Butter Living on the River Kwai
The next morning, I took a bus up to Kanchanaburi, about 3-4 hours north of Bangkok. The public pus cost about 80 baht, was air conditioned and pretty comfortable. It did get pretty crowded along the way, but it was fun to see the interesting people, including this kid with the most awesome Engrish shirt ever. Buy product hand gun for fun profitablity butter living through capitalism?! The fact that the hand gun in question looks like an old-timey pirate pistol from the 1820's? So cool. And I'm betting he has no idea about the multiple awesome layers of irony his shirt exudes.
I got into Kanchanaburi around 1PM, and booked into the Pong Pen Guesthouse, where I met my first real live lady boy. No, make that real live Thai lady boy.
Kanchanburi is a cute little town famous for its part in WWII history -- it's allied cemetary and famous Bridge over the River Kwai bring in a lot of the mainstream tours. But, it's also a cheapo backpacker base for side trips around Central Thailand, where there are several waterfalls, elephant trek/rafting opportunities, and cultural sites. There are lots of guesthouses with floating bungalows right on the water.
I spent the afternoon walking around, looking for tours for the next day, and strolling by the river. It wasn't too long before I reached the famous bridge, which was pretty much mobbed with tourists, but made for some pretty pictures anyway. After a dinner of squid on a stick and oh so delicious watermelon slushee, I walked backed to town, where I met some old ex-pats drinking at a bookstore bar. That's right, a bookstore bar.
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The room was very big, with a roomy bathroom, a bid double bed, fan, lots of windows and a TV. It was 350 baht for the room or about $12 for a double. There are cheaper options with shared bathrooms and more expensive options with aircon, but the fan and many windows kept the place nice and cool.
The roomy bathroom was the best part, because it's tough to find a shower separated from the toilet in Southeast Asia unless you pay top dollar. That is, the shower is almost always a machine installed in the toilet room, so that you shower on the same floor surface as the toilet. Which is... well... you just better hope they use some damn good bleech if the toilet ever overflows. The bigger the bathroom, the farther you can stand from the toilet, avoiding drenching the toilet with shower water.
The restaurant downstairs is excellent. I had their chilli noodles, maybe the best thing I ate in Thailand. It came with two types of peppers -- hot red chili peppers and strings of green peppercorns. Neither pepper hit immediately, but after 10 seconds, the chilli peppers completely overwhelmed the tongue, and the peppercorns sent warmth throughout the body -- I could feel the heat in my muscles and in the tips of my fingers and toes. Yum!
