It turns out that for someone
who wants to be a writer I am shockingly bad at actually getting my act
together and writing certain kind of things. At least, I'm bad at writing
blogs. I start fifteen thousand things and finish no more than two.
I promise to be better, but I also promise that the first promise is an
empty promise. I'll pretend to try, but it's very difficult to be better
than you already are.
I've gone on a few side trips during long weekends since I've been here. I live just outside Bangkok and go into Bangkok just about every weekend, though admittedly only to have fun with my coworkers and the other people from our program. However, we had a three-day weekend back in June, and I went to Kanchanaburi with a bunch of people from my program. Then, at the beginning of August, we had two long weekends in a row, a four-day weekend for a Buddhist holiday called Asalha Bucha and then a three-day weekend for Mother's Day, which is celebrated on the queen’s birthday, as the queen is the mother of all Thais.
I've gone on a few side trips during long weekends since I've been here. I live just outside Bangkok and go into Bangkok just about every weekend, though admittedly only to have fun with my coworkers and the other people from our program. However, we had a three-day weekend back in June, and I went to Kanchanaburi with a bunch of people from my program. Then, at the beginning of August, we had two long weekends in a row, a four-day weekend for a Buddhist holiday called Asalha Bucha and then a three-day weekend for Mother's Day, which is celebrated on the queen’s birthday, as the queen is the mother of all Thais.
For the first long
weekend I went to an island a few hours away called Koh Chang, and for the
second I went to another island closer to home called Koh Samet. Kanchanaburi
and Koh Samet tolerated my presence, but Koh Chang did it's damnedest to vomit
me back to Bangkok.
Kanchanaburi is a place
in Thailand that I have been before, though previously I only went on a day
trip. It takes about two hours to get there by bus, and the whole trip
only costs about $7. There is a decent amount of cool things to see and do
there.
The most fun thing we did while we were there was visiting an amazing waterfall in Erawan National Park. The waterfall had several tiers and you had to hike between them. You could swim in all the pools, and a lot of them had little fish that chewed off your dead skin. You could also sit under the waterfalls, and even go behind a few of them. One waterfall had softened the rock around it so much and worn it so smooth that it could be used as a water slide, which was amazing. A bunch of us girls got in a chain and tried to go all together, with me in front. However, Molly accidentally stepped on my head and pushed me really deep in the water, so I had a hard time getting back up to the top before my lungs burst. Note to self: get better lung capacity. The hiking and swimming was really fun in general. We all enjoyed it a lot.
The last time that I went to Kanchanaburi, I went to the Bridge on the River Kwai for all of thirty minutes (and spent most of that time in a nearby market as I had no idea at the time of the historical significance of or story behind the bridge on the River Kwai), the Tiger Temple (to which I hope never to return), and the Floating Market. The market was actually not in Kanchanaburi, but it was two separate day trips that the travel company mashed into one great PB & J.
This time, most of the group wanted to go to the Tiger Temple, so those of us who weren't interested (read, four out of an uncountable number of us) decided to go to the River Kwai museum. I had read a bit about the bridge in the interim between my first visit and this, but I didn't know more than the basic outline of the story. To be honest, it's a very different thing to understand it and see it at the same time. Walking through the museum was extremely humbling. Essentially, during WW2, the Japanese wanted to get a supply line from Burma to the eastern coast of Thailand. They were tired of having to take their ships all the way around the southern tip of the country up to Burma to get supplies around. So they took a look at this impossible, impassible terrain, and went "Well, I guess our prisoners of war will be good for something after all."
The most fun thing we did while we were there was visiting an amazing waterfall in Erawan National Park. The waterfall had several tiers and you had to hike between them. You could swim in all the pools, and a lot of them had little fish that chewed off your dead skin. You could also sit under the waterfalls, and even go behind a few of them. One waterfall had softened the rock around it so much and worn it so smooth that it could be used as a water slide, which was amazing. A bunch of us girls got in a chain and tried to go all together, with me in front. However, Molly accidentally stepped on my head and pushed me really deep in the water, so I had a hard time getting back up to the top before my lungs burst. Note to self: get better lung capacity. The hiking and swimming was really fun in general. We all enjoyed it a lot.
