This is one of the most magical places I visited in Thailand last year, Erawan Falls. This little treasure is about 3 hours away from the main Bangkok city. There's one trail that passes through 7 different waterfalls. I wanted to share the little photos I took with you. It was such a beautiful place, I wish I could of stayed there all day exploring. However I have to admit I didn't get to fully appreciate the beauty of this place and I'll explain why below. But firstly I'll show you just how stunning the surroundings were.
To back track on why this beautiful experience was so rushed:
I actually hadn't heard about Erawan Fall or even intended to go there. However when I asked my guest house host to book me a private car to Kanchanaburi she was kind enough to create an itinerary of tourist places to check out on the way there. Why I wanted/needed to go to Kanchanaburi was to visit the War Cemetery there and place a few red poppies on a gravestone. It was a pretty important task as I was asked by my boyfriend's grandpa as his relative was buried at that cemetery (He was an Australian Prisoner of War). No other relative has been able pay the gravesite a visit, so it really would of meant a lot for my boyfriend's grandpa to put the poppies on his gravestone. So It was my last full day in Thailand and It was my last chance to get that task done.
The day came and I was all set to go to Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, all I wanted to do was put the poppies on the gravestone so I could relax knowing that it was done. What I didn't know was that Erawan Fall would be 2 hours further out than Kanchanaburi war cemetery. My driver was super nice but didn't speak a word of English. This made it difficult to know which stops would be first on our road trip and more importantly, the fact that Kanchanaburi war cemetery, the main reason for the trip, would be last on our itinerary.
The drive up was a long one. We had 6 hours of driving in traffic and our driver was not able to tell us where exactly we would be going. We had checked Google Maps to see how far from Kanchanaburi cemetery we were and discovered we had gone past it and were driving up through the country side. The scenery was very lush and beautiful as we drive along a winding ride, further and further from our actual destination.
Like I said, our guest house host had create an itinerary for us. One of those destinations was the Tiger Temple. We had seen this late the night before and if you have never heard of the Tiger Temple near Kanchanaburi, it is not a place you would want to go. The "temple" had recently made headlines for animal cruelty and other illegal activities such as exploiting the endangered tigers that were illegal imported from Laos. We wanted no part in this so we crossed it off our list and also let our driver know by showing him the crossed off name in Thai and he acknowledged this and off we went.
At least that is what we thought. The car started to slow down along the winding road and turn to the right. Our hearts dropped when we saw the big entrance to the Tiger Temple and our driver turning right in. Had we really just driven 2 hours out of the way for something we definitely didn't want to spend money on? We didn't know what to do. We didn't want to tell the driver he had just taken us all this way and we didn't even want to go, fearing he wouldn't understand why. We also didn't want to just suck it up and pretend to have fun at such an awful place so we were basically paralysed.
Relief came when we discovered the place was pretty much abandoned. There were only a few cars in the parking lot and a few Thai people hanging around. Turns out the government had shut it down just a few days earlier and that was the end of the Tiger Temple. The driver wasn't too phased and was more concerned about our disappointment than anything else. We drove out of there and turned right once again, still heading away from Kanchanaburi meaning we weren't going out of our way after all, where on earth were we going then?
After a little more driving, we reached Erawan Falls. As much I wish I did take the time to enjoy such a magical place that took so long to get too, in the moment I was sadly stressed that there wouldn't be enough time to make it too the cemetery. But I'm glad to have snapped a few beautiful pictures as evidences of once having been at such a beautiful place.
After Erawan Fall, the driver turned the car around and we FINALLY headed back and arrived at the most important destination which was running through my mind all day. Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.
Kanchanaburri
I hope you enjoyed this post and I'll catch you guys next time.
Post a Comment