Bridge Over the River Kwai

G’day my fellow Blog followers, sorry about the gap in posts recently, I’ve just been busy and to be quite honest a bit lazy. However, the Holiday  (or Vacation time) is here and we have two new travelers joining us. Nick’s Brother Jon and girlfriend Jen came to visit for two weeks! What a treat it has been already! J Our plan is to take them around Thailand and show them where we call home and all the amazing-ness about it! I’ve decided to try my best to write a blog each day so hang in there folks.. it’s about to be a bumpy ride!

Day 1

The first place we chose to visit was Kanchanaburi. We have been waiting to go as it is only about 2 hours away from where we live and is jam packed with fun things to do. The main attraction was for the waterfalls and elephants but what we got when we arrived was so much more. First stop on our tour : Jeath  World War II museum, which to be honest, I didn’t even know existed.  Kanchanaburi is home to the River Kwai. Some of you may have seen or heard of the movie “Bridge over the River Kwai” , well that is exactly where we went. Here there was a Christian cemetery for all POW from the war. Most of the soldiers were British and under the age of 25.. like any war memorial it was sad to look at but amazing to learn about. I mean obviously the most of the world was involved in “World War II” But it was really cool learning about it from another perspective other than America. It wasent a warped point of view or anything, but just very eye opening and interesting to see a different type of memorial. The same way America chooses to write its own version of history so to the Thais. According to them their land has never been conquered, and to some extent I guess you could say that. Japan did take control of the POW and force them to build this Bridge over the River Kwai for their gain... but to avoid “losing face” we’ll just say, Thailand or as it was called back then- Siam was occupied for a little while.

Unlike most western museums things were just out in the open, and you were able to touch it and see it first hand. Not behind a glass wall, behind bars. Here are some pictures from the memorial.

Crazy, how they recreate what it must of looked like,
 but it really helped pull it all together. 

 

After starting our morning with depressing stuff we moved on to our second order of business... Elephant rides! A must do for all Thailand travelers, and something Jen has been dying to do! Nick and I had already gone once in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, but the place we went to was much better. They treated the elephants kindly and you could see it on their faces [the elephants that is] how happy they were. Here are some pictures from our trek:

Following our elephant trek and bamboo rafting we headed to a nearby waterfall to play like little kids! We have been to about 2 other waterfalls thus far in our jounery and these were by far the best! There were little caves, and you were able to climb, jump and play. It was a great time, but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Overall day 1 was quite a success. We got a lot accomplished before we headed down south to Koh Phi Phi, including booking our tickets to Bali, Indonesia!!!!

-Sorry it is a little sloppy- Uploading from the road --- 

 Cheers mate!