The last time that I went to Kanchanaburi, I went to the Bridge on the River Kwai for all of thirty minutes (and spent most of that time in a nearby market as I had no idea at the time of the historical significance of or story behind the bridge on the River Kwai), the Tiger Temple (to which I hope never to return), and the Floating Market. The market was actually not in Kanchanaburi, but it was two separate day trips that the travel company mashed into one great PB & J.
This time, most of the group wanted to go to the Tiger Temple, so those of us who weren't interested (read, four out of an uncountable number of us) decided to go to the River Kwai museum. I had read a bit about the bridge in the interim between my first visit and this, but I didn't know more than the basic outline of the story. To be honest, it's a very different thing to understand it and see it at the same time. Walking through the museum was extremely humbling. Essentially, during WW2, the Japanese wanted to get a supply line from Burma to the eastern coast of Thailand. They were tired of having to take their ships all the way around the southern tip of the country up to Burma to get supplies around. So they took a look at this impossible, impassible terrain, and went "Well, I guess our prisoners of war will be good for something after all."
The railway they then
attempted to build is generally known as the "Death Railway."
Over the next few years, they employed 180,000 Asian laborers (we watched
a video about it, and a fair amount of those workers were either coerced,
tricked, or straight kidnapped from their hometowns by the Japanese) and 60,000
prisoners of war. 50% of the Asian workers (read: 90,000 people) and a
little less than 30% of the POW (read: 16,000 people) died during or as a
direct result of the construction. They were barely fed enough to stay
alive, were given no viable shelter (which I can tell you having been through a
few of Thailand's rainy days is an unimaginable thing to endure) and no access to
health care. A few hospitals were built where doctors helped patients
with whatever they could find, a dirty old canteen becoming an IV drip, or
rancid old clothes serving as “sterile” bandages. Those who were interred
in hospitals for illness or injury had their food rations revoked, as an
"incentive" to get back to work. Illnesses ran rampant through
the camps and unless you were dead, if you wanted to eat you had to work in the
blistering heat or poring rain. One section of the railway, aptly named
"Hellfire Pass" is a particularly popular place for tourists now,
though I would feel more than a bit odd standing there, knowing what it had
cost. There was a rock jutting out over the proposed track for the
railway, making construction without proper tools particularly difficult.
Not counting injuries, illness, or other causes of death that took the
lives of men working that section, 69 men were beaten to death by the Japanese
for not working hard enough to complete the pass quickly.
We went through the museum reading all about this, and about how the most famous section (the aforementioned bridge over the River Kwai) was destroyed by American bombers toward the end of the war, though many of their bombs were the causes of POW’s and Asian workers’ deaths as the Americans dropped many bombs on the camps where the men lived. I walked back out into the sunlight only to be reminded that directly across the street is a one of several cemeteries for the fallen POWs. We went in and walked along the aisles. Though the names were, clearly, unknown to me, what struck me were the dates on stones. Many of the men who were resting below my feet had been younger than I am now when they were killed, most of those between 20 and 24. To be standing there, enjoying a weekend vacation at a place where so many lost their lives in horrible and painful conditions was more than a little humbling. It reminded me of all that I have to be thankful for in my life. Additionally, reading the messages that many of the men's families had asked to be carved on the stones were very touching, and yet it seemed to me so sad. These men were loved and cared for, and many of their families probably never even got to see their graves, to stand beside them when mourning for the one they'd loved and lost. Off to one side was a mass grave for over 100 soldiers whose names were unknown. Those families that never got to see the grave were the lucky ones; so many others didn't even know where their loved ones were buried, where they had died, or how. Lucky that the Japanese had at least been respectful of another culture's burial rituals, which allowed for many of the men's first resting places to be labelled with a name. Some of the original graves served an even greater purpose: most of what we know about life for the men who worked those railways came from information, journals, letters, tokens, thrown into those graves to be preserved, because the prisoners knew that the Japanese would never look there to take it away and destroy it.
So that's depressing enough for now. It was a very different kind of vacation day though, I can tell you that much. The rest of the weekend was spent wandering portions of the railway itself, visiting Buddhist temples inside of caves, and riding elephants. So, you know, the usual. I enjoyed Kanchanaburi immensely though, and have been meaning to go back. It's actually not out of the question for a regular weekend.
