#72

Before I begin this post I just want to point out that the subject of animal cruelty will be bought up in this post. If you do not want to read about it, I suggest you don't read the words or just exit out of this post altogether. I will tell you before you get to it when it is coming up.

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The second full day we had in Thailand was not going to be spent in Bangkok but at least two hours out of the city. You see we were going on a tour containing the following things: Death (Burma) railway, elephant ride and a bamboo ride on the river. The tour company we went with was called World Travel Service Limited and believe it or not we were the only people taking this tour. To be honest it worked out great on account we could do whatever we wanted and when we were done there was no waiting around for others.

We started at the end of Death (Burma) Railway, a bridge over the Mae Klong River. 415km of railway that saw the death of over 240,000 men during the construction and completion. If you want more of a summary of Death Railway [click here]

ELEPHANTS 

*Continue reading at own risk*

When we booked this particular tour we were told that these animals weren't being treated unfairly by the people charged in looking after them. I always wanted to ride an elephant, bucket list you could say kind of way, but I always wondered if the elephants were in pain. They all looked well when we saw them, even when we started the ride but I always paid close attention to the handler of the elephant I was riding had in his hand. He held a pickaxe. 

The guy who was with my parent's elephant didn't carry anything at all, he shouted commands and the elephant followed. But the first time I got to see the pickaxe being used by the man who handled mine was when my elephant decided to take a drink from the river. He shouted and placed it behind its ears a tug you could say to get him back on the right course. The smile left my face from that moment on. I wanted to cry more so I wanted to get off but I didn't know what to do. Thankfully it was almost over, thankfully we didn't have much cash on us that day which meant he got a pretty crappy tip something I was thankful for. I didn't have any cash at all on me, and I would not have given him a cent because I saw for the first time in my life an elephant bleed red. Just behind his ears, that man had done that to him, that man had caused this and a huge part of me felt so horrible that I had decided to get on this elephant. All I could do was say sorry to the elephant.

Short but sweet. We went on a traditional bamboo ride watching as our tour guide explained the surrounding fields and stories they hold. What some of the buildings are for and the type of job the locals on the river have. It was peaceful listening to the water rack along the bamboo raft, maybe more so that we were the only ones on it, so once our questions were answered we could sit back, relax and let the river take us back to where we started. At the very least we were lucky that we did this at the right time of the year. If it was two months or a little bit longer it would have been the rainy season and we would be holding on to the bamboo as the river can get quite fast. Though I don't think we would be allowed to do this tour during that time of the year. 

Now to take you back to the beginning of the post - Death railway. This train station was going to be the beginning of the last part of our tour. Part of death railway still exists and is functional to this day, what the following photo's show are the lead up and the railway itself as we went over it.

This train ride gave me a sense of what it could be like being on board the Hogwarts Express - though without compartments and the comfy seats.

It took us about four hours to get back to the hotel, being that we encounter the epic of epic traffic! I have never seen anything like it before. It wasn't till we got home that we understood what was going on. Bangkok was under curfew. The letter placed under our door read

'Today, May 22nd, the Thai army has announced a curfew, this announcement is following a coup d'etat. Between 10pm to 5am, the city is under the curfew, therefore you are recommended to stay in the hotel'.

I will say this though, I was glad we were heading off to London in the morning.