Bangkok

Erawan Waterfalls – 5th Tier

We arrived in Bangkok on Saturday evening, and as was “tradition”, we stayed at a highly recommended little B&B to ease our way into the city. We ventured out to one of the popular night markets, and promptly resolved to come back at the end of our trip to load up on goodies before we return home!

From there, it seems we have been stuck in Bangkok.

We visited the famous Khao San Road on Sunday, and hit up as many food and fruit stalls as possible. Whereas in India we often hesitated at the roadside stands, here they are so abundant that it doesn’t take time at all to familiarize ourselves with all the offerings and jump right in. I think we had pad thai, chicken and beef skewers, chicken liver skewers, mango, papaya, guava, watermelon, green papaya salad, and a banana and nutella roti pancake to finish it all off. I quickly understood the subtle warnings I received prior to leaving for this leg of the trip: it would be incredibly hard to lose weight in Southeast Asia.

  
Getting our food made in front of us on Khao San Road

Since we were overly relaxed in Taipei, we had to find a travel agent to get our Vietnam visas. On a whim, Alex suggested that we go on a package tour to Katchanaburi for three days and two nights while the visas were being processed. Without being skeptical at all (Taipei really spoiled us!), we handed over our passports to a random travel agent on Khao San Road.

I won’t bore you with the details of the panic and obsessive googling that ensued.

Thank goodness the next morning, we found the travel agent at work at 7AM to see us off on our tour – so far so good. However, things took a very interesting turn when we checked in to our “floating hotel”. It is literally floating rafts with tin roofs and a semi-outdoor shower/bathroom that drains right into the River Kwai – the toilet drainage courtesy of us pouring buckets of water into the toilet. I will admit that it totally threw me off, especially since it had been a while since we “roughed it” like so.

The only picture of our hotel that I will share. The rest really isn’t worth writing home about.

Aside from the hotel (and us gleaming hopeful looks into the neighbouring raft hotel, which seemed much more modern and luxurious), the trip was quite awesome. We checked so many experiences of our list that we are a little afraid of visiting the rest of Southeast Asia with a “been there, done that, got the t-shirt” attitude!

The most unusual for me was the elephant bathing. It was a little further down the river from our hostel, and as soon as we arrived, the elephant trainers tried to get me onto the biggest elephant there was. In case you didn’t know before, you know now that I don’t swim, and tend to panic in water. So they convinced me that this elephant was tame, and I got on after watching Alex get on his elephant first, and sure enough, even when the elephant dipped into the water, she didn’t go too far in, and I was able to keep my head above water. So far so good. Then someone arrived with a life jacket for me, and as soon as I had it on properly, the trainers asked me to switch with Alex…and ohhhh boy did they have an evil plan in mind!

The only picture of me looking calm at the elephant bathing

With the life jacket securely fastened around me, my new elephant went right into the water and threw me to the left. I managed to hold on, but only until she leaned right. Then I lost my grip and fell off temporarily, kicking off the trainer who was riding behind me – oops. This did not deter the trainer from scaring me further. He called out a command….and I was looking at river water all of a sudden. Yep, the elephant fully dipped into the water, me included. I had a nice big gulp of the water from River Kwai (which, as you will remember, may have included my own shower water from that morning, ew!). I kicked up to the top just as the elephant came up, and grabbed on blindly to this now very untrustworthy elephant of mine. I couldn’t even wipe my face just in case she pulled another one on me. After ten seconds, I determined it was safe to let go for a few seconds, and quickly wiped my face to see all the trainers and the next family in line laughing at me. Ugh!

Alex getting sprayed by his elephant – so fun!

The bathing was short, but really different and nothing like what I could’ve imagined. I am glad I did it, despite the fact that I may still burst into vomit-mode from drinking the river water!

We continued the rest of the tour with a ride on the elephants later that morning, where we fed them with peanuts and bananas at the end, and then spent some time at the Tiger Temple taking the obligatory photos with the tigers. The Tiger Temple was neat for us, though, because we spent a lot of time with the cubs that were not chained, but on leashes with the monks. One baby cub liked me so much that he decided to rest his head and paw on my lap!

Short elephant trek with Mama Elephant – there’s a baby chained to her!

Alex playing with the tiger cub at the Tiger Temple

We finished off the tour with a full morning at the Erawan Waterfalls. To be honest, I wasn’t super excited about waterfalls since, again, I don’t swim. The hike along the falls proved me wrong – it was quite a spectacular workout! Erawan Waterfalls consists of 7 smaller falls, or tiers, and we hiked up to the fifth tier. In the pools at each tier, there were lots of fish – big, medium, and tiny little ones. The medium and little ones were the type that would eat the dead skin off your feet, much like the famous “fish spas” in Bangkok that we’ve seen. It freaked the crap out of me, and I could not get used to it no matter how much I tried. Alex got used to it quickly enough, and is currently boasting very soft feet blah blah blah. He had at some points, about 50 fish on his feet, nibbling away!!

This picture isn’t even the worst of it. Nightmares for me!

We are back in Bangkok now and happy to report that the travel agent we selected, out of sheer luck, was a very trustworthy one who offered a great albeit slightly questionable standards tour, and processed our visas successfully.

Tomorrow first thing in the morning, on to Angkor Wat!