If places were capable of feelings, I would say that Koh Chang hates me. What I did to deserve the fervency of this hatred is hard to say. Molly and I took an 11:30 pm bus to the ferry crossing, because the bus takes about 5 hours and we wanted to get on the first ferry. At around midnight the bus broke down on the freeway, and we were stranded until they sent another bus, whereupon we moved all our stuff and went back to sleep. We got to the little town near the ferry at around 6 am, and milled about for a while until a songtaew (which means "two-rows" and is literally a truck with a roof over the bed that has two rows of benches at the sides for people to sit on) came and took us to the ferry. We climbed on the ferry and at 7 am, we were off! Let the amazing beach vacation commence! Only not, because about 200 yards from the ferry terminal, our ferry grounded itself. So what was supposed to be a 40-minute ferry ride was delayed by three hours of waiting on the boat in the rain (which was coming in sideways around the edges of the boat) followed by a 40-minute ferry ride. I would like to log this as Exhibit A for Koh Chang not being my biggest fan.
We went through the museum reading all about this, and about how the most famous section (the aforementioned bridge over the River Kwai) was destroyed by American bombers toward the end of the war, though many of their bombs were the causes of POW’s and Asian workers’ deaths as the Americans dropped many bombs on the camps where the men lived. I walked back out into the sunlight only to be reminded that directly across the street is a one of several cemeteries for the fallen POWs. We went in and walked along the aisles. Though the names were, clearly, unknown to me, what struck me were the dates on stones. Many of the men who were resting below my feet had been younger than I am now when they were killed, most of those between 20 and 24. To be standing there, enjoying a weekend vacation at a place where so many lost their lives in horrible and painful conditions was more than a little humbling. It reminded me of all that I have to be thankful for in my life. Additionally, reading the messages that many of the men's families had asked to be carved on the stones were very touching, and yet it seemed to me so sad. These men were loved and cared for, and many of their families probably never even got to see their graves, to stand beside them when mourning for the one they'd loved and lost. Off to one side was a mass grave for over 100 soldiers whose names were unknown. Those families that never got to see the grave were the lucky ones; so many others didn't even know where their loved ones were buried, where they had died, or how. Lucky that the Japanese had at least been respectful of another culture's burial rituals, which allowed for many of the men's first resting places to be labelled with a name. Some of the original graves served an even greater purpose: most of what we know about life for the men who worked those railways came from information, journals, letters, tokens, thrown into those graves to be preserved, because the prisoners knew that the Japanese would never look there to take it away and destroy it.
So that's depressing enough for now. It was a very different kind of vacation day though, I can tell you that much. The rest of the weekend was spent wandering portions of the railway itself, visiting Buddhist temples inside of caves, and riding elephants. So, you know, the usual. I enjoyed Kanchanaburi immensely though, and have been meaning to go back. It's actually not out of the question for a regular weekend.
If places were capable of feelings, I would say that Koh Chang hates me. What I did to deserve the fervency of this hatred is hard to say. Molly and I took an 11:30 pm bus to the ferry crossing, because the bus takes about 5 hours and we wanted to get on the first ferry. At around midnight the bus broke down on the freeway, and we were stranded until they sent another bus, whereupon we moved all our stuff and went back to sleep. We got to the little town near the ferry at around 6 am, and milled about for a while until a songtaew (which means "two-rows" and is literally a truck with a roof over the bed that has two rows of benches at the sides for people to sit on) came and took us to the ferry. We climbed on the ferry and at 7 am, we were off! Let the amazing beach vacation commence! Only not, because about 200 yards from the ferry terminal, our ferry grounded itself. So what was supposed to be a 40-minute ferry ride was delayed by three hours of waiting on the boat in the rain (which was coming in sideways around the edges of the boat) followed by a 40-minute ferry ride. I would like to log this as Exhibit A for Koh Chang not being my biggest fan.
Then we got to the
island, and were pretty excited! Only it wasn't sunny. And none of
our friends were there yet. Still, everyone else got there about an hour
later (despite having left 6 hours after we did) and we all hung out. Our
hotel was really nice, with super inexpensive bungalows right near a part of
the coastline that was too rocky for swimming. Still, a sandy beach was
only a few hundred yards away, so it wasn't that big of a difficulty.
