Kanchanaburi Revisited

2017 starts off with a bang as I take my first trip of the year out of Bangkok to Kanchanaburi, possibly my favorite province in Thailand!

My friend James is in town, and on his second full day in Thailand, we got up before dawn to head to Thonburi Train Station to board the 7:45 to Kanchanaburi.

This was my second time to take the train out west, and this trip mirrored my first-ever holiday out of Bangkok, three years ago!

on the way!

We arrived in Kanchanaburi before lunchtime, after a scenic ride through the countryside, past thick jungles and shadowy green mountains.

For our first day, New Year's Eve, we stayed in town, doing all the "Bridge Stuff" and visiting museums about the Death Railway.

Bridge on the River Kwai

Visiting the well-kept Allied War Cemetery is always a sobering experience, but it's an important one, and it wouldn't really be right to visit Kanchanaburi without paying respect to the thousands of POW's and laborers who died during the construction of the railway during the Second World War.

Allied War Cemetery

We spent most of the afternoon and early evening visiting the cemetery, the Death Railway Museum, the WWII Museum, and walking across the Bridge itself.

gravestones in the Australian section

On the other side of the bridge from Kanchanaburi town is a really cool Chinese temple that I always like to visit. I really love Kanchanaburi! I find all of the scenery out that way to be incredibly beautiful! In the winter, the air is a lot drier and cooler than in Bangkok, and we had excellent weather the whole time.

Chinese temple on the river

James and I even stayed at the same guesthouse on the river where my friends and I stayed three years ago. We sat on our patio facing out to the River Kwai, sipping cold Beer Chang as the sun slowly fell behind the western mountains across the river. This year, we actually made it 'till midnight, and toasted our Chang to an excellent 2017.

the last sunset of 2016

On New Year's morning we were up bright and early for a brand new adventure to start the year. I'll be writing several posts here about our time in Kanchanaburi. This post is to revisit some of the places that I saw several years ago, and to offer my new perspective years later.

good morning, 2017!

One day in the afternoon, we walked to the huge Chinese temple just south along the river of the town. It's odd, because it still seems to be totally empty, and it seems like it's still unfinished, even though I visited it last time three years ago. Still, it's a cool spot for some pictures, and the Chinese-Thai-style pavilions are definitely beautiful.

the other Chinese temple

By this point in the day it was getting hot. On our way back out from the temple, we cut across a large grassy area. I was watching where I was going, but was startled by a loud rustle sudden movement just an inch or so from my left foot, as a bright-green snake darted away through the dry grass. It was a deadly green viper... I am so lucky that he ran away! No more walking through fields for me! Even this close to town! That would not have been a nice way to kick off the new year.

I was looking where I was going too! It's kind of amazing how well a bright-green snake can be camouflaged like that. It's entirely possible that it was just some other type of green snake, and not a green viper, but I don't want to take my chances...

prayer candles

So happy 2017 to all! I will be posting more about Kanchanaburi in the next few days. We got to see some amazing things that I've never seen before, and do some adventures that I haven't done in Kanchanaburi before either.