Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!

The thirteenth of January was to be our last full day in Bangkok. We had one thing left on our long to-do list and booked a tour for it. We were going to go to the floating market and River Kwae. We were picked up early, really early by our guide for the day and drove around Bangkok picking up some other people along the way. It took quite a while to get out of the congested city, and a little longer still to reach our destination. Our destination was a pier near the floating market. Francesca and I jumped in a longboat and off we went. It took approximately 15 minutes to reach the market proper. We already got a little taste of life on the water, because our surroundings were reminiscent of a place like Venice.



As we got near I spotted the sign and knew we were there. The boat moored and Francesca and I walked into a madness of souvenirs. Not local produce or anything… No, it was all China-ware and all the stalls were stuffed with it. We wondered if it had been any better many years ago before all the tourists started visiting. Luckily this wasn’t the floating market yet; we still had some hope left of seeing something better. Our guide made sure we bought some tickets to explore the market by longboat and soon we were off in a cramped boat, amongst the hordes.



To explain a little about the Damnoen Saduak floating market: Since there’s so much water around here, a market on land is not viable. People couldn’t cross all that water, so they figured: why not hold the markets on the water? Everybody had a boat anyway, and could easily put their wares on it. The floating market was born. At first, the people only sold or traded their extras to other villagers, but when the market became a tourist attraction they added souvenirs to their inventory. Nowadays the touristy crap far outnumbers the traditional goods. Unfortunately, our visit only added to the promotion of the above.



The local woman that manned (womanned?) the boat paddled us around, taking us all the way to the end of the market. The best part of the market definitely was the food. Francesca and I saw a number of villagers cooking up food and several boats were loaded with fresh vegetables and fruits. We made a mental note to come back to two boats with some very tasty-looking chicken and a snack we hadn’t seen before. The tour continued with some more desperate salespeople trying to shove some souvenirs in our face. Other people on our boat bought some stuff, so we got off easy.











We finished our tour and had about 20 minutes left to grab a bite, before moving on to the next part of the daytrip. Francesca got her chicken-on-a-stick and very tasty coconut on cream (Francesca calls it a ‘Marshmallow fluff’) in paper dough. We even got some for free! I took a few more pictures of the market and off we went! Our guide gave us the option of doing a short trek on elephant back, or a visit to a ‘spectacular’ cobra show. We knew the elephants would come later on our trip and opted for the snakes instead.







The show had just started, but we got some premium seats in the small arena. We were right on time to see one of the trainers pulling a big cobra out of a bag. He started pissing it off, and the cobra puffed out its signature neck. Handling the very poisonous snake is dangerous business, but the man managed to keep the snake at a distance. He tapped the floor next to it, making it aim for spots that he’d just left. Next, he grabbed the snake and milked it. He was holding a see-through cup and made the snake bite it. We could see the fangs and the poison from up-close as he walked through the audience, cobra in hand. Francesca was especially excited to hear that the male cobra is very well endowed: it has not one, but TWO little love snakes!





The cobra was bagged and a mongoose in a glass cage was brought out. Another cobra came out of a bag and set loose in the cage. Mongooses are one of the few animals that can handle a cobra in a fight, and we were going to see that live. However, the first cobra showed no interest in the mongoose, and the mongoose chilled out as well. The trainer took the cobra out and grabbed another one. This one proved to be livelier and went after the mongoose. The mongoose dodged it and grabbed its neck, quickly ending the fight. The trainer stepped in and saved the cobra from certain death. Cool fight!





Another guy stepped up and we heard he was going head to head with a jumping snake. Yes, you heard that right! He grabbed the snake, aggravating it and sending it leaping after him. The man had to be very quick on his feet to dodge the amazingly fast snake. Francesca and I then got to see the king of the jungle: a young python. This one was a baby at only 3-4 meters (10-12 ft.), but we heard they can reach lengths of up to 30 meters (100 ft.). I would not want to find that in my back garden! The python was captured by 3 trainers and it was shown to the audience, fangs out. We got to see the impressively long line of fangs that filled the python’s mouth.





The final act of the afternoon was one trainer versus three poisonous snakes. The man tried to get all 3 of them to attack him at the same time, but truth be told: there was always one that tried to slither off. Still, we had fun watching him controlling and watching the three serpents, always careful not to be bit. The most notable feat came last: the man grabbed one snake in each of his hands, leaving one snake free. What do you think he used to capture it? That’s right, his teeth! It took him a while to get the snake in the right position, but after a few minutes he dived for the snake and had it safely (and unharmed) between his teeth.



