for the final stretch

After our long and draining day visiting Hellfire Pass the day before our final day of the tour started off quite relaxing as our only task for the day was to return to Bangkok.


We left our hotel at about 10am for the 2 and a half hour journey back.


Upon arriving in Bangkok we had to wait a short while before checking in, then some of headed back to Khao San Road for lunch and I was desperate to have a foot massage. 


Then relaxed and got ready for our final group dinner - a night river cruise. It was a lovely way to end the trip cruising the river, catching the sights of Bangkok by night.

Our wonderful tour guide Raht

My roomie for the past 10 days.

And so that ended my tour in Thailand. It was a wonderful trip with some awesome people! The trip I did was with Intrepid Travel. This is the second tour I have done with them and again they did not disappoint. I love the local feel they give to their tours and also their stand for responsible tourism. If you want to check out the tour I did click here....

If you missed any of my other posts about this tour check them out below:

• The flight, the first impressions & the group meet up
• 
  
• The grand palace, the crazy cat-fish & the long train journey
• 
  
• The pedicure, the blessing & the dinner show
• 
  
• The cooking class, the night market & the lady boys
• 
  
• The factory tours, the hill tribe and H'Mong Lodge
• 
  
• The elephant hospital (*warning...cute elephant pictures!)
• 
  
• The Sukhothai Historical Park
• 
  
• The Thai-Burma Railway Museum, the War Cemetery & Hellfire Pass

Have you ever been to Thailand?

What was your highlight?

Linking up with My Brown Paper Packages, With Some Grace and A Brit and a Southerner

for one thing I would change

I must confess....I wish I had started travelling earlier. I also wish I had paid more attention in History and Geography classes and I wish that I understood more about the world and the countries in it.


Unless you are really new around here then you would know that I am currently overseas. I have been OS for about 3 and a half weeks now and have just under 4 to go before returning home from this trip.


Having spent time in Thailand I am now in Cambodia volunteering at a Child Care Centre and already dreading the thought of having to leave. I live at a volunteer house and apart from one volunteer who is the same age as me, all the other volunteers and quite young. Many of them on their GAP year or on break from University Studies. 


I really envy them giving themselves this opportunity and wish I had done the same. 


To be honest though I don't think it was even put forward to me as an option. When I finished High School the done thing was that you went on to University. Also given the fact that I was still very much financially dependent on my parents, travelling was out of the question.


I have traveled on and off over the past 10 years but really wish I had done more when I was younger. It is very much a catch 22 though, as if I hadn't made the decisions I had made back then, then who knows where my life would be at right now and if I would have met the people I have if I had done things a little different.


If this trip is teaching me anything at the moment it is that I cannot take anything for granted and I am extremely lucky to have led, and continue to lead, a very privileged life and for that I am truly truly grateful. 


Linking up my short and sweet confession with Kirsty at My Home Truths and Alicia at One Mother Hen. I have been away over the weekend and am not feeling the best so will get back into soon I promise!


Over to you...

 is there one decision in the past that you would go back and change if you could?

for Hellfire Pass,Thai-Burma Railway Museum & War Cemetery & the Bridge over River Kwai

An emotional day as we headed off to visit Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum and the site of Hellfire Pass. 

The museum was built and is maintained by the Australian Government and opened in 1998 and is dedicated to the Allied Prisoners of War and Asian Labourers who suffered and died at Hellfire Pass and other parts of the region during WWII. For more information on how the museum came about click here.

We listened to some audio as we wandered towards the site.

Once we spent some time wandering around the site, which I found quite emotional, I decided to take a different track back to the museum. One that the POWs would have taken back to their campsites, although I am pretty sure they didn't have stairs, to try and get a feel for the gruelling conditions that would have been faced with. 

We then spent time in the museum, reading timelines and seeing artefacts from the times. To be honest my knowledge of the events that unfolded in the area was somewhat limited, so I found a lot of the pictures and information quite confronting. 

From there we drove to Nam Tok train station to catch the train from there to Tha Kilane station. Raht had warned us that although the train was meant to leave at 1pm, it was often delayed....and that it was. 

We killed some time by checking out some nearby waterfalls and markets

It was 2:45pm before the train left, which put us way behind schedule and meant our time at the next few stops was limited. 

View from the train of the River Kwai

We only had about 45 minutes to look through the Thai-Burma Railway Museum and again it was an emotional and overwhelming walk through, reading the facts, stories and recounts from the soldiers that had been there during the war.

I wanted to go over to the War Cemetery to pay my respects to the 2802 Australian Soldiers that are buried there. I walked down as many rows as I could in the time I had allocated and whispered each one of their names as I went. 

From there we took ricksaws to the Bridge over River Kwai and I seemed to chose the most unfit driver of all! 

We had a little time to watch the sunset and enjoy the atmosphere, including the cutest little group of kids who were busking, before it started raining. We then caught a minivan to a restaurant near our motel.

Today was definitely an exhaustive day both emotionally and mentally but definitely another highlight of the trip.


Linking up with Grace from With Some Grace for FYBF and A Brit and a Southerner for Weekend Wanderlust.

for Sukhothai Historical Park

Our earliest start yet, we were up and had to be ready to leave by 8am, leaving the gorgeous resort behind us for a short drive into Sukhothai Historical Park. 

