Venturing to the River Kwai

   It was our first three-day weekend of the school year and we were set for our trip to Kanchanaburi! This is where the Bridge on the River Kwai is located. David flew in Thursday night and rented a car. For those of you who know David, you know he does not hesitate to take risks. I believe that renting a car in Bangkok is taking a risk (see David’s Indiana Jones post).     We headed out of town Friday morning with a guide book/map in hand (although this doesn’t matter much when there are no real road signs and if there are, they’re in Thai.  I love it when we drive by a sign and David says “What did that say?” “Hello, I speak Thai only nit noi (very little) and don’t read sanskrit!”) Luckily for us, there was a taxi driver out front waiting for someone else and we started talking about our trip. He set us on a route that took us on a much more picturesque drive! David skillfully maneuvered through the Bangkok suburb traffic and before long we were on country roads leading towards Kanchanaburi. We had eaten breakfast before we left but, of course, we started passing carts and you probably know the rest (similar to, “if you give a mouse a cookie,” but instead, “If you pass a cart on the side of the road, then David will have to stop"). We stopped at this cute little place on the side of the road.  No one spoke English and, again, we only new Thai nit noi! We ended up getting THE best duck soup with noodles and veggies. We are still talking about the tastiness of our lunch.
   Next stop was Kanchanaburi to see THE bridge. It was really interesting and in an amazing setting.  Of course there are now so many tourist type activities surrounding the area, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine what it might have looked like in 1943. There was still much vegetation. I started humming the song from the movie as we walked across the bridge.
   Next, we drove to where we would spend the next couple of nights –a lovely room in a lovely hotel built on a raft, floating on the river. If you took 6 steps through the sliding glass window, you would walk right into the River Kwai. We had some snacks and spent the rest of the evening watching the DVD, Bridge On the River Kwai.