December 13, 2012

Today we took a break to relax. We slept in late, maybe until 7am, then had coffee and breakfast at the restaurant in the park. We did a short hike to see all the stages of the waterfall. Two stray dogs accompanied us. It was nice to have dogs around. We named them Stumpy and One-eye after obvious physical features.

We read a lot, went swimming and made friends with the other stray dogs roaming the park, Mama and Stumpy the Gray. We also prepared for the next couple of day by buying lots of snacks, instant soups and 6 liters of water. We don’t know what the next national park will be like or if there are towns between the two.

Guard dogs

One stage of the Mae Khamin waterfall

Hiking trail

The tallest waterfall stage

December 12, 2012

We started off the day with strong cups of nescafe instant coffee, which absolutely needs sugar even if you usually take coffee black.

The biking was hilly, but nothing compared to the day before. Our destination was the Mae Khamin Waterfall, which is on the west side of the Si Nakharin Reservoir. Our route led us roughly along the eastern shore. After about 7km we took a spur road down to the water where a small ferry carried traffic across the narrow neck of an inlet. The ferry cut off about 20km of road which meandered along the edges of the inlets many fingers. After a 15 minute ride we had the daunting job of climbing back up to the road grade a few hundred feet above the reservoir.

Ferry ride #1

The army we met along the way

After a few more warm km of riding and a detour into the sleepy administrative town of Si Sawat, we made it to another ferry spur road. This ferry cuts across the width of the reservoir and is the only access to the western shore north of the dam.

The first kilometer of the road was concrete that quickly yielded to a rough unpaved water damaged track. I wasn’t totally sure we were on the right road.

Finally we popped out at the top of a hill overlooking two bright blue ferries. As we approached, something didn’t seem right. Once we got down to the water we realized there wasn’t anyone around, tarps covered the ferry engines, and it didn’t look like we were going anywhere soon. We spotted an old woman laying in a hammock on the porch of her small house above the ferry landing. Chandler went to talk to her, but she threw her hands dismissively at the two ferries, then at him in an international gesture of “go away!”. She rolled over in her hammock and that was the end of her assistance. This was the first unfriendly person we have meet in Thailand.

Considering the time of day and that we had already rode about 35 miles, we were not interested in turning around. We had seen a sign up the road for Camping Meeting #2, a weekend retreat type of place that was deserted. We figured we would hang out there until we could come up with a plan, then ride somewhere when it cools down a bit. At this point it was looking like our options were reduced to backtracking for two days to the highway, or riding further north and crossing some mountains into a completely different part of central Thailand. Chandler heard a motor bike and decided to go down the road a little further to see if he could find someone else to talk to while I rested.

Chandler met a kid who basically understood we wanted to cross the lake. He led us back to the abandoned ferry landing and after about ten minutes of hand motions, pictionary type drawings of ferries, and some horrendously mispronounced Thai we figured out that a ferry would come whenever a car showed up on the other side of the lake, maybe today sometime.

Reading

After an hour or so, the ferry showed up with a single car on it. The operator motioned that he would leave at two o’clock, in about twenty minutes, and took off on his scooter. We sat on the ferry and he returned around 2:20. “No car” he said. “OK, we’ll wait” Chandler said. “No car” he held up two fingers, “baht”. There were no cars, and we hadn’t seen a car on our side in the few hours we had been there so we agreed and essentially chartered the ferry to cross just for us for 200 baht, around $7 USD. The ride took about a half hour, and now we were back on track.

While waiting we broke into our food stash and discovered a new snack, which hasn’t caught on in the states yet. Chocolate Cheetos!

What could be better?

Ferry ride #2

We rode the last 7 km or so going up and down steep hills until we finally made it to the National Park entrance.

So tired

We paid our foreigner entrance fee of 200 baht each, rode up one final huge hill and pitched our tent in a huge grass field overlooking the reservoir, right next to the Mae Khumin waterfall. We went for a swim in one of the waterfall pools then had a basic, but very good dinner at the park restaurant (same prices as anywhere else, less than 100 baht for dinner for two). Then some rest.

December 11, 2012

We slept until 6am and then hurried to get going thinking we had overslept. When we went out side, we found the gate closed and no one at the front desk. We had to wait until 7am to pay. We wandered around looking for food near the bridge, but no vendors were out yet.

Heading out of town

We decided to just get out of town and hopefully find something to eat along the way. On the highway to Erawan National Park, Chan spotted a curry stand and after using my vegetarian sign, found something I could eat. Sweet fried noodles and eggs with rice. I didn’t eat eggs before this trip, but decided I am already so limited, maybe I should include them in my diet. Thank goodness I did, everything has eggs.

