Kanchanaburi

This weekend, we did our first family road trip, heading west to Kachanaburi. More on the destination in a bit, but the drive through new parts of Thailand was interesting in its own right. While we didn't manage to get any shots of the statuary vendors that line the roadways, selling 10-foot tall colorful chicken statues, we did see convoys of trucks stuffed to the gills with sugar cane.

There also was the Hello Kitty-mobile.

Shane found all of this less enthralling than did the rest of us.

Kanchanaburi is both a city and a province (jangwat). Out first stop was Erawan National Park to see the famous 7-step Erawan Falls.

 

The hike to the waterfall revealed some interesting trees and plant life.

We were also warned about the local wildlife.

Apparently, there are a lot of them if you make it to the 5th and 6th steps. With two young kids in tow, we made it no higher than #3, so we only saw one not-so-fierce monkey.

Here is the scene upon arrival to the first step.

 

And then the more crowded 2nd step, with its large swimming lagoon.

Between steps 2 and 3.

We settled in at the 3rd step, which was relatively less crowded, allowing Izaak to swim over the lagoon to and then climb under the waterfall (that's him under there).

The fish in the lagoon rendered Eliana an observer from the edges.

 

But she and Shane managed to get a got of themselves in from of the falls.

It should be noted that the entire drive to the park was along the (in)famous River Kwai, as was our hotel which was located right by the Bridge over the River Kwai. The river itself was beautiful and the hotel and its grounds were quite nice.

 

(the bridge from the grounds)

The hotel grounds also had lots of interesting and beautiful plant life as well.

 

(orchid growing out of the vines wrapped around a palm tree)

Eliana made some new friends on the playground.

 

Then we had dinner on a floating restaurant on the river, with a great view of the bridge.

In the evening time, the bridge turns into a light show, which seemed interesting to us given its history but, then again, we shoot lights up from Ground Zero, so who's to say what's strange or appropriate. Eliana enjoyed the lights and was thankfully oblivious to the death toll associated with the bridge and its railroad, so in the end we settled on it being a good thing.

 

The next day, we fed some koi.

Took a dip in the hotel's beautiful pool.

 

And then went to take a closer look at the bridge.

To finish things up, we did some shopping, buying a carved buffalo skin piece of art. We watched its maker at his craft.

There were also hundreds of nurseries in and around Kanchanaburi, so Sam stopped to get some new tropical plants for the house.