The next day, Ryan and I crammed into one of the tiny minibuses that dominate Thai public transport and headed for the town of Kanchanaburi, three hours west from Bangkok and close to the Burmese border. From there, we found a driver to take us around in the back of his truck (which is also pretty common in Thailand).
The first stop was Erawan national park, famous for the river which winds through it over a series of impressive waterfalls. There are 7 "steps" in the Erawan waterfalls but we only got to climb 5 of them before we ran out of time and had to go back. It was also full of Russian tourists.
The river is full of the fish that eat dead skin off your feet except considerably larger.
I'm not sure what they eat when they can't get Russian.
I think the pictures describe Erawan much better than I can. As much as Ryan and I having been trying to stay off the beaten tourist path, there was one cliche thing that we couldn't come to Thailand and NOT do.
Let's talk about the elephants in the room river
Yep, we hung out with some elephants. We went for a ride and then a swim and again, I think the pictures are more interesting than anything I could say about them. Also, Asian elephants are surprisingly hairy.
Look ma! No hands!
Also monkeys
Also, we saw the bridge over the river Kwai. Not having seen the movie or read the book, it had little significance to me but, you know, pretty neat bridge nonetheless. Also. It's still a functioning train line/full of tourists but if you think that is problematic/hazardous then you clearly aren't Thai.
Getting back into Bangkok was hard though. I hadn't noticed how heavy and smog-filled the air is until we got back from to it after the clean country air.
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