The show ended and Francesca and I walked around the little ‘zoo’ for a while. There was a veritable collection of cobras from Asia present, along with alligators, monitor lizards and a wide variety of other serpents. Francesca found her new favorite snake here: the long-nosed green snake. There must have been over a 100 in the small enclosure. Our guide then dragged us off – we had to go to the next destination. This destination was a little batik workshop. They tried to sell us wares, but we sneaked off and relaxed for a while.





Lunch was coming up and we stopped along the road somewhere, food waiting for us. A whole table filled with rice, sweet and sour chicken, vegetables and soy sauce pork was ready to be eaten when we arrived. It tasted pretty good and certainly filled us up. Our guide took us apart and gave us a choice: we could go see the Tiger Temple, a temple where monks hold tigers, or the River Kwae Bridge and Museum. I was much more excited about the latter and we told the guide to take us there, whilst the rest of our group went to the Tiger Temple.

Here's a little information about the bridge in case you know little about it.
According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission:"The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar). Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre."

Also, both spellings 'Kwae' and 'Kwai' are accepted. For the sake of the post I've used 'Kwae' as the standard spelling.

We got dropped off and told we had about two hours to explore the whole place. It was quite big, so we started with the museum. Francesca and I were surprised to find a lot of information on the kingdoms that had ruled the area. We glanced at everything, but since we didn’t come here to learn more about ancient history F. and I chose not to stick around for too long. Instead, we climbed to the top of the museum and found ourselves on a platform overlooking the River Kwae and the Bridge. Quite cool! We took some pictures and headed back down to find the War Museum. It happened to be across from the local museum, what a surprise. Before we entered I spotted an iguana on the floor, sitting quietly. Somebody else was petting it, so I made sure to touch its leathery skin and have Francesca do the same. It freaked her out a little, but she managed to overcome her fears and had a feel as well.





Before entering the photo exhibition, Francesca spotted a large WWII bomb that had not detonated. Inside, we found a large selection of handguns (Lugers), rifles (Kars) and bones of some of the people that did not survive the war. The photos covered the walls and were quite telling. Skinny prisoners-of-war in cramped spaces looking at the camera with hollow eyes, pictures of the bridge under construction, as well as a random selection of drawings of happenings in Thai history. Even more gruesome were the remains of 106 prisoners who died during the war, and a coffin of an American soldier.





We went outside and more or less found the rest of the museum down some stairs. The signposting was very ‘less is more,’ so we were quite lucky to find it. The first thing we noticed was the availability of genuine British helmets from WWII for a mere 90 USD. The walls were covered in stories of the end of ‘The Bridge over the River Kwae.’ Francesca and I had watched the classic ‘Bridge over the River Kwai’ just a few weeks ago, and we learned that there are quite a few inconsistencies between the movie and the actual facts. For example, there were almost as many Dutch prisoners as there were British. We also read how the Japanese army tried to prevent the bombing of the bridge by sending out the prisoners onto the bridge. However, the Allies attacked regardless, killing many of their Allied comrades in the process - hence the nickname ‘The Death Railway.’ We spotted an example of the wagons prisoners were kept in, as well as the remains of the original – much smaller – bridge over the Kwae.







It was time to check out the bridge from up close! Francesca and I stopped at a rusty old train, once used on the tracks over the Kwae. On our way to the bridge I spotted a local with his young leopard, lying around on a table. For a few Baht we could take a picture with it. I just took one from a distance, whilst the man was busy talking to someone else! We got near the bridge and saw we could just walk all the way to the other end. We started our little journey on the tracks, crossing a bridge that cost the lives of so many men not so long ago. A train is still used to show the lazier tourist what the bridge is all about, and we actually had to jump on a safety platform or two to safe our dear lives. We walked to the other end, taking some nice pictures of the bridge and surroundings, before returning to the start.









Here, we picked up two ice-creams and soon spotted our tour group. They had just arrived and had some time to check out the bridge as well. Francesca and I had a look at the WarWall, dedicated to the casualties of the war, either by weapon or by labor. We also had a quick look in a jewelry store. Finally, our guide picked us up and it was time for the long drive back to Bangkok. A good three hours later we were finally back, after having been dropped off at the wrong BTS station by our kind driver. The detour aside, a very successful day! I packed up our backpacks and got everything ready for departure at 4 in the morning.