We left Bangkok on Sunday from the Thonburi railway station on the West side of the river (a sweaty 20 minute hike from the river boat terminal; worth the toil though because the taxi quoted us an astronomical 1000 baht for the same trip!). We were a smidgen early so grabbed a couple of well earned Fantas before the train arrived. We were ushered onto the train by a helpful guard and settled into our big orange third class benches! The carriage was massively retro and every bit of it oozed character – from the solid wooden painted bench seats to the big steel ceiling fans this was definitely a train journey from days gone by! I particularly enjoyed the fact that you could see out onto the track from the open door at the end of the carriage – just about resisted the urge to dangle off the back!
Old school carriage
More retro railway action
Extreme!
We soon clickety-clacked off down the slightly wobbly track towards our destination, the carriage pretty much to ourselves. As soon as we’d got up a reasonable amount of speed (about 30 mph at a guess) we slowed down to pick up a few passengers at probably the smallest station in the world. This was to be the running theme for the journey – stopping about every five minutes to pick people up in the middle of nowhere! The scenery was pretty awesome however so it more than made up for the slow progress – lots more lush paddy fields, banana palms, the odd temple for good measure, all with the mountains of Myanmar (Burma) slowly rising in the distance.
A station smaller than ‘Appleford’ on the all-stopper between Reading and Oxford – I didn’t think it was possible!
Token temple
This chap was enjoying hanging out of the window – good lad!
Myanmar’s mountains… and a pylon
We eventually arrived about an hour behind schedule in one piece, albeit with slightly achy behinds from the wooden benches! We set off for our guesthouse and, after half an hour and a fair few orientation issues, discovered that it was in fact only about 200m from the station – whoops! We checked in, grabbed some tucker and attempted to sleep ready for an horrendous early start the following day!
We’d been told the train for Namtok was at 0627 so we’d got up in time to leg it to the station, get our tickets then wait for the train. Turns out the train was actually scheduled for 0545 but thanks to the train being ridiculously late on a regular basis we hadn’t missed it – it eventually arrived at just before 7! Kanchanaburi is famous primarily for its steel railway bridge made famous in the 1957 film ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’. The film itself was actually shot in Sri Lanka, however this doesn’t stop the vendors in the numerous gift shops, bars and restaurants in the area milking it to the maximum, but good on them! The bridge was bombed by the Allies in 1944 and 1945 but has been repaired to its former glory and is still in use today – we crossed the aged steel spans about 10 minutes into our journey.
Train arriving at Kanchanaburi… obviously late
Crossing the bridge
The stretch of track between Kanchanaburi and Namtok (and the now retired section onwards into Burma) was nicknamed the ‘Death Railway’. During World War 2, the Japanese forced POW’s and Asian labourers to work night and day with only pickaxes, shovels and dynamite in perilous conditions to create a railway linking their newly acquired territories of Burma and Singapore together. Over 100,000 labourers and POW’s died during the 19 months it took to construct the railway; there are cemeteries and memorials to those who died all over Kanchanaburi.
The three hour journey took us parallel to the border, shadowing the Kwai for the majority of the time. At one point we slowed to a crawl to negotiate a particularly hairy section where we traversed track clinging to the cliff edge with 70 year-old timbers – it felt disturbingly like an old school wooden rollercoaster! Other sections took us through deep ravines cut into the rock by hand – the work to create this line must have been brutal.
Through the rocks….
Over the fields…
…and above the water!
Not too shabby!
Throughout the journey, kids were hopping on and off the train to go to school. It was nice to see that even though they probably travelled this route every day, they were still sticking their heads out of the windows and soaking up the incredible views! Anyway, we eventually arrived at Namtok, grabbed a coffee at the local cafe and had a look around the village. This took all of 10 minutes because it was in fact pretty tiny, however it was nice to be away from all the tourist tat and in a proper rural village. We opted to get the bus back to Kanchanaburi rather than wait another 5 hours for the next train, seizing the opportunity to grab some shut-eye before exploring for the rest of the day!
Kanchanaburi was a peculiar place. The town is centred around the tourist quarter, which hugs the river with guesthouses and restaurants all fighting for prime river frontage. The strangest thing was how quiet the town was – granted it is the off season in Thailand but seeing so many completely empty bars made us think that the town has been hit hard by the downturn in tourism caused by the protests. It was literally us, about 20 other backpackers and maybe the same number of older Western gents with one or more attractive Thai girls on their arms if you catch my drift! We were half expecting some tumbleweed to roll past! It was good to have visited Kanchanaburi - we definitely would recommend the lush scenery surrounding the town after our short cycle trip and the journey up the railway, however we can safely say it hasn’t made our ‘must revisit’ list!
Fran playing chicken with the train (not really!)
Rich testing the build quality of the bridge
Cycling through the countryside
‘Quaint’ Kanchanaburi (note the ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ themed street lamps!)
Our next stop after Kanchanaburi was to be the island of Koh Phangan. Sadly there’s no teleport between the two so it turned into a bit of a ‘tour de force’ of overland travel (commonly known as a right pain in the behind) – 2 hour minibus journey through a monsoon, riverboat through Bangkok, 14 hour overnight train, 1 hour on a coach to the ferry, 3 hour ferry trip then a songthaew (jeep taxi) trip to round off a 24 hour marathon!
Somewhat soggy!
To the riverboat…
Station teeming with Full Mooners
Paddington looking forward to tucking into some Sang Som
Speeding toward Koh Samui en route to Koh Phangan
All that travelling was worthwhile in the end though as our beachfront accommodation for the next 5 days turned out to be a little piece of paradise! The Haad Rin tourist village itself is a bit of a blot on the landscape but the rest of Koh Phangan is even more beautiful than we’d expected – lush tropical forest, ramshackle huts on the beach front, coconut palms and rocky outcrops dotting the golden sandy beaches, clear azure water tempting you to dive in (though it’s really shallow and hotter than bath water)!
The plan for the next few days was to rest and recuperate, ready to go bananas with 10,000 other people at the infamous Full Moon party. This plan was good in theory, however we ended up being led astray on Thursday night by the evil Ko Phangan buckets! At least we’ve put our livers in training ready for the Full Moon party proper on Saturday! Anyway, we’ll report back with our review of the cultural experience that is the Ko Phangan Full Moon party!!!
Awesome fire dancers on Haad Rin beach
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