Bangkok day 4 – to River Kwai and Tiger Temple

Up early again to head north west with our guide Santhana and the same driver.  Weather was cloudy which we hoped would keep the heat down a little, which probably was the case.  We drove for about 2.5 hours to the River Kwai where we caught a long boat to the bridge.  Before the boat though we had a little time to look at a small museum on the banks of the river, which featured a replica POW bamboo hut with old POW photos and drawings and mid-80’s newspaper clippings with reunion stories, a few of which featured ‘Weary’ Dunlop.  Then on to the boat to see some nice views

and to zoom down to the famous bridge, which was much smaller than we had expected, and in a location bearing little resemblance to that depicted in the film. 

We also hadn’t expected one end to be in the middle of a town. 

We had a walk halfway along the bridge, then back to the town end to go to a floating restaurant.  Great location, food not quite up to the high standard we have found on this trip.

By now it was after 1pm, and time for a short drive to the Kanchanaburi war cemetery set in beautiful grounds.

Then a 45 minute drive north to the Tiger Temple, with showers threatening which never materialised.  The visit featured a short walk through monastery grounds, then through the man-made “Tiger Canyon” to a place with about 10 snoozing tigers.  Volunteers take your hand and rather forcefully direct you to a tiger where you are commanded to “sit” while another volunteer takes a picture or two, then on to the next tiger selected for you – 5 each all up.

 

Then on to see more animals, including a stop to pat a gorgeous 7 month old cub:

which refused to drink from its bottle:

We visited a large rock tiger enclosure, a cage with black Tibetan moon bears, and many buffalo waiting impatiently to be fed tapioca roots in bags on the back of a truck.  Also pigs in mud, and deer.  The story goes that in the early days of this place becoming an animal sanctuary, an injured pig was handed in, it was nursed back to health and released and then it came back the next day with 10 family members who never left.  The choice between poachers and Buddhist monks is pretty clear.

Final stage was the meditation block, where you can stay to learn to meditate with Buddhist monks while water buffalo wallow in the mud outside your window.

We left a little after 3pm with thunder sounding, then a long drive back to Bangkok which took 3 hours, not helped at one stage by a multiple truck pile-up which meant we only drove 38 kilometres in an hour.  There were some interesting things to see, such as monks on their way to meditation and trucks with colourful airbrushing:

 

 

Back to the room by 6.20pm after a fond farewell to Santhana who was an excellent guide.

Showers all round, then off to buffet dinner in the hotel restaurant, followed by a quick drink in the bar courtesy of the hotel - escaping just before the DJ started up - then a coffee each in the lobby courtesy of us.

Some more animals, for Reilly: