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Climbing through the arches, toward the dome...

The above pictures depict only half the story — the above-ground portion of the temple.  The areas below ground house incredible antiquities, including Buddha statues that are hundreds — and, in some cases, thousands — of years old:

Back above ground, the other side of the temple offered more intriguing sights:

After seeing Phra Pathom Chedi, Avi and I hit the road again, this time toward the province of Kanchanaburi — home of the famous Bridge over the River Kwai.  

The bridge, however, would be our last destination for the day.  We first wanted to check out some of the sights around Sri Nakharin Lake, which meant another two hours of driving — and signs like this:

Unfortunately, on this particular day, there were more cow signs than actual bovines.  The roadside, however, did offer an interesting sight: a series of sculpture "factories," where large sculptures are produced en masse:

Finally, at 12:30 PM, we arrived at Erawan National Park.  One note about national parks in Thailand: they charge differential admission rates based on whether or not you're Thai.  Basically, if you look like a foreigner, they're going to charge you the higher rate (sometimes $10 or more) unless you can convince them you're a local.  If you are a local (or, in my case, look like one), you're looking at an entrance fee of one or two dollars.  Avi of course doesn't look Thai, but his Thai upbringing is clear because he speaks the language fluently.  

Our strategy in a lot of cases, then, was for him to do all the talking, while I sat (or stood, as the case may be) and minded my own business.  Erawan was interesting because the park ranger at the entrance somehow suspected I wasn't actually Thai, and Avi had to cover for me.  Evidently he did a good job, because we got off with the lower fee.  He told me later, though, that the ranger had asked me whether I was Thai, to which I responded with absolutely nothing (since I obviously didn't even know I was being asked anything at all).  It must have been funny to see this oblivious, purportedly Thai individual ignoring questions directly addressed to him.  It's a strange game trying to play Thai. 

In any case, Avi had heard really good things about Erawan Waterfall, so we thought it'd be worth checking out.  He parked the car, we hopped out, and we walked in through the entrance.  Keep in mind that the last waterfall we saw — the Haew Suwat, way back in Khao Yai — was basically situated right next to the parking lot.  Here at Erawan, the first thing we saw was a bunch of bamboo.

Then we saw monkeys.

After five minutes of walking, we finally saw water. 

This occasion led to arguably the most ridiculous photograph of the entire trip:

If you ever need to ruin a beautiful picture of nature, I'm your guy.  To this day, I have no idea what I was thinking when I struck that pose.  

Avi was a little more adventurous than me and decided to cross over the narrow log, with nothing separating him from the cool water below than his own balance.

After this episode, we continued following the trail.  What we saw next was just gorgeous:

The water was so clear, you could see the fish swimming below the surface:

Ten more minutes of walking brought us this scene:

By this point (1:10 PM), over half an hour had elapsed since we entered the park, and we were beginning to realize that — unlike Haew Suwat — this "walk from the parking lot" was turning out to be quite a hike.  Not only that, but it was a hike uphill with rugged terrain — and we'd brought neither water nor the proper attire.  But at least we got photos like this:

1:23 PM

1:27 PM

1:35 PM

It's a good thing I like hiking, because it wasn't until 1:50 PM — over an hour longer than we'd expected — when we finally reached the end of the trail.

Having successfully navigated the trail, we turned around and made our way back down the hill.  Avi put his best Tarzan skills to use

and I got one more scenic shot

before we finally arrived back at the park entrance at 2:37 PM.

After two hours of hiking, I downed two cans of iced tea and a bottle of water and slumped back in the car.  Not wanting to lose daylight, we immediately started back on the road.  Before long, we hit Sri Nakharin Dam:

Unfortunately, these pictures do it no justice at all — this dam was so enormous, it was actually intimidating to drive over it.  We were at a high elevation — from my shirt, you can tell how windy it was up there — and wanted to make our way downhill in time to make the hour-long drive to the Bridge over the River Kwai, so after a few minutes we got back in the car and headed back down.  

Some sights we saw en route to the bridge:

At 4:40 PM, we arrived.  The bridge differed more than I'd expected from its 1950s-era cinematic self — the surrounding shops and hotels certainly had a hand in the difference — but it still provided a pleasant sight at the end of a long day:

Immediately adjacent to this location, a World War II museum chronicles the history of the bridge.

While browsing the museum, we looked back at the bridge and saw that trains still run across it:

Following suit, we crossed the bridge as well.  Note that along the railroad tracks, there are no handrails — there are instead wide-open gaps through which multiple people could easily fall simultaneously.  Avi says he once crossed the bridge in the darkness of the night.  Lucky for him, he didn't end up at the bottom of the river.

Having gone without a proper meal all day, I was definitely ready for dinner by this point.  We went down to the Floating Restaurant, a full restaurant that floats along on a barge on the river.  From its vantage point, we had a great view of the bridge: 

I particularly like the first picture — you can see not only the bridge, but also the fish under it and the flowers on the shore. 

Now, the great thing about a floating restaurant is that, unlike a regular restaurant, there is a built-in mechanism for dealing with food you just can't eat.  The laab gai and ka prow gai I had at this place was easily some of the spiciest food I've ever had.  You know something is spicy when Avi, who has an inhuman tolerance for spicy food, needs to drink extra glasses of water to handle it.  It reached a point where we just couldn't eat any more of the spicy stuff... so we were left with extra food and a bunch of hungry fish.  See our solution.

After dinner, we embarked on the long drive back to Bangkok.  We arrived back at Avi's uncle's place at 9 PM; after resting for a bit, we made a second trip to Thon Krueng.

The adventure's nearly over — one full day left in Bangkok.

On 5 January 2005, it was 90°F during the day and 70°F at night.



Map of Central Thailand