motercycle to tong pha phum

sorry this is a bit of a delayed blog, but heres what i remember from motercycling north to tong pha phum, from katchanaburi, as well as erawen falls...

southern bus terminal, bangkok. its 700 in the morning, and i feel like a burnt rubber band, strung out on bronchitus pills and some real shitty 7 -11 rice and meat thing which tasted a bit like a microwave. i walk into the station with liam, a friend from canada, really quiet fellow, but a more than capable travel mate. somebody who you might instinctivly trust though you have no reason to. we get the tickets, and immediatley board a double decker leaving that instant for katchanaburi, a more northern city, 4 hours, 100 bhat (3 dollars). we zip thorough the smaller cities, dropping off thais and picking them up along the way, and sooner than later arive, and are swiftly taken by bike taxi to our homebase, the motercycle renters named the jolly frog. we get 2 bikes, max speed 140 kilometers per hour, 150 bhat a day, and after a few crashes and good laughs, get on the main highway amid the smoke and turbulent air of a growing agricultural nations bloodline to economic stability. this vein, however, begins to die after a while, and soon all that liam and i have in mind is the single want and need to get away from the city, the coughing, the stagnant air to take refuge in the northern city of tong pha phum, right along the burmese border. maybe see some good stuff along the way eh? first stop, Hellfire pass. auspicious name eh? this was the memorial for the transcontinental railway that connects thailand to burma directly after world war two, where 23 thousand prisoners of war, mostly chinese and austrailian, were tortured and beaten, in order to cut into the hillside by hand for years, and more than 18000 of them died from sickness, starvation, or exaustion. i had never heard of this before, so seeing the rock chisled down into the earth a good 50 feet, and knowing it had all been done by hand by prisoners put things into perspective. but railways gotta get built right? the railway only lasted for 2 years after its completion. the memorial lead liam and i along the trail of their toil for a long ways, and soon we had to turn back, in order to make it to the small city before nightfall. we started engines, and got moving again, once to stop and have some fantastic fried rice at an old womans home, whom dident know english, and possessed one of the best smiles i have ever seen. the mountains started to grow from the horizon, in a sea of green which makes me a little uneasy when i think about it still, coming from a desert, the amount of verdent life makes me nervous. thunderstorm. waiting under a bamboo hut for an hour before we decide to brave it due to the impending dark on a small road on the border of burma, a country and specifically border that is infamous to be unwelcoming and unfreindly to tourists. cold. cold. cold. finally we arrive, with grins like the cheshire cat, dripping fat raindrops and checking into the dim, smoky town's solitary hotel. the receptionist seems to think we are more of a sight than we believe ourselves to be. this would be vindicated the next day when we get the same idea from the locals, who i now know have seen very few white people throughout their lives. face paint is abundant here, white streeks from wide paintbrushes on both sides of the face, mostly on girls and women, good luck, keeps bad spirits away. liam and i dodge between shelters to find a place to eat, and after a while decend upon a small, smoky, restaurant, where a fair number of locals are enjoying a type of barbecue that i havent seen. and as quick as we arrive, the scene changes, dead silence, a few smiles, a few frowns, and one courageous girl who sits us down, and without asking what we'd like ( like it would have helped) brought us two changs (beer), a barbecue stove, and two plates full of meat, chinese broccoli, noodles, eggs, basil, celery, and salty broth. we thank her as a well as we can, due to the language being a kind of burmese dialect, they couldent understand the thai that liam or i spoke, which with we had easially managed to order earlier that day. best barbecue ive ever had, hands down. 140 bhat for the both of us, and many smiles as we left and made our way back to the hotel, filled with spiders and cockroaches, and a small squat toilet. slept very well. made our way the next day along a backroad for 2 hours to a tiny farming town home to the best cup of coffee ive ever had, and strong enough to make john wayne sour. this small cafe i will always remember, due to the good 50 or so cages in the front all filled with cats, jumping around their compounds, and going generally neurotic. i doubt i will ever know where, why, or how these cats lives will be taken, used, or implemented, but it is still something that perplexes me now as i write this hahaha. thai society, however, has given me a unfortunate frame of mind to things such as the cat farm, and i find myself trying to think of other things. we find the waterfalls, pad somethingorother, but regardless of my amnesia ill remember the beauty of these to the day i die, an entire mountainside, bleeding with water. seemingly the fountain of youth for the world. and entire mountain made of water. we stick around for a while, flashing our student cards to the tiny park officals like triggerhappy new york detectives, and wondering how much more water could possibly erupt from the ground. soon, we make our way back to katchanaburi, and after 5 quick hours on the motorbikes, arrive at the t and t guest house, and meet up with our friends thomas, julia, brenda (the regular group by now), and a few others from our school. ryan, from iowa state, the man is more proud of the corn riddled state than you could ever know. vanessa, from california, alwys smiling, very beautiful. we spend the night in tourist ridden bars. wake up early the next morning, have some massaman curry for breakfast, (strong, fatty peanut curry with lots of cinnamon and spices, i think cardimum). we make our way to Erawen falls, the most famous national park in thailand. this is due to one waterfall, well, seven actually, all resulting from the same stream of water. the 7 tier'd waterfall it is called. we throw off our shirts, start sweating, and make our way up the trail. out pops the first waterfall and pool. undescribably georgous, a jewel of blue amid the green trees, with a fat waterfall, maybe 50 meters across. above that, the secont tier, and above that, the third. the third is by far the most beautiful, with the tallest waterfall, with a massive pool full of attention starved fish, eager to school around and nibble on anybody who dives in and desides to stay still. there is a large cave behind this waterfall, which i discover with the same glee that a child might upon discovering a 100 dollar bill. so there i sat, with the waterfall abusing my back, a rough massage, for a good 20 minuets, until my shaking brain tells me its time to leave before an anuerism. 4 tier, 5th ( rocks that you can slide into the pool below), 6th, and finally the 7th. all distincitive in their own way. all one of a kind. we make our way back down, jumping in each pool of aqua, and wondering why we decided to leave bangkok as late as we did, not knowing of this fantastic place. we suit up, and quickly get to the bus station before dark, and pass out on the bus until it arrives in bangkok. this is one of the only times i have been unhappy to return to the metal organism, i miss the trees, and the mountains. i miss the way that the world contstructs itself without the impediment of man.