~:[CH3 - Day 182]:~ Trekking to the Border

~:[CH3 - Day 182]:~ Trekking to the Border

It was really tough waking up in the morning, but I was able to get up and out the door by 4:30am for my drive out towards Kanchanaburi near the Thailand and Myanmar border for my tour for the day. The drive allowed me to catch up a little on sleep with a driver who spoke very little English. I wondered if this was my tour guide, but we ended up picking up our tour guide at the Death Railway. She explained to me that the movie Railway Man was shot here about the building of the railway during the war. As we walked across, the train came (one of three times during the day) and we had to walk to the side platforms, which was kind of cool to have it go by. We then headed to the elephant camp where I was treated to a good breakfast and then was trained to work with the elephants. I got the tour guides favorite elephant because she smiles a lot, but she also smiles a lot because she eats a lot. She kept wanting to eat and kept pulling me into the forest. I learned to control the elephant and much like a horse, to make it go straight and to the left and right. You can also have it raise her trunk and she kept wanting me to play with the leaves she picked up. She also could kneel so I could get off and on. I can't believe how sore this made me. She ended up tossing me around in the water a bit before I repaid the favor by scrubbing her down for her bath in the river. I also met a few new people from Ireland! Afterward we headed to the rest of the bridge that ran along the river Kwai, which was beautiful. We ended up in a cave that had a prayer spot within it and I learned a bit more about Buddhism. We then headed back to grab a quick lunch before heading to the tiger temple. It was a bit sad to see them out on chains in the temple, but knowing that they're only like this for a few hours during the day is comforting. Other than the birds, tigers and bears, the rest of the animals such as the wild boar, the deer, and the water buffalo among others roamed freely on the 200+ acre area. They had about 130 tigers but about 15 were out for people to see. I learned that each tiger would eat about 4-8 chickens per day depending on their size and would get a prize for being the ones showed off to the people. It was great seeing the monks up close with the tigers too, as you could see the connection between them. In any case, after another great Thai dinner, I "laid down" for a bit only to wake up much later after a long, but amazing day.