Around Bangkok

After staying for a few days in Bangkok we felt the strong urge to escape the noise, the pollution and the hectic. That's why we booked a day tour package to see some interesting places around Bangkok. Well we managed to escape noise and pollution... but not really the hectic. It turned out that our tour guide was a former army Sargent - at least this was our impression. We were more or less chased through the places at the various stops. It was actually a bit annoying but we enjoyed the trip nevertheless.

First stop: Military cemetery of the Second World War. A lot of soldiers died when Japan invaded this region. Many of them died during the construction of the Burma Railway. From Wikipedia:
The Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway, the Thailand-Burma Railway and similar names, is a 415 km (258 mile) railway between Bangkok, Thailand and Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), built by the Empire of Japan during World War II, to support its forces in the Burma campaign.
Forced labour was used in its construction. About 180,000 Asian labourers and 60,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. Of these, around 90,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the project. The dead POWs included 6,318 British personnel, 2,815 Australians, 2,490 Dutch, about 356 Americans and a smaller number of Canadians.

Second stop: The bridge over the river Kwai and the War Museum. The museum was mainly about the construction of the Burma Railway. The bridge was actually the most crucial point of the whole railway track. You might have heard of the bridge from the novel or the movie.

Third stop: Bamboo rafting and Lunch. Well, not much to tell here, wasn't exactly white water rafting...

Fourth stop: Waterfall. Nice waterfall and some lime stone formations. Due to the dry season it was a bit small though.

Fifth stop: Elephant riding. It's actually funny to ride on one of this big guys. It feels almost like on a ship.

Sixth stop: Tiger temple. The last stop was in the tiger temple. The temple had a tradition as sanctuary for various animals until one day a villager turned up with a injured tiger baby orphan. So they cared for this as well... and finally they got more and more and the grew bigger and bigger. Since they are used to people you can actually pet them. Still a bit scary though...

Seventh stop: Back to Bangkok. It was an interesting and entertaining trip. But sometimes the motto "less is more" definitely applies. If the schedule would have been less tight we'd enjoyed it even more.