we left friday night. half went from the northern bus terminal around 530, when the last bus from that station took off. the rest of us met in pinklao to leave from the south bus terminal at 630. we didnt actually arrive at the bus station until closer to 730-8 and didnt get on the bus until around 9. by that time, the other group had already made it to kanchanaburi and found out that, due to the long weekend, most of the hotels had no vacancies, and that part of that group got the last two rooms at the one they were staying at. obviously, this made us worry about what we would do when we got there a few hours later.
when we got to the bus station in kanchanaburi, we decided the best thing to do first was call around to some of the places we were given brochures for when we bought the bus tickets. the first place we called was rainbow lodge, and we were told that they had two rooms open for the night, one at 250 baht and one for 350 baht. there were five of us and we decided we would take it, so they sent a driver to pick us up free of charge.
it was just a short drive to the hotel, and we got there and were lead to our two rooms, which were actually little bungalows.
one, without aircon, had two twin beds, and the other, with aircon, had a double. we decided the best thing to do was to pick names out of a hat to decide which three people would share the double, and it ended up being me beth and emily, while amy and neil each got their own bed but without ac. after dropping our things off, the same guy who picked us up form the bus station, who spoke english so well he almost sounded native, offered to take us to a bar, which was owned by the same person who owned our hotel. it was walkable, so it only took a few minutes by car to arrive at sugar member, the bar that stays open past 12 when its legally suppose to stop serving alcohol. we met up briefly with the rest of the group but didnt stay out too late since we had to wake up early the next morning.
erawan national park is about an hour from kanachaburi and the park closes at 4, so the plan was to leave "early." apparently, we didnt get up early enough, because the other group had left by 10. we made it to the bus station and got on the 1030 bus, but since it was a public bus, it took almost 2 hours to get to the park with all of the stopping and how slow it had to go uphill, being such a big vehicle. when we called the other group, they were already at the 2nd tier of the waterfalls, so we knew we had to move fast.
by the time we caught up to them, it was already the 4th tier of 7. the rest of the gang decided to go swimming at that level, but i chose to stay out and take pictures with my camera. it was at this level that there were "slides" in the sides of the rocks and i was able to get some good shots of people going down them and in the water. we decided if we were going to make it to the top in time to actually enjoy it, we would go straight there from that level, so we booked it to the 7th tier. at the lower levels, there were steps and railings, but as we got higher, though we were still following paths, we were climbing rocks and trekking through smaller paths and more trees. we made it to the top, where we had been told there were rock formations in the shape of three elephants, which was seen as a good sign. this is what it looked like:
which might maybe resemble one elephant head. but since there was no where to swim at the top, we decided to head back down to the lower levels. it was a much quicker journey going down, and at tier 2 i decided to swim and get behind the falls. however, those pictures are on beths camera so a picture of that tier will have to suffice for now.
we knew that the bottom levels stayed open til 5, but just before 4 we were told the last buses leave at 4, so we rushed down to try to catch them. however, when we got there, we discovered that the one time "thai time" apparently does not exist is when buses leave for the night. the only vehicles left were private buses or vans that had already been hired.
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