The next morning was beautiful, so a bunch of us decided to rent motorbikes and tour the island. The entire island is a nature reserve, and there are many beautiful waterfalls to see and as well as jungle and ocean vistas to view. "Chang" means elephant in Thai (so we were literally on Elephant Island- as Koh means island). We saw a few baby elephants at little camps along the road and stopped to feed them and watch them play. After that we rode around just looking for somewhere worth stopping, and found one of the waterfalls. We left our stuff on the rocks and jumped into the water. It was a really nice swim, though the current was strong and it was deep enough that there was nowhere to touch down, so treading water got pretty tiring. After a while we all went over to sit on the rocks right along the edge of the pool below the waterfall. There was a small incline of rock between me and most of the others, so I tried to climb over it to get to them. When I say small incline, I mean it was about eight feet across and two feet high. Not a problem. Unless you're me. I guess my foothold wasn't very steady and because the rocks were slick with water, when I put all my weight on my foot to pull myself up, my foot slipped out from under me and I fell full force and smacked the side of my face against the rock. Exhibit B. It really wasn't that bad, just a bruise, so I shook it off and let it go.
The next day two other girls and I took the motorbikes to the nearby beach. We went in the ocean a bit and sat out in the sun. It was a really nice way to start the day. Then we went to get back on the motorbikes and head back for the hotel, where we planned to rent the motorbikes anew and go looking for some more waterfalls. We had parked them on some semi-packed sand, which didn't offer the best traction. The other girls walked their bikes to the paved road that was about thirty feet away. I decided I didn't really need that. Only I did really need that, or it at least would have helped. The previous day my bike had gone through three times as much petrol as everyone else’s, and had been difficult to start. I tried starting my bike up a few times, and finally the engine caught. Instead of idling like it’s supposed to, it jerked forward fast and started driving. I tried to let off the accelerator, but that's when it decided that it was going to really get going. I shot forward going about 20-25 mph. I hit the brakes, but since I was on sand, all that really did was make me skid and lose control.
Here's Exhibit C, the most damning evidence of all.
I slammed my bike into the back of Kim's (my friend) and flew over the handlebars, smacking my head on the rear license plate of her bike. My knee got caught on the handlebar, so as the bike fell it ripped essentially all the skin off my right kneecap, as well as pulling me sideways and throwing me about ten feet onto my back. I remember hearing Stef (my other friend) yelling "Oh my god Kelsey!" and seeing a Thai man who had been sitting in a nearby hut jump up and come running toward me and then I passed out. Then I came to! But then I passed out again. After that I was up, and everyone looked so worried that I just started cracking jokes to lighten the mood. There were all worried about me moving my head, and I was all worried about what it was going to cost to fix any damage to the bikes. They strapped me to a board, stuffed me in the back of a van functioning as an ambulance, and took me to the small local medical clinic, the only medical facility on the island. I had to get some X-Rays and a few CTs. Don’t worry though, it was just time for yet another mild to moderate concussion. I hadn’t had one in a while, and I guess I was down on my quotas.
The next morning was beautiful, so a bunch of us decided to rent motorbikes and tour the island. The entire island is a nature reserve, and there are many beautiful waterfalls to see and as well as jungle and ocean vistas to view. "Chang" means elephant in Thai (so we were literally on Elephant Island- as Koh means island). We saw a few baby elephants at little camps along the road and stopped to feed them and watch them play. After that we rode around just looking for somewhere worth stopping, and found one of the waterfalls. We left our stuff on the rocks and jumped into the water. It was a really nice swim, though the current was strong and it was deep enough that there was nowhere to touch down, so treading water got pretty tiring. After a while we all went over to sit on the rocks right along the edge of the pool below the waterfall. There was a small incline of rock between me and most of the others, so I tried to climb over it to get to them. When I say small incline, I mean it was about eight feet across and two feet high. Not a problem. Unless you're me. I guess my foothold wasn't very steady and because the rocks were slick with water, when I put all my weight on my foot to pull myself up, my foot slipped out from under me and I fell full force and smacked the side of my face against the rock. Exhibit B. It really wasn't that bad, just a bruise, so I shook it off and let it go.
The next day two other girls and I took the motorbikes to the nearby beach. We went in the ocean a bit and sat out in the sun. It was a really nice way to start the day. Then we went to get back on the motorbikes and head back for the hotel, where we planned to rent the motorbikes anew and go looking for some more waterfalls. We had parked them on some semi-packed sand, which didn't offer the best traction. The other girls walked their bikes to the paved road that was about thirty feet away. I decided I didn't really need that. Only I did really need that, or it at least would have helped. The previous day my bike had gone through three times as much petrol as everyone else’s, and had been difficult to start. I tried starting my bike up a few times, and finally the engine caught. Instead of idling like it’s supposed to, it jerked forward fast and started driving. I tried to let off the accelerator, but that's when it decided that it was going to really get going. I shot forward going about 20-25 mph. I hit the brakes, but since I was on sand, all that really did was make me skid and lose control.
