a night i guess you get what you pay for.
after we got checked in, we went to the tiger temple. our guide books described it as a place run by the monks to help them make money. it was supposed to be a really chill place where they trained the tigers and let tourists come pet them and take pictures. well, we saw one monk- and i think he was really just a regular boy disguised as monk to make the people think the monks still live there. but thats just me… the rest of the guides were dressed in bright purple shirts and were screaming in megaphones. they made us form lines, took us by the hands individually, took our cameras from us and guided us from tiger to tiger, making us touch their backs and smile while they took pictures. the tigers were chained to the ground and we’re quite sure they were drugged. on top of that, the guides were being really cruel to them- pulling their tails to make them move, squirting water in their faces when they wouldnt look at the cameras, and annoying them with toys and sticks. it was a huge tourist trap and if PETA were to find out about it they’d have a cow. we were not impressed.
yesterday was amazing though. we went to Erawan National Park and went hiking all day. the day started out by anna almost being attacked by a monkey. seriously. there were monkeys playing on a tree right as we entered the park, and we stopped to take pictures. anna, in her words, ”made eyes” with the monkey and so she ”thought they were friends”. but the monkey started moving slowly towards her before lunging at her shoe. luckily, anna’s a swift one and her screams scared him off. it may have been my favorite part of the day though…
Erawan waterfall is a 7 tier waterfall that is as tall as the entire mountain upon which its located. you hike up to each level, and at each stop you can stop and swim in the water there. the water is beautiful and the perfect temperature, although no one told us that the fish nibble on your feet (anna had to find that out too. the animals there loved her). we made it to the top in about an hour and half, and it was completely worth it. i’ll have to post pictures because its hard to describe how awesome it was. each level of the waterfall is so distinct- so completely its own. its so crazy that God is capable of making things like this.
last night we spent 12 hours on a bus (a ”meal” was provided. bran and i decided to forego ours as it looked like raw meat. anna tried hers, as she thought it looked like a twinkie. turns out, it really was kind of like a twinkie- a seaweed twinkie. lovely), and arrived in Phuket Town this morning, which is where we’ll spend our week. 6 more days on the beach and then its on to Chiang Mai… pictures to come soon. promise.
Nice post, glad you liked our hometown Kanchanaburi. The Tiger ‘Temple’ is seen by local Thais as an aggressive marketing business and not a temple at all. Glad you saw through the pazzaz to the underlying scam