March 1 - March 11, Ayutthaya - Kanchanaburi - Bangkok: Bike Fridays can go anywhere - Cycling in Thailand North to South 2010

March 1, 2010 to March 11, 2010

March 1 - March 11, Ayutthaya - Kanchanaburi - Bangkok: Bike Fridays can go anywhere

And now a brief account of the conclusion of our time in Thailand. I'll include bicycle-relevant information, a kind of raison d'être for the page since we are no longer touring.

From Ayutthaya to Kanchanaburi we took a mini-van instead of public buses so as to avoid a detour to Bangkok and a trek across the city to change buses. The mini-vans can accommodate 12 passengers, but it would be a tight fit if it were full. For our trip there were only four of us and our bikes, folded and in their bags, fit behind the last row of seats. Again, having folding bikes made travelling a lot easier.

The Bridge on the River Kwai, located in Kanchanaburi, was made famous by the 1957 Oscar-winning film starring Alec Guinness. The town itself is pretty touristy, very popular with the pierced and tattooed crowd and has a flourishing red-light scene. But you also have the opportunity to become more acquainted with the tragic and brutal background of the Death Railway which crossed the Kwai at Kanchanaburi.

In Kanchanaburi it was good to have bikes to get around as everything we visited was several kilometers apart. In addition to the JEATH War Museum and the War Cemeteries, we visited Wat Kao Pun and cave, located about five kilometers from town, and the Bridge on the Kwai, of course.

Bridge over the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi

Countryside on a little bike ride to the nearby Wat Kao Pun

Share the road: ride out of town to the caves, wat and war cemeteries

In 1942-43, during World War II, the imperial Japanese Army built a railway from Thailand to Burma. This railway, 415 kilometers long, and built through some of the most inhospitable disease ridden terrain in the world, was to supply the Japanese Army in Burma.

The railway was constructed using an absolute minimum of mechanical equipment and a maximum of human effort. The project resulted in a huge loss of life of the Allied Prisoners of War (POWs) and Asian forced labourers that were used to construct it. An estimated 13,000 POWs and 80,000 Asian labourers died of disease, exhaustation, starvation and brutality at the hands of the Japanese Army.

After the war the dead were collectively reburied in the War Cemeteries which you can visit. A daily train still follows the historical route from Kanchanaburi to Nam Tok Railway Station.

Immaculately kept War Cemeteries - today hard to imagine the conditions surrounding these men's deaths

So young, perhaps the first time he had ever been away from home ...

For a visit to the Erawan National Park and its waterfalls, the Hellfire Pass, the recently opened Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum and a short ride on the railway we signed up for a group tour. There were only six of us in the group and it was well worth the money. The distance to Hellfire Pass from Kanchanaburi is about 80 km.

Erawan National Park: Here you can hike to seven levels of waterfalls

At Hellfire Pass: Each sleeper (or tie, American usage) cost one human life.

The cutting at Hellfire Pass. Groups of men worked around the clock to complete the 17 meter deep and 110 meter long cutting through solid limestone and quartz rock in only 12 weeks. Konyu Cutting was nicknamed Hellfire Pass because of the eerie illumination at night from oil fired bamboo torches and carbide lamps that looked like "Fires of Hell".

Section of the Death Railway along the River Kwai

Finally, we got a comfortable mini-van for the trip back to Bangkok, more expensive than a public bus, but also more convenient. In this case, the driver said he couldn't guarantee room for our folded bikes so we offered to pay for two more seats which we felt was fair and the driver agreed to this solution. I have often read about overfilled mini-vans und undependable service. However, our experience in both cases was positive. Again, we were picked up at our hotel punctually and there were only two other passengers. We were dropped off not too far from our hotel in Bangkok, whereas the public buses would have stopped at the bus station in the north which would have meant a rather long ride through Bangkok's traffic.

Here some last impressions from our wanderings in Bangkok.

Tattoos for sale - ones that you can take off at night.

Kite flying is a tradition and an art in Thailand and is popular in Bangkok especially when in March it's still dry and a nice wind picks up in the evening. Sanam Luang is the favourite meeting place of kite fans and spectators.

The weather continued to be exceptionally hot for our final stay in Bangkok, around 36°C - 38°C (97°F - 100°F), cooling off to 31°C (88°F) in the evening. We had air-con and free wifi in our hotel which saved the day, or many days.

Early March in Germany looked different. When the plane descended we saw the countryside was covered in a blanket of fresh snow. Now we can look forward to the advent of spring and - cycling!

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