I had the good fortune to travel with Ann to her family’s house outside of Bangkok in the town of Suphanburi. We stayed there one night and then we left for her father’s coffee and rubber farm near the Myanmar border. On the way there we visited historical places in Kanchanaburi like the River Kwai and the World War II cemetery there. I was really fortunate to have such good friends in Thailand. We awoke early the next morning, and they loaded up the family SUV and Op, Ann’s brother who was the family driver, took the wheel. They told me it would take four hours to get there and on the way we would stop at a waterfall and the River Kwai museum and bridge.
Our first stop was the town of Kanchanaburi, which is the biggest town in the area. In this town is the famous River Kwai bridgehead, a World War II museum, and a World War II cemetery. We entered the Jeath war museum, which is basically a little fake POW hut that holds pictures and other artifacts from the building of the bridge. At first I thought Jeath was just another funny misspelling by Thai people and that they intended the word “death,” but in fact it is an acronym for the countries involved in the building of the bridge. The acronym stands for J-Japan, E-England, A-Australia and America, T-Thailand, and H for Holland. The river Kwai Bridge was supposed to have taken five years to build, but due to the oppressive means used by the Japanese it was built in 16 months. 100,000 civilians died and around 16,000 POWs from various countries died from building the bridge due to the mistreatment and various jungle diseases.
Next, we drove to the actual bridge and Oat and I walked across while he told me what he knew about the history. The heat was the most oppressive heat I have ever felt. I was so hot I was woozy, and even though I was at a place where I really wanted to see, I was pretty indifferent to what was going on due to the heat. It was the kind of heat that just exhausted you almost immediately. It was so hot that even focusing attention was difficult. I walked through the hut like a zombie. Normally in World War II museums, I want to read everything, but in a trance I went through this one pretty quickly. Oat told me to take any pictures that I wanted to, but the effort of opening my fanny pack to get my camera was too in this stifling heat. I think I took one to pretend I was interested in order to appease my guests. I think the area we were in used to be a jungle, but the area has been completely deforested and in the place of the trees are fields of sugar cane. The area once was a jungle, so it was naturally very hot, but the loss of the jungle vegetation has made it even more hot.
After this we took off for the farm. In America when going somewhere we usually go like crazy to get there and then try to enjoy the time there as much as possible. Not so with Thai people. They take their time in all aspects of the journey. We stopped along the road to pick up fresh hand-picked vegetables, skin cream at a market, and we took several bathroom breaks. With seven people in a car it is hard to make good time. Each time we stopped I had no idea what we were doing and why we were stopping or for how long. At one point Op pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and just coasted for a second. Oat then informed me that the slope was downhill, but we were going backwards due to the magnetic field, and Ann’s dad wanted to experiment with the slope. Oat asked if I had ever seen this before. I was still a little punch drunk from the heat, but I looked ahead of me to see if I could ascertain the extent of the downhill slope. It looked pretty level to me, so the fact we were coasting backwards did not impress me, but I did not want to argue, so I said no I had not seen this before and agreed that it was quite amazing.
We finally got to their farm around 4pm and there was not much daylight left. Ann’s Dad owns a rubber tree farm and a coffee farm near the Western border of Myanmar. The rubber is harvested by these black cups that are placed around the tree fastened by a metal fastener. The tree is then cut open above the cup and then the liquid seeps into the cup. The liquid in the cup is then congealed somehow and produced into rubber. The farm was basically 100 acres with a couple of wooden shacks in the center of it. All of the workers on the farm are Burmese who had fled their country.
A National Park was adjacent to their property, so Op, Eve, Oat, Ann, Ann’s mother, and I then got back in the car and drove the couple of bumpy miles to the National Park entrance. We drove down this dirt road in the middle of nowhere and then came to the entrance to the park. There was a little hut at the entrance of the park with a barrier across the road. Ann went to the hut and registered us and then the girl in the hut pulled the drawstring and let us in. We drove around a couple of bends and then parked. There was a sign to the waterfall that said 800 meters. Ann and Ann’s mother stayed at the parking lot while the boys headed to the waterfall to play.
The waterfall was awesome and amazingly refreshing. Right below the waterfall was a really nice deep pool and after being in the hellish heat all day the water felt incredible. We swam for a time in the pool and then went above the waterfall and climbed up these rocks to another mini waterfall. Up above we could actually sit in these pools as the water rushed over us from above. It was great. One of the most amazing outdoor experiences I have ever had. I am sure there are some pretty venomous snakes in the area. Oat had told me that Ann almost died from being bitten by a snake near her farm. The boys did not seem worried, so I followed their lead and ran around the jungle trail with no fear. I have done some camping in poisonous snake territory in the U.S. and it is rare to see them since they are more afraid of you than likewise. I was pretty sure poisonous snakes in Southeast Asia acted the same.
The swim really revived me. I felt like a new person. Unfortunately, Ann was suffering from the heat and actually threw up on the way back to the farm. It was so hot even the Thais were suffering. On the way back to the farm, we stopped at a little store to get some drinks. Up to this point I had not paid for a thing and was a little worried about it. It was nice saving money, but I felt like a bit of a moocher. Ann’s parents had paid for everything so far. At lunch on this day I had asked Oat if I should pay for something. I wanted to pay for the whole lunch, but I was afraid of offending Ann’s parents by extending such an offer. Oat said not to worry about it, but just thank her parents. At this store I really was thinking on passing on beer as I was quite tired, but Oat said maybe I should buy some beer for Ann’s dad. Brilliant I said to Oat and bought 6 24 oz beers. No better way to thank hospitality then by buying the host beer. That is one of the many beautiful things about beer. If there is one thing that I am an expert on it was buying beer. This was right up my alley.
When we got back to the farm Ann joked that I was trying to get her father drunk. I felt like telling her that she might be the expert about traveling in Thailand, but I was the expert in buying beer. We got back to the farm and had dinner and drank beer and looked at the amazing stars. At one point there was a lively discussion about the size of Eve’s penis. Apparently his shorts had fallen off in the waterfall at one point and Oat had said it was a good thing I didn’t take a picture of it as I was snapping many pictures with my digital camera. I assured him if I did, I would promptly erase it. Eve was 16 and Ann and Op where 24 and 25, so poor Eve as the baby received the brunt of the joke-making in the family.
We had a great political discussion that night. This was on the eve of the Thai election, so we had talks about our relationship with their country. Apparently, Bush and their prime-minister Taksin get along quite well. They did not like Bush that much, but they said that the relationship between the two leaders was good for Thai business. Op then told me that at his university they had a refugee camp set up for the foreign tsunami survivors. He said that it was very sad as many of the survivors had only the clothes on their back as they lost all of their possessions and in some cases could not find any of their friends and families. He related that they were extremely unhappy, as you can imagine, and had this almost dead like look in their eyes as they had been completely devastated by the tragedy. We ate a variety of snacks for dinner. Everything cooked was done over the fire. They also had some rice set out. Ann’s father joked that it was a Thai barbeque. Although Ann’s parents could not speak English, it was easy to communicate with them as all three of their children spoke fluent English as did Oat. They were extremely pleasant people and I was very appreciative of their wonderful hospitality. We then went to sleep in their little hut. It was much cooler here as we were in the hills a bit, so it made for easy sleeping.
Traveling Ted 
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