Kanchanaburi is about 150 km west of Bangkok, in a much more rural and hilly area of Thailand. We saw a lot of rice fields, since Thailand is the major exporter of rice in the world. There are many types of rice; sticky rice, Jasmine Rice, brown rice, long grain rice, parboiled rice, etc. They also grow a lot of tapioca. We stopped at a food vendor along the side of the road where there was freshly barbecued "clean rat" for sale along with either live or dead cobra's, take your pick! You can eat them with a coke to drink! You could also purchase a live turtle, which you would then let go back into the river as an offering to Buddha. This would ensure good luck!
Another stop in Kanchanaburi was at the site of the Bridge on the River Kwai, which was part of the Thailand-Burma "Death Railway" built in 1942 with slave labor of captured Allied prisoners. The Thailand-Burma Railway Centre near the bridge gave us a detailed account of the horrors these POW's experienced at the hands of the Japanese during the war. The cemetery across the street had the graves of nearly 2,000 men who died during the construction of the railroad. It was a somber and thought provoking experience.
We also met a tiger cub and an ocelot cub that were a lot of fun to play with!
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