Kanchanaburi Day 2 - Erawan Falls

On our second day in Kanchanaburi, we signed up for a tour to the seven-tiered Erawan falls. I wasn't particularly excited - we had seen waterfalls in Khao Yai, and I wasn't dressed appropriately for trekking, and once again I had forgotten my swimsuit. But, I had no better plans, so I went along with Charnice and a young woman from London we met at the Tiger Temple, Rhianna. I wasn't expecting much.

It was phenomenal.

The trail from the base to the seventh and highest level was 1.5 km long - about a mile. Yet it was the most difficult and exciting hiking I have ever done.


The first level was called Hlai Keun Lung. A lot of families with young children were there, picnicking and swimming in the shallow water. It was pretty but not exceptional. We moved on.











The second level was called Wang Mut Cha, and was where the photo in our guidebook of this place had been taken. There's a rock in the middle of the falls that almost always has somebody posing for a picture on it. This level was also very crowded, so we kept going. Before the third level was a check point, where you were not allowed to bring food past, hence the preponderance of families eating at the lower falls.









The third level was Pha Nam Tok, and there we saw butterflies. Small and white, they hurtled over the falls and formed tornadoes around the swimmers below. We had noticed clusters of them farther down, but here they flowed in an unending stream. The higher we climbed, the more we saw, until I was half-convinced we would find at the seventh level a machine expelling a neverending supply of butterflies like snow. They never really showed up in the pictures, but if you look closely just to the right of the top of the fall, they are those white specks that look like water.







The fourth was called Oag Nang Pee Suar. There were backpackers there jumping from the rocks or sliding down their faces. We watched one girl psych herself up for about five minutes, and finally stand up to jump, when someone - I guess a park ranger - blew his whistle and motioned her to sit back down. It looked dangerous, but when does that stop anyone?










At the fifth level, Buar Mai Long, people were likewise jumping, but off much smaller ledges. This level wasn't particularly exciting or pretty - just a good place for families with children to swim.









The sixth level was high and pretty, but impossible to get a good photo of through the trees. Dong Pruek Sa was the only level that did not have people swimming in it, as I remember, since there was no easy way to get down to the water.


The signs posted with the names told the distance to the next tier. This told us that the distance to the seventh fall was 200 m. And perhaps that was accurate, but only when measured straight up. To get to the end of the trail was truly an Indiana Jones-style endeavor. We climbed wooden staircases, each more broken and rotted out than the last. We clambered over rocks and skirted ledges with ten foot drops, and got lost wandering in lesser falls. We walked through water and crossed the ever-so-cliched log bridge, and astonishingly none of us fell. Finally we made it to the end of the trail.



There was no butterfly machine there, but they get streaming over the top of Phu Pa Erawan. So perhaps the butterfly maker was higher. The falls here were small, and formed a lot of icy pools that were filled with people tired from their climb in the rapidly-increasing heat. Rhianna and Charnice swam a bit, while I wrote, took pictures, and ended up falling in the water anyway. But the bugs were out for blood at that level, so we decided to retreat. On the way back down, we came across monkeys, one of whom calmly sat eating an orange and staring straight into the camera lens pointed her way. Apparently they sometimes steal people's unattended bags - one of the unexpected hazards of the jungle.




We eventually found ourselves at the third level again, and that is where we stayed for the rest of our time at the park. I once again threw caution and dryness to the wind in the face of yet another cave-behind-a-waterfall, and swam out through the murky turquoise water with tiny fish nibbling at my feet. Charnice and I crawled over the rocks under the white water and sat behind the falls for an hour, while Rhianna sat on the rocky shore. Water dripped off the stalagtites that has formed in there, landing on our heads and in pits eroded into the rocks. We were surrounded on all sides, by water to the front, rock behind and left, and a curtain of tree roots to our right, small ones in nerve-like bundles and thicker vines dangling to catch the water. Outside the heat had become almost intolerable, but behind the falls I almost shivered in the cool breeze that whipped spray back in my face.



After we left Erawan falls, we were taken to see the Bridge Over the River Kwai. I have yet to read the book and never saw the movie, and the "guide" did little more than drive us from place to place. But some photos and captions told me the briefest overview of its history: built in WWII by POWs, mostly Australian and British, captured by Japanese forces (as Thailand was officially allied with Japan in WWII). It was first built of wood, then of steel two years later. It was bombed by Allied forces, despite the Japanese tying POWs on the bridge to discourage it.



It is no longer used as a railway bridge - instead, throngs of street vendors crowd around the end of it, capitalizing on the tourist caravans here. You can walk out on the bridge; steel plates are bolted between the rails, which are barely wide enough for two people to shuffle past one another. On either side is a long, long drop to the river, with no safety rails. In fact, nothing has safety rails here - they just let survival of the fittest run its course.

But anyway, I now need to read that book.



This is the last picture update you'll get for a little while - Charnice and I are leaving tonight to take a train up to Chiang Mai for five nights. An update while we're up there is possible - it's the biggest city in northern Thailand, replete with internet cafes. We'll be there for the Thai New Year, Songkran, aka The Nation-Wide Water Fight. Also on the list of Top Ten Parties world wide to go to. Due to the aqueous nature of the festivities, I doubt I'll get many pictures. But I shall describe it in great detail when we return.

And for those with another holiday in mind for this weekend - Happy Easter. I wish Songkran included Cadbury eggs, but alas, such is not meant to be.