We made pretty good time on the 40 miles we wanted to cover. We were on the highway, but it wasn’t too bad. Many busses passed us, shuttling tourists from Kanchanaburi to Erawan, which features a supposedly beautiful waterfall. We had been tipped off that there was an equally nice, or perhaps even more beautiful water fall on the north western side of the large Si Nakharin reservoir which saw much less tourist traffic. We figured we would push just a little bit further to get to an area away from the tourist hoards at the park.

Road hazards

Si Nakharin dam

It was already 12:30 and we were hitting the hottest part of the day, but we thought the big hill and 13km would only take an hour. Wrong. We ended up leaping up the hill shade patch to shade patch. Even the smallest shadow cast by the lowliest bush was sweet salvation from the intense heat. I thought my skin was frying off my body. It was so hot we ended up drinking all of our water and I might have cried.

Eventually, we had to take a serious break. We sat on the side of the road and ate peanuts and a pomelo, a fruit similar to the grapefruit. After about 30min of rest we decided to give one more push. Our GPS showed that there was a fire protection unit just a half of a mile further. We weren’t sure what that was, but we hoped it had some water.

Pomelo

When we got to the waypoint, the only thing there was a spirit shrine. However, it turned out to be the top of a pass. This was completely unexpected and a moment of true bliss. We cleared the pass and flew down the other side. It was awesome. We made it to the next town and began looking for a place to stay. This was a resort town on a lake and the first places we checked out were over $100, so we ended staying in a small family run restaurant with a room to rent. Not bad, there was a shower and a fan, and a pretty nice view.

Front porch view

Our new roommate

We had a nice meal of tom yum soup with fresh fish and huge chunks of fresh ginger along with an omlette for dinner. We read for a little bit then crashed for the night.

December 10, 2012

View Dec 10 2012 in a larger map

We left Ban Pong as the sun was rising and hustled to Kanchanburi. It was a nice flat ride and we covered the miles pretty quickly. We stopped along the way to look at another wat. This one was on top of a hill, so we had to climb a lot of stairs, but it was worth it. There was a large central building with lots of windows. It wasn’t clear who was in there, and we were too scared to explore in case it was some private area for the monks.

Beautiful Wat

Stairway to Buddha

Bells

Buddha

We also saw this guy. Not really sure what was going on, but we are getting used to that.

Dragon

Kanchanaburi is famous for the bridge over the River Kwai. The bridge was built by British and other Allied POWs for the Japanese during WWII. Fun fact, the guy who wrote the book, which was made into a movie, had never actually been to the area and got the name of the river wrong. The actual river Kwai is a tributary to the river upstream of where the bridge crosses. So, the Thais just changed the name of the river to the Kwai river to avoid confusion (or to add to it?) The history of the area is interesting but the place caters to Westerners and tourists in general. Lots of bars and pizza places, tourist trips and traps, not exactly our scene.

I did decide to go for a Thai massage, for only 150 baht or $5 USD for an hour, how could I not. It was like a yoga massage. The woman was bending my legs and twisting me all over the place. She was using her hands, feet and forearms. It was an interesting and relaxing experience though. Chandler stayed in the room and read.

We went for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant, which was awesome.

Chan's dinner

My dinner

The bridge was the scene of an expensive “light and sound show” that night, which we skipped. We saw it the next morning as we were rolling out of town, but we were on our fully loaded bikes, so opted not to venture out on it (trains still actively use it). Our plan is to take the “death railway” on the way back from western Thailand, so we’ll ride across it then.

The famous bridge

December 9, 2012

We had a leisurely breakfast with the owners before hitting the road at 730. If you are ever in Thailand, you should really consider staying at the Hidden Holiday House, (HHH). The owners are super nice, have a great knowledge of the area and the place is in a very quiet, beautiful setting. I can’t say enough good things about their guesthouse.

Our destination for the day was Ban Pong which is half way to Kanchanaburi. We took a lot of back roads to avoid all the traffic on the highway. We have found that the riding is fine until 930am and then it becomes hot. As long as you keep moving, you are fine. Once you stop, that is when the heat is more noticeable and kind of unbearable. But we are both getting much better at handling the heat.

Here are a few things we saw today:

Ban Pong is a busy commercial town, with lots of traffic and not much in the way of tourist attractions that we saw. We found a room with AC at what appeared to be the nicest hotel in town for 600 baht or about $20 USD. The hotel was right next to the river, tucked into a row of “inns”. We found out from our host at the HHH that these “inns” are really love motels, or “hotel no tells”. Their signs have two prices, one for 3 hours and one for overnight. Most conspicuously the car parks in front of each room has a large tarp like a giant shower curtain that is pulled shut to conceal the occupants’ vehicles. Luckily we knew all this before hand and were able to avoid them.

We spent the night in our “regular” hotel reading and watching a bit of Thai TV. American Idol type shows are all the rage here.