Double Vision: Kanchanaburi

Last weekend I went to Kanchanaburi which is a town about two hours west of Bangkok near the Burmese border.
If you're interested in knowing more about Kanchanaburi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanchanaburi

I went with my friend Julie who has taken in four teenagers whose American father can't care for to visit their Thai mother who lives near Kanchanaburi. Saturday night the kid's mother, Deng, cooked us a wonderful dinner with about 7 dishes besides the rice. If I had been less hungry I would have taken a picture of it. Instead I ate.

Most of the extended Thai family we had dinner with on Saturday. Deng is in front on the left with her hand on the head of her eldest son Patrick.

I stayed at a guesthouse, which is like an inn, smaller than a hotel although this one was fairly large. My room was about $17 per night. The room was nothing fancy but clean and spacious except for the bathroom which was clean but small. The food there was good too.

The guesthouse from the pool area

Guesthouse grounds

River Kwae f/ the guesthouse, early morning

A picture of me on the bridge over the river Kwae, which was built by Australian, British and SE Asian prisoners of war under the Japanese during WW II.

My friend Julie on the river Kwae bridge

One view from the river Kwae bridge

Train a comin' on the Kwae bridge

And I acquired a hunk of jade:

Sunday we drove a few mile north to the Sai Yok National Park. It was nice to see mountains again. It was nice to be in the mountains, even if briefly.

Nice to see mountains

Structures on the river at Sai Yok park

View from the river

We took a boat like this one on the Kwae Noi river in the park

In the boat

One of the falls on the river

You can rent these floating cabanas to stay in

Some of them looked very nice

Another waterfall

Teak forest - teak trees are protected

We went to the Hellfire Pass Museum, a memorial to the POWs and SE Asians who were forced to build the railroad for the Japanese between Bangkok and Rangoon. The conditions for the POWs were horrible and 45% of them died. It was a very sad place albeit beautiful.