Trip to Kanchana Buri, "railway to hell"

Well, Kancanaburi is where the famous Bridge over the river Kwai is, so that's why this is called the railway to hell. Apartt from that I can just say it was a very boring, tour-operated town, so off I went to the exotic bordertown of SangklaBuri, bordering Myanmar. The view as the bus drove around the last hill before showing SangklaBuri was stunning, especially after two weeks of capital Bkk. Yes, this was a good place to breath in some fresh air: a big lake runing across the border, and hiding some traditional tribal villages along it's banks, mountains older than Roland Lomme's second chin and everywhere monsoon-forest, being gren at this time on account of the ending of the rainseason. Looking across the lake was like looking at one of these Japanese paintings from lakes with mountains disappearing behind each other and into the ether. But then in full colour. I decided to give the eco-trekking a try, and next morning we set out in a longtail boat across the lake, enjoying the scenery pass by.

Later I enjoyed a pleasant form of sea-sickness as I sat on the back of an elephant, cruisin' the jungle and wading trough rivers. I felt like the late Mr. Genghis Khan, marching towards yet another victorious battle, trying not to feel sick and look ferocious.
After the elephant ride (I'm still not sure if Genghis Khan ever actually rode an elephant) it was time for some picnic, and then on to the Bamboo-rafts and into the river. It got pretty wild from time to time, but all in all it was a relaxed ride down the river, nothing close to Deliverance, apart from the apparent inbreds that populated the river's banks and seemed happy to sit there all day, fishin and grinning at no one in particular. We made a small stop on our way back to the longtail boat, and at first I wondered why this was done. Just a rocky riverbank with nothing to see or do. But then, as we set foot on the rocks, a school of butterflies swarmed up into the sky and fluttered all around us, mainly two schools I guess, one sticking to monochrome yellow, but a happy yellow none the less, and the other in stylish Black and White. After some snapshots we continued our rafting-adventure and arrived back at the longtail-boat.

Some locals were smoking odd-shaped cigarettes, and playing a local form of bowling, consisting of small flat stones being placed in grooves in the earth, and trying to topple as many as possible in one strike with another flat stone. These tribes rocked! Playing bowling and smoking what looked like huge spliffs but then backwards! Later, when we were on our way back to the wood and stone bungalows that seemed like they came from some Alp and had been mixed with a stone-rock house from the Pyrenees, we saw an artefact hidden under the cool waters of the lake; a drowned stupa. This place felt like magic. The weeds in the water moved like in slow-motion, and I felt like sirens were singing to me to join them in the waters. I stayed put however, knowing very well that soon I would be in Bangkok again and there would be more than enough sirens to be enchanted by.

Actually, it didn't take until Bangkok, and no, this isn't yet another tale of corrution of the morals, rather a celebration of it. As I climbed in the back of a pick-up truck, I joined a gang of locals looking eerily at this cowboy joining them. (I was boldly wearing a white hat that was on my head mostly for it's protectional capacities than it's appearance, altough I kinda got attached to it pretty soon.) Before I entered the pick-up, I had exchanged short glances with three schoolgirls crossing the street. They climbed aboard the old vehicle as well. I felt like a sixteen-year old teenager, blushing under my white Stetson (Okay, not a real one, more like a Setsun or something) trying not to get caught looking at the tallest one of them. She was doing the same thing. We couldn't help but blush and try to keep from grinning. It was all pretty harmless, and apart from being a little bit too old and a little bit too foreign I think our children would have been the most beautiful little angels running around on this planet. No, that's just the butterflies talking in my stomach. It all ended after a couple of long minutes when her friends got out and she followed them, looking over her shoulder one more time before I disappeared into the sunset. The old woman with the missing teeth across from me gave me the eye as I sighed, and I started humming quietly, feeling complete and utterly content with all of it. I'm a poor, a lonesome cowboy...