Asian backpacker

The first time I visited Bangkok, I was pretty pre-occupied with the Thai New year celebration Songkran. Meaning I didn’t have much time to actually go sightseeing around and see the Royal Palace either. This time I’m in town for a few days and I met up with a couchsurfer, Alina for some sightseeing. We walked around the Royal Palace for a bit and then walked around Chinatown and Little India. The palace was a nice place to visit, great examples of Thai architecture and royal treasures.

The real highlight of that day wasn’t really the palace itself, but a little vendor shop outside the palace selling statues of praying monks. Let me tell you, I’ve seen some statues before, but these statues were SO AMAZINGLY lifelike that it’s scary. I would have bought one for sure if I wasn’t traveling for a long period of time. It’s amazing how there are real artists among these random street vendors.

Kanchanaburi

I had about 5-6 days to spare before I had to take my flight to my next destination and I figured I had seen most of what Bangkok had to offer. So I decided I’d go visit Kanchanaburi during this time since it’s only a stonethrow away from Bangkok and it has some sights worth visiting. To be honest, for the first couple of days I was pretty much dying in my hotel room from a bad stomach ache. Well maybe not dying, but it kept me down for a couple of days. After a couple of days, Alina came up to Kanchanaburi as well and we went around a bit sightseeing. We went to the nearby Erawan park and Erawan falls.

The park itself was about an hour busride away from Kanchanaburi itself and there was an hour and half hike or so to the top. The last bus leaves around 2-3 already back to Kanchanaburi, so with this we decided to stay overnight in Erawan park. You could rent camping equipment there and set up camp in the park. Since I’ve never been camping before, I took the chance to try it out. It wasn’t exactly wild camping, but it did the job.

There are about 7 levels or tiers of the Erawan waterfalls. The first day we walked up to the 4th one before they closed the entrance to it. The first impressions were amazing already and we even took quick dip in the first pool. Beware though, there are monkeys spread out in the forest and they are pretty clever. I had a bag with 2 chinese pears in it and some candy and they just snatched the bag from behind Alina while she was taking pictures of me in the water. Damn monkey stole my snack!

Anyway, the next morning we woke up early to beat the crowd and hiked up to level 7. Which was totally worth it. The water was so azure blue and clear that it was hard to believe that it was a natural pool. We both took our time to enjoy the water for a dip and swim before the first visitors arrived and we made our way back down. By the time we got to the bottom the biggest pool was aleady filled with visitors. So I’m really glad we stayed in the park for the night. Afterwards, we headed back to town and I went back to Bangkok, awaiting my flight to Yangon, Burma!