Kanchanaburi, Thailand, January 2009 -- This most recent excursion into Thailand over the long Chinese New Year weekend offered a fresh insight to the Kingdom, one that I willingly relegated many times in the past in favor of the more carnal vestiges of its major attractions. Indeed, there is more to Thailand than beaches and bar strips, and the kind of shallow sub-culture that thrives within their confines -- something that permeates such tourist destinations as Bangkok, Phuket and Patthaya.
This time around, in Kanchanaburi I paid respects and homage to the tens of thousands who perished to build the Thai-Burmese railway -- trekking the very site where human hands literally split open a rocky hill and the trail where prisoners-of-war toiled against all odds (and some to their deaths) to lay down the tracks and build bridges where gaps need spanning, including the Bridge on the River Kwai, immortalized in the novel/movie of a similar-sounding name.
Here I also communed with the tigers at Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, feeling both exhilarated and helpless in the midst of all these tigers of Bengal, Indochinese, Malayan or mixed varieties. (ABC NEWS has more on the whereabouts of these wild animals.) Lastly, I trekked through five of the seven falls at Erawan, and settled on the third tier (actually fourth from the water source) for a cold (around 18°C) dip, several bomb jumps into the water and the dreaded encounter with hordes of doctorfish (trout/catfish look-alike, a few of the older ones 36 inches long, that nibble on the dry skin off your legs and feet) upon slipping into and getting out of the water. All these are the Thai spectacles I should have enjoyed right from the beginning!
