Kanchanaburi: Erawan Waterfalls

Our last day in Kanchanaburi was dedicated to the Erawan Waterfall Park, located about 45 minutes away from our raft. The Erawan Waterfall is actually a seven-step waterfall carved into the mountains near Kanchanaburi. It was a 2.5 km hike one way, and we had about four hours to hike, take pictures, and enjoy the natural beauty. We had heard a lot about Erawan from our friends who have been there, but words and pictures from other people just don’t do this place justice. The whole park is like a scene out of Fern Gully or The Land Before Time. It seems so pristine and rugged, but at the same time completely ethereal and unworldly. Every pool and waterfall is different: each has a different pattern of cascading water, a different color of water, different vegetation… it is, for lack of a better word, indescribable. Hopefully some of the pictures will do it a bit of justice!

Some of the highlights from this trip, other than the obvious beauty of everything, were the nibbling fish, the family of monkeys, the eerily turquoise hue to the water in the seventh waterfall, and serene quality that the shadows dancing on the rippling water give every pool. Every time you swim in a pool or even just put your toes in, the fish come up and nibble your toes! Justin tells me they do this to eat the dead skin cells we have, but I am convinced they do it to scare the crazy tourists out of the pools. Either way, fine by us! On the hike between the fifth and sixth pools, we were warned by some other hikers to hold onto our hats and glasses because monkeys were ahead. Justin got really excited and practically ran up to find them! It was too hot for me to run, but I got there shortly behind and there were about ten monkeys covering the trail. They were very curious and posed for some great photos and videos and were really entertaining to watch for a few minutes. At the next water fall, other hikers told us that one of the monkeys had bitten a girl right after we left! Good thing we got out of there when we did!

As we were driving out of Erawan, it started to thunder and lightning. By the time we got through the entrance gate, we were in the middle of a torrential downpour! We definitely had some great timing today and were all glad to be out of the rain. We had our last late lunch at the floating restaurant, and got on a minibus back to Bangkok. Hoy drove us back to the city, and informed us of all that we had missed in the last three days: things in Bangkok had gotten progressively worse. She was very glad to hear that everyone in our bus had no plans to stay in the city, and wished everyone happy travels. Justin and I got into the first taxi we could find after being dropped off, and made a beeline for the airport. We happened to drive right past the redshirts burning tires while we were on the expressway. It’s just crazy! We are glad we made plans in advance to get out of Bangkok and not come back to the end of the trip!

We made it to the airport safe and sound, and our flight to Phuket was equally uneventful. A word of warning to tall people traveling in Asia: do not take Asia Air! The seats are so close together that our knees were almost touching the seats in front of us, and we do not have long legs! But you get what you pay for, so no complaints there. A slightly uncomfortable 2 hour flight beats a 10 hour train ride!

At the Phuket airport, we were bombarded with hotel and taxi “deals” and were relieved to see our ride waiting with a sign that said “Mr. Kaysea”. I thought it was funny… We drove to our hotel in Karon Beach and went directly to bed after our long day.