Kanchanaburi - exploring

Tuesdasy 7th February

Today we went into the town to explore it a bit more.




nice tourist snap!

After our big tourist day out yesterday we wanted to try do our own thing. Read about a buddist site a little outside town called Wat Thim Khao Poon. After a long search for a taxi we finally found a driver who understood us! He drove us the 14km out and waited for us when we had a wander around. The temple is actually based in an 8 chambered cave....unbelievable cave, must be millions of years old. Buddist statues adorn each room. Above us, there were hundereds of holes engraved in the rock. Luke shone his torch into a few and all we could see were lots of little bats asleep! Dusk is supposed to be a great time to visit because they all come out to feed. One of the beauties of this spot was that there were NO other tourists!! We had the place to ourselves!!

After the cave we walked down to the river. The walk down was short but HOT! It's so hot here at the moment. I feel bad for the landscape. It looks like it's screaming out for a good drink!!

The view at the top of the river was spectacular.

Wednesday 8th February

Today we hired a scooter. Luke's been talking about this since we decided we were going away. I always said no way, not a chance, way too scared of something happening and ending up in a dodgy hospital. But....Luke got his way!!

I barely slept last night thinking about it!!! We got the bike at 10am. Tao, the same tour guide who brought us around Erawan falls was at the rental depot so we had a good chat with her about where to go. She gave us a little map of thre region and off we set! Once we got going and I could feel the freedom of whizzing along on this little bike, all my fears left and I was excited about what we would see today!

We drove over the bridge out of town and headed towards the hills that border burma. They are unbelievably epic and as we continued to get closer our wonder grew. We zoomed down narrow roads scattered with rice paddys. The variety of colors were phenomonal.



you can see the hills bordering burma here

the cattle look quite different from ours at home!



cow hyde drying in the sun

farmer taking a break in the shade

We spent about four hours driving around the countryside taking it all in. Stopped to get gas along the way too!

We couldn;'t follow the map..it was in Thai, so we noticed a difference in one of the peeks in the hills behind our towns instead and used that as our marker. If we got lost we just drove towards that and always got back en route!

we even managed to find sunny banks!!

On the way back to town we passes a hotel resort. Looked very fancy, had a guard on the gate, all the works. Said we'd chance it and ask could we go for a swim in their pool, the said yes!!! Relief from the heat!!!!!!!!!

We came back into town and drove down to the old part. There were no westerners in sight ..it was like going back in time!!

a beautiful adventure :)