Don't listen to a ladyboy

I was trying to decide what to do while in Kanchanaburi. I thought about booking a tour to eliminate a lot of the hassles that come with doing things on your own. Tours are also a good way to meet new people. Unfortunately, the tour I wanted to go on, didn't have the minimum number of interested people. I really wanted to see Hellfire Pass, 70km outside of Kanchanaburi, which Travelfish says is outstanding, but apparently nobody else was interested.

I inquired with the ladyboy receptionist at my guesthouse about renting a motorbike. Not a good idea, she said in other words. Basically it sounded like an arduous journey and I was responsible if something were to go wrong with the bike. Hmmm, I thought, maybe it's best to just take public transportation. It seemed quite easy according to Travelfish. How to get there: The museum is on Route 323, around 70km west of Kanchanaburi town. Any bus to Thong Pha Phum or Sangkhlaburi will pass by here.

Getting a relatively late start, I walked down the road looking for some help to the local bus station. It was about 10am. I skipped breakfast as I usually do, but I was feeling the need to consume something as the last thing I ate was a half-consumed red curry for dinner the previous night, which didn't hit the spot. I never leave anything half-consumed. Post red curry, a few Sang Som and Cokes went down smoothly even though technically the night before and day of a national election, bars aren't supposed to sell or serve alcohol. Shhhh! 

I think that's why I needed to eat something. Sang Som sneaks up on you. It seemed to give me such a weak buzz after three glasses, but this morning I had a minor headache that kept hanging on so I wanted to consume something to help 'absorb' the alcohol that was still wrecking havoc on my body. It was probably due to the lack of calories in general as I'm accustomed to eating a larger portion for dinner. When it's good, it all goes down. When it's not, it stays on the plate.

So, back to the story. I'm walking on the street and I turn around to find a motorbike with sidecar approaching. Not a real sidecar, but something called a saleng. We negotiated the price to the bus station and I hopped in. It was like a cage on wheels with a roof and a bench. Not the safest place to be if there was an accident, but let's go!

We arrived at the bus station at ten after ten. I found the sign for Thong Pha Phum and Sangkhlaburi and could see some passengers were already waiting on the bus. I remember reading this was a once-every-50-minutes bus and I had no idea when the last bus departed. Afraid of getting off the bus to get some food and having it leave without me, I decided to wait it out. I ended up waiting for 45 minutes. I was not happy and getting extremely irritable.

Moving now, the breeze coming in through the windows at least relieved some of the tension. The only food I saw on the 1 hour 45 minute journey was sold by two women on the bus about 50 kilometers in. One selling chicken satay and the other iced cola and coffee in plastic bags. I'll wait til I get there. The money collector eventually motioned to my stop, I got off and I quickly saw there was absolutely nothing being sold in this relatively barren stretch of highway. Fuuuuuck. 

I walked and walked down this road, befriended an ostrich, the highlight of the day and continued on to the museum. They didn't sell any food either. It was a really good museum as far as museums go. Very informative and not too overwhelming as museums tend to be. However, I did feel like I was reading the same information over and over and over again. The urge to eat had diminished. I was now officially starving. I left the museum after about an hour, which is a long time for me. And upon my exit, I found a cooler of water, to my excitement. The best bottle I've had in some time.

 

But I wasn't finished. I still had to see 'the cutting' - the place where so many POWs and laborers had met their end in building the railroad from Thailand to Burma for the Japanese during WWII. I left the museum around 1:50pm and was finally walking back to the street nearly an hour later hoping to catch the next bus, which happened to whiz by me at that moment, full, before I could cross the street and get to the bus stop. Shit, shit and shit.

I waited in this overheated bus shelter with another woman and her crying baby for just over an hour. The bus finally came at 3:45pm and it was packed. We climbed aboard and fought for a spot and I tried not to stick my underarm, which I had forgotten to deodorize this morning, in someone else's face. And we stood all the way til we reached Kanchanaburi. I had to hold my breath or rather, b-r-e-a-t-h-e, to make it through this agonizing hour and a half.

One hand on my mobile because you never know in crowded situations like that and one hand on the bar above my head, fighting for foot position and trying not to inhale this guy's hair in front of me. All in all it was a very miserable experience. But we made it! And I was both surprised and relieved when we pulled into what appeared to be the bus station. Could it be? Yes!! I hopped off the bus relieved to breathe fresh air and move freely once again. It was 5:25pm. I went to the 7/11 and caught a motorbike taxi back to my guesthouse.

Nearly EIGHT hours from door to door and all I saw was this fucking museum. And it was definitely not outstanding. Good? Yes, but only if you take a tour or rent a motorbike. Public transportation? Forget about it. I couldn't think of a bigger waste of time. I was exhausted and nowhere near actually starving, but the hungriest I've been in recent memory. The throat lozenge I had this morning hardly counted as food. And now, I sit here unable to move and unwilling to do anything that requires me to expend energy. Only three things remain on my to do list this evening: eat, massage and sleep.