Kanchanaburi Town and Province

With five days from my arrival in Thailand until I meet my friends and depart for India, Kanchanaburi seemed like a good choice.  There are things here I've wanted to see and places I wanted to visit, so here I am!  The good news is that my little corner of this rather big town/city is really nice and feels like a small town.  There's a man across the street from my hotel who has a garden full of banzai trees and works on them every evening.  We've talked in that 'I don't speak much Thai, he doesn't speak much English' way.  The other good news is my hotel which is not expensive, has really good food, a swimming pool and nice people who work here.  The bad news is that the air is just foul!  It's worse in the mornings it seems and clears up a bit at night, but still not good.  In this area it's farmers burning their sugar cane fields to prepare for a new crop.  There has GOT to be a better way!
I have spent my 3 full days here busily exploring and saw and did some amazing things.  Erawan National Park is home to 7 waterfalls.  The further up you hike, the more of them you will see.  I made it to five.  (It was a crazy hike with stairs and rocks and roots so five was it for me). It was heavenly!  What a beautiful place.  I spent a great deal of time in number five just letting the water pour over me - so refreshing considering it's been super hot here! There are also many fish, some large that like to nibble which doesn't hurt but is disconcerting, hence my location on the rock.  The fish didn't like the fast moving water!  Ha!  Outsmarted them!
Day two I went to Elephants World - a place that rescues elephants that have been 'street' elephants, logging elephants, mistreated, abandoned.  They take them all.  I paid to go to this place and worked hard while I was there.  We cut elephant grass to feed to the elephants, washed vegetable and fed them to the elephants, made sticky rice with pumpkin over a hot fire and, when it cooled, made sticky rice balls covered in rice powder with ground up grain pellets for the old elephants that have lost their teeth, then fed then to the old ladies.  Then we played in the mud with them and covered them in muck and took them to the river and washed them.  The whole day was hands-on with these amazing creatures.  I feel so lucky!
Today I took the train to Nam Tok - the Death Railway across the bridge on the River Kwai.  Despite the horrible name, the train ride is beautiful on a very old train.  We crossed the Wang Po Viaduct built by prisoners of the Japanese during WWII.  The trestle is so old and made of wood that the train crawls along over it with the River Kwai snaking next to it.  When the train got to the last stop, I walked to Sai Yok waterfall which was nothing like my previous experience at Erawan of having the place to myself.  It was a small waterfall and just crawling with people and children picnicking so I made a beeline out of there, took the public bus (after asking several people who did not speak English but managed to find the bus stop with their help) and went to Hellfire Pass and Konyu Cutting.  This place is so moving.  The name comes from prisoners of war who worked into the night with light from lanterns cutting through solid rock to make train tracks for the Japanese who were trying to make passage from Singapore through Burma.  Over 100,000 Thai, Australian, Malaysian and American prisoners of war perished in the making of this pass which was never completed.  The Australian government built the center and opened the pass trail to the public so that those who perished will not be forgotten. Moving!

Bangkok to Kanchanaburi

Along the River Kwai

ERAWAN NATIONAL PARK

Waterfall One

Waterfall Two

Waterfall Three

Waterfall Fo

Okay, this bears some information.  Thais believe that old trees are inhabited by female spirits.  Therefore, they leave gowns, prom dresses, wedding dresses and fancy shoes to make the spirit of the tree happy.  Nice, huh? This was between waterfall four and five.

And these two photos are of waterfall five from the rock where I sat.

ELEPHANTS WORLD

Eating elephant grass

Making sticky rice pumpkin balls

Where the elephants live

Sisters taking a bath

Below is bathing our elephant here she is - all washed!

TRAIN FROM KANCHANBURI TO NAM TOK

Double Happiness Complimentary Hand Wipes

Wang Po Viaduct from Afar and below as we cross it

AND ON A MORE SOMBER NOTE . . . 

Konyu Cutting