weekend away

All of the American teachers from C--- School were invited to the principal's house in Kanchanaburi for the weekend. It was amazing.

Her huge, beautiful, airy home was styled after some Khmer ruins in the province.

Her best friend, the vice principal, has a traditional Thai home next door. Thai homes are made of wood and built on stilts. There are living areas underneath the houses where people eat and hang out.

Their houses are right off the river, so we got to walk through her manicured lawns and down a winding path to enjoy nice views and cool weather.

On Saturday we took a bus to Erawan National Park where we hiked to see the seven tiers of Erawan waterfall and swam in the icy, pale blue pools they made. The only less-than-awesome part about the swimming pools was the fish. They nibble the dead skin off your feet and legs, which is feely (yes, feely) and just plain weird.

We ate lunch and then RODE ELEPHANTS! Our mahout jumped off and took pictures of us and led the elephant to the river, where he motioned for one of us to sit on its neck. Mariela and Alyssa didn't want to, so I was the lucky one. It was a bumpy ride, and her wiry neck hairs were kind of itchy. Her skin was thick and leathery. And I touched her ears.

After the elephant ride, we went to the Death Railway where thousands of POWs died building a Thai-Burma railway for Japan during WWII. We rode the train and went home for the night.

Today we went to one of the war cemeteries and the JEATH Museum. The name stands for Japan, England, Australia/America, Thailand, Holland.

It was built to look like the bamboo huts where the prisoners slept and was full of pictures, paintings, and newspaper articles. I read one particularly horrific article from a British or Australian newspaper detailing the diseases and malnutrition the prisoners experienced. Dysentery, malaria, gangrene, tapeworms... you name it.

In the last part of the museum, there were faded, water-damaged photos of old Australian, British, American, and Dutch men - survivors who had returned in the 80s to visit.

We passed a second, larger war cemetery on the way to our next stop. As we looked out the bus windows, we saw an gray-haired man and his wife walking up and down the aisles of headstones. They were standing in front of one grave, reading the name, when she put her arm around him.

It was sobering, watching that old man and wondering about his experiences.

We went to a jewelry store and then to an island resort, where we boarded a floating restaurant and ate while drifting up and down the river between mountains and floating discos.