Sai Yok

I'm finally uploading pictures of my two days in Sai Yok National Park so figured I might as well describe my great time there in more detail. Sai Yok is about a 2 hr bus right out of Kanchanaburi (which is about another 2 hours from Bangkok). The Kwai river flows from Sai Yok down through Kanchanaburi and then to somewhere else I haven't been. As I mentioned earlier, I was the only westerner on the bus and when I got off the bus (with help and pity for the clueless wonderer from the bus driver...) I experienced my first true lack of any english speakers. I knew I needed to catch a motorcycle taxi to the Park, but I didn't how or where to catch one (btw: motorcycle taxis are really scary. especially when you have a huge backpack on. especially especially in Bangkok with a huge backpack on). So I tried asking around at a few different places and there was lots of pointing and gesturing, but still no taxis in sight. So I decided to go to the only thing around that looked like a restaurant (there wasn't much around at all really) and have lunch. And had a surprisingly hard time ordering. No english speakers, menu entirely in Thai, etc. Eventually I think I said "fried rice" and they understood. (another aside: fried rice with chicken, pork, etc seems to be one Thai food mainstay here that doesn't seem all that common in American Thai resturants. The other is fried chicken which is pretty darn good) During the course of my very good and very cheap meal, the "town" managed to produce an english speaker who help locate a motorcycle taxi for me and get me headed off in the right direction.

Anyway, that was alot of writing and i still haven't even gotten there. I'll try to focus. The place that I was looking for was a guesthouse in the park appropriately named the Sai Yok View Raft Guesthouse. All the rooms (40-ish?) are literally on pontoons floating on the water. When I arrived there were very surprised to have someone like me just walk up as most of there guest come through German or Russian tour companies in large groups (for whatever reason). This turned out to be very good for me because the owners and staff took a special interest in me to make sure I wasn't lonely. (Another aside, sorry: Thais seem say "lonely" when then mean "lonely" or if they mean "bored".). This lead to me making my first true friends on the trip. I ended up running around with the locals for all sorts of things including going to the market, a hot springs, a strange Thai version of a county fair, and eventually even got a ride part of the way back to Bangkok with them. One of the people that was working there actually usually lives in Bangkok and might be able to give me the "insiders tour" later. Super cool. Anyway, many other cool things about that place including the scenery and the food (the Raft House provided meals, amazing meals...) But that's all I can write right now. Need to go eat...