Here's Exhibit C, the most damning evidence of all.
I slammed my bike into the back of Kim's (my friend) and flew over the handlebars, smacking my head on the rear license plate of her bike. My knee got caught on the handlebar, so as the bike fell it ripped essentially all the skin off my right kneecap, as well as pulling me sideways and throwing me about ten feet onto my back. I remember hearing Stef (my other friend) yelling "Oh my god Kelsey!" and seeing a Thai man who had been sitting in a nearby hut jump up and come running toward me and then I passed out. Then I came to! But then I passed out again. After that I was up, and everyone looked so worried that I just started cracking jokes to lighten the mood. There were all worried about me moving my head, and I was all worried about what it was going to cost to fix any damage to the bikes. They strapped me to a board, stuffed me in the back of a van functioning as an ambulance, and took me to the small local medical clinic, the only medical facility on the island. I had to get some X-Rays and a few CTs. Don’t worry though, it was just time for yet another mild to moderate concussion. I hadn’t had one in a while, and I guess I was down on my quotas.
Besides that, before the
crash all the skin on my right knee had really been pissing me off. It
just kept being all skin-ish and I was like, "Skin, be cool," but it
wouldn't so I decided to evict it from my body and hope the next tenant was a
bit less annoying. I’m definitely going to have a huge scar there, but
it’s cool. I’ve heard that chicks dig
scars, and I’m a chick, so I’ll probably like it. After the hospital Molly and I went to a
restaurant near our hotel and got some really good Mexican food and then she
left for the beach. A bit later the sun was about to set and I wanted to
see it from the beach, so I hoped on the back of my friend Trish's bike and she
drove us down there. The sunset was gorgeous. We left the next
morning because it was time to go home.
I would love to go back to Koh Chang and see some more of the waterfalls, maybe do a jungle hike or something. I just don't know if I'm welcome.
I would love to go back to Koh Chang and see some more of the waterfalls, maybe do a jungle hike or something. I just don't know if I'm welcome.
Koh Samet was my favorite
of the three places. It’s a lot closer
to Bangkok, only a three-hour bus ride and a similar ferry, so I’m sure we’ll
come back here fairly often. The beaches
were much nicer, all white sand and crystal clear water, and the beach took up
one whole side of the island, with a lot of restaurants and hotels right there
on the sand. We spent that whole weekend
relaxing, sitting in chairs on the beach, swimming in the ocean, and
sleeping. It was glorious.
Koh Samet is a lot
smaller than Koh Chang as well, so there was no need to rent bikes, although a
few people rented ATVs to go all the way around the island. They came back a few hours later and
confirmed that we were on the best beach, so I’m glad that I skipped it. The good news is that there was a full week
between the weekend in Koh Chang and the weekend in Koh Samet, so my knee had
partly healed. When I went into the
water I braced myself for the inevitable pain of literally throwing salt into a
wound, but it never came. I swam for a
bit and when I came out of the water all the oozy, pus-covered, partly scabbed
areas of my knee had been washed clean and there was brand new baby pink skin
underneath. I put a ton of sunscreen on
it to protect the skin, but it wasn’t that helpful and now my new skin is ten
times tanner than the rest of my skin, which means I will have a scar, but it
will be brown. Oh well.
The food at one of the
restaurants was amazing. They made
seafood skewers and beef skewers, and had a ton of roasted vegetables with
it. At night, boys came and juggled fire
right in front of us, like I’d seen before when I went to Koh Samui. Only this time the boys were between eight
and twelve years old, and covered in burns so it was a little bit more scary
and sad.
Later on we walked along
the beach toward the more populated area and went to a club. Everyone was dancing, but my knee was still
sore and tender, so I wasn’t really up for it.
It was still a lot of fun, and the drinks came in buckets, like on most
Thai islands.
All three places were
fun, but I think Koh Samet was my favorite.
Koh Change might be able to overtake it in the future, so long as it
doesn’t continue on it’s quest for my destruction.
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