We're up and ready for the 7am start. Luckily the pickup is late as we haven't agreed to stay in the room let alone pay. Who knows where our bags and laundry would be when we returned at 6? Our guy turns up and seems a bit nervous or something. Still we follow out to the minivan where we squeeze in last for the two hour trip to the floating market or sugar factory or something as our man has an unusual style. When he talks to us it's like a combination bad English and stutter and all the while he's deep in thought and when he gets the right phrase he congratulates himself, repeats it a couple of times and moves on. Mostly, though, his English lets him down and we don't really follow the plan.
We pass some salt farm -- we must be close to the sea -- then to a coconut sugar farm, it turns out. Our guide consists of indicating the fighting cocks and fish (tiny fellas kept in wine bottles) before saying we now had some free time to explore the "factory." This turns out to be where they mash the flower head down and boil it up into a caramel type stew. And there's plenty of unrelated tourist tat stalls.
Then to Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. We get a spin around the local canals in a long-tail boat before laying up just outside the market. Of course you can pay extra money to be paddled through the market itself -- a mixture of James Bond fruit, veg, meat, stuff being sold from boats and shoreside stalls some of which are only accessible by boat and almost exclusively [sell] tourist junk. Damnoen Saduak Floating Market. Is that Roger Moore? We plod around for a bit but it's a hot day and we must be losing loads of (fluid) weight.
Then we're off to the Royal Thai Woodcarvings Centre where they produce some impressive 3D carvings and some very nice furniture -- for a good western price [US$10,000 anyone?]. We're chucked into a another vehicle for the rest of the day, the rest being bussed back to Bangkok. Lunch appears to be in a staff canteen where we move the plates to avoid the drips from the ceiling.
We're off then to the cemetery for the allied dead building the Burma-Thailand railroad in 1942-3, the Death Railway. Then just up the road to the Bridge over the River Kwai -- though not the wooden trestle bridge of book and film fame, rather the old Java River bridge which the Japanese dismantled and had rebuilt here by POWs and later various IndoChinese people as forced labour. Given its history and remarkably unnerving construction -- amply visible as you walk across -- it's amazing it's still in use today. The two trestle bridges of book and film fame, [supposedly] only some 300m downstream are nowhere to be seen. Given the prisoners' clever use of unsuitable wood at every opportunity such that it needed replacing every 3 or 4 months, that's no surprise. I'm not sure whether being out here is a tribute to the men who suffered in the war or a bit of historical rubbernecking. Given the hundreds of stalls of tourist tat it sadly feels more like the latter.
There is a small museum, JEATH, maintained by local monks about the Death Railway and WWII but it's poorly organised and repeats itself a lot. It's very hard to find the wheat amongst the chaff which is very disappointing. Both from a personal interest and a commemorative point of view. It is something, though, which is commendable.
The final stop of the day is the big pagoda, as it's described. As it happens it's a thumping great big chedi at one of the temples. A Wat appears to have a main temple, facing east, with an effigy of Buddha -- normally seated, sometimes reclining, never fat! -- and a chedi which, I think, is meant to represent either the universe or Buddha again or probably something else. Then depending on the funds various other buildings are built. In this case there was a good supply of cash and they built an 80-odd m tall dome. It's no St. Peter's, though.
said Helen, as we slugged around the base.
Our new driver continued his breakneck pace back home. Waking everyone up twice as he slid to a halt behind some stopped traffic. We showered and rested before heading out to find some nosh. We skipped to a road behind Khoo San and settled on a little bit too western looking restaurant. Neither dish, even my green curry, was spicy (to my embattled nostrils) and we left slightly disappointed.
Sawasdee Woraburi Khao San Inn, Bangkok N13.75837 E100.49728 Elev. 22m Sawasdee Woraburi Khao San Inn, Bangkok
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.
