This time, the real one. Almost. The railway is indeed the Burma railway, built during the WW2 by the Japanese using some 160k Asian slave workers and 40k allied POWs. The bridge was also there but not the river itself. The award winning movie made the setting famous, so in in 1960 the Thai government renamed the Mae Klong river as Kwai. The steel bridge was originally constructed in Java but was dissembled in 1942 and rebuild here. Some of the original trestle viaducts are still in use.
Around 150km South-East of Bangkok is Pattaya. The islands might be nice (we didn’t go there) but the continental beach itself is not that good, being only 10-15m wide and covered with rocks. But since we haven’t been to the beach since 2010, we were happy regardless.
From Bangkok we took a 11hrs tour (advertised as 12hrs). First we went to the Damneon Saduak canals, a place made famous by an old Bond movie. We had some spare time so I managed to find a way out of the souvenir shops & restaurants area and take a walk into the village. From there we went to a zoo. After a short magic show (which was VERY good btw) there was an elephant show. The team demonstrated how the elephants were used for work, fight and sport. In the end there was also a crocodile show. Price was 25USD/person – including lunch.
Upon arriving at the customs (mid day, Cambodian side) we found out all staff was resting and the facility wasn’t opperational. After waiting for 2hrs for the people to recover we were able to proceed to the Thai side. There we were charged 10 Baht (0.30USD) for officer’s overtime payment. Apparently, that day was a holiday so we had to cover the expense. Another unusual surcharge we saw on some bills we got in Thailand is a so-called “crisis surcharge”. While everywhere in the world prices go down as a result of the economic crisis, in this country they go the opposite way.
Another unique fact is that motorbikes are not allowed on the country’s motorways. The reason given by the police is that the motorway is too dangerous. Which contradicts worldwide statistics showing most controlled access roads (like autostrada or autobahn) as being safer than regular roads. They were usually catching us at the toll booths. Usually they asked us to leave the motorway through some side gate but once the officer ordered me to ride back (against traffic) and take the first exit. Which was not that far though…
The traffic pattern differs from what we’ve seen before. It is much better organised, not so erratic like Cambodia or Vietnam. But, for some reason, each day we ride here we see as many accidents as we saw during the whole 6 weeks we spent in the other two countries.