We went straight to the bicycle hire shop to get fitted for our bikes and helmets. I will admit to being a little apprehensive as it has been many many years since I have ridden a bike, but it really was something you do not forget.

It really was just like riding a bike!

Sukhothai means 'Dawn of Happiness' and the park is home to about 193 ruins on 70 square kilometres of land.

We set off to visit 3 of the main sets of temple ruins. At our first stop we noticed some gorgeous little school children walking towards us and their teachers allowed us to take photos with them. 

Of course my eyes are closed!

I think the teachers were more into the photos than the kids were!

We then rode on to Wat Mahathat, which was the biggest of the 3 temples we visited. 

Some impressive fingernails right there!!

After we spent time exploring here we returned to find that the bike hire people, who rode behind us in a ute in case of a breakdown, had turned all our bikes around to face out! How cute are they! Some of us joke about being a pushbike version of Sons of Anarchy as we all mounted our pushies and took off one at a time after each other!

We then rode on to Wat Sri Sawai.

Our final ride was a little longer and involved leaving the park and riding on a main rode for a little bit to the amazing Wat Si Chum.

Again with the gorgeous gold fingernails!

 Afterwards we rode to a little picnic area and were fed the most amazing home cooked meal by the people from the bike hire place. The food was the best yet (although I think I have said that a few times already!)

We then rode back to the shop, hopped back on the bus to drive about 450km to Kanchanaburi which took about 7 hours due to the road and traffic conditions.

Make sure you have Sukhothai on your Northern Thailand travel list!!

Linking up with My Brown Paper Packages for Wednesday Wanderlust, Ms Mystery Case for Worth Casing Wednesday and Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday!  

to visit the Elephant hospital

On day 6 of our tour we visited the Friends of Asian Elephants hospital about an hour south of Chiang Mai.


Within minutes of me posting this picture on my instagram I was receiving likes and it is now one of my most 'liked' pics from my tour so far.


I also posted the picture on Google+ in a Nature Community. I had posted an explanation at the top of the picture that this little guys Mum had been injured and died from stepping on a land mine and that he was now being cared for at the hospital as he would not have survived otherwise.


Again the photo seemed popular and has had over 60 likes and 3 shares, but not long after posting it there I got this comment

Now given the number of full stops, exclamation marks and some of the words being obvious I knew this was not a "hey, your photo is wonderful" type of comment. I clicked on the translation button out of curiosity 

I tried to respond and agree with the comment and explain the situation but the person who wrote the comment wasn't interested. 

The elephant hospital was founded in 1993 by Soraida Salwala, who has a strong love and desire to help the elephants of Thailand. Elephants in Thailand are a rapidly dying breed, with them estimating there are only around 2000 elephants left in the wild. They are faced with issues such as being used illegally in elephant camps, spending their days working up near the Thai-Burma Border and being used to perform in circus type acts and for tourists to ride. It cannot really be known how these elephants are being treated to be able to be tamed and safe to ride.

Soriala's dream and vision is to help as many elephants as possible and to educate people on the proper treatment of these animals. Any elephant is welcomed at the hospital and they receive free vet care whilst they are patients.


When we first arrived we were seating in a viewing area and shown a short video, that I am pretty sure was filmed for Australian TV for one of those shows like Getaway or some show like that.

We then wandered around and were told about each of the 'patients' at the hospital. Their 'most famous' patient being Motala, who had part of her leg blown off when she was working in an elephant camp and stepped on a land  mine. Over time she has been fitted with a prosthetic leg and is able to move around the hospital relatively normally for short periods of time. She is now a permanent resident of the hospital.

There are 5 permanent residents at the hospital now, some that have been dropped off by farmers from elephant camps after they have been injured and a couple of little young ones who have been abandoned by their mothers or their mothers have died and they would have most certainly met the same fate had they been left.

The elephant hospital is run soley off donations and fundraising efforts and receives no support from the Thai government.

The hospital has a large amount of land and backs on to some jungle and scrub land and the elephants have certain times of the day when they are free to roam the grounds and interact with each other.

In a perfect world there would be no illegal logging using elephants, no animals being held in captivity for what ever reason whatsoever, but we do not live in a perfect world. So while people may not like the idea of these elephants being chained in their enclosures for many hours a day, I would hate to think what would happen to them if there wasn't a place like this in Thailand for them to go and receive treatment and be looked after by people who truly care about them.

After this visit we went to a local cafe nearby for lunch where our tour guide Raht turned waitress as the level of English by the local waitresses was pretty low.

Tour Guide turned waitress!

The food at this stop was delicious and some of the cheapest on our trip. My meal and bottle of water cost me 75 Baht, which is just less than $3AUD! Crazy!!


From there we traveled for about three and a half hours on the bus to arrive at our amazing resort in Sukhothai just in time for a quick swim before dinner.

Linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT!!


**Side note: I am feeling so far behind in blogging about this trip as it seems like so long ago already! I am currently in Cambodia and about to start my volunteer placement! I am going to try hard to catch up as soon as possible!**