Day 180, Kanchanaburi

Exiting the bus in Bangkok we jumped straight onboard the bus headed for Kanchanaburi, 3 hours later had arrived to glorious weather, donned Michele and walked in search for a place to crash. The place we wanted to stay only had double beds so we went next door where they had a twin room, so we are staying in a lovely little complex which is actually on the river kwai which our balcony is on! After some breakfast it was about midday, we were both worn out from the bus so thought we’d steal an hours kip, that turned into 5 hours kip, so we thought we’d go for a look around just as the sun set. We walked through the village and ended up at the Bridge on the River Kwai, and accidentally stumbled into the festival. We paid our 20baht and got a seat just to the left of the bridge, which in the darkness was all lit up and had booming music playing. The place filled up and an hour later a short movie started being projected onto a bridge pillar. What followed was a bizarre mix of a light show, a laser show, some kids walking up and down the bridge dressed up as Brits and slaves from the war, some kids on the other side of the river digging a hole, lots of noise and music with gunfire sound effects, then the fireworks started just as a WW2 train was driving across the bridge. At first they were quite small, then when the train had fully exited the bridge they took off, along with Chinese lanterns being let off on the other side by the kids. The noise was deafening, and while not the biggest spread of fireworks I’ve seen was very impressive, my favourite being flying pigeons connected to the bridge from the building behind us, they got fired at the bridge and just as the landed a firework/explosion would go off, it was fucking amazing. As soon as the fireworks had finished all the kids came dancing across the bridge waving all the world countries’ flags to a jolly song which was a great end. We walked back home, went out for some dinner and a beer, off to bed ready for a early morning to visit Erawan falls, a 7 tiered waterfall!