Boarded Tiger Airways at Changi airport and alighted at Suvarnabhoomi airport around 9.30 pm local time, without much ado. Hired a taxi for the next leg of travel from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi, which we had gathered was about 130 km away.When the spacious, AC taxi started winding its way through the maze of fly-overs we were amazed by the night view of Bangkok, it did look posh.
As we drove on, we looked for signboards pointing to Kanchanaburi and the distance, but none was to be seen.Strange ... anyway, after one hour or so of travel , we did spot some boards with our destination therebut no distance, no km. Hmm... looks like Thais don't believe in giving extra info ; atleast we know we areon the right track. So just follow the signs...
We reached V.N.Guesthouse on the banks of River Kwai by 11.30 pm , dumped our bags and crashed. The breaking day gave us a good view of the river around - i stood on the balcony and took a whiff of fresh air and was thinking " how serene , peaceful " ... when "wrooooooooooooooooom !"what was that ?? Oh, just a speeding boat. And it wasn't an earthquake, just our wooden cabin trembling at the speedboat's fury. Trust man to break the peace of any god-forsaken place.
After a sumptous breakfast, we planned the day's itinary. First was a half-day trip to an Elephant campwhere we were supposed to ride, bath and feed elephants. The ride was sad because it was a small elephant,it was scorching hot, the mahout was prodding the elephant with a stick to go up-hill while it moved reluctantly. Sitting there on top of the elephant we felt pity for the poor animal. Lesson learnt: Never ride an animal for your pleasure.
The second part - bathing the elephant was more fun, I was made to sit on its neck, with just a rope to hold on to.It dipped itself gleefully in the flowing water and showered playfully from its trunk, drenching me completely !
This was followed by a simple Thai lunch - rice, spicy thai curry, omelette and cut fruits. Within the span of two meals, I had begun to love the Thais ! For one thing , they know how to smile ,unlike most grumpy Singaporeans and for the other, they understand vegetarian food.
From elephants to Tigers - that was the next item on the list. And weren't we excited.
When we did reach the Tiger Temple though, it seemed like another Tirupathi Darshanam, by just looking at the number of vehicles parked outside. Headed straight for the famous Tiger Canyon, where visitors are allowed to meet the Tigers ; but the scene there was more like
" Meet the Volunteers ". For the nine tigers in the canyon, there were atleast three times that number of volunteers, taking people by their hands , posing with one or two tigers and clicking pictures. This was not what we expected ! All said and done, this might well be the only opportunity of getting close and touching that mighty graceful animal so better not complain. We came back a little grumpy ourselves ( living in Singapore for a while does that to you ) but looking at the pictures later cheered us up a little. What cheap thrill to show it off to family and friends back home and hear their "oohs and aahs"( and cheaper thrill to post it on the blog forthe world to see, like am doing ) .
So it was a day well-spent with animals.
No comments:
Post a Comment