One day we went to the Ancient city of Ayutthaya. It was the old capital of Thailand before being invaded by the Burmese in 1767. We took the third class train for 2 hours and 15 baht - about 50 cents Canadian. We explored the ruins of the royal palace and many other old wats (temples). Most of the Buddha statues are missing their hands and heads as the Burmese chopped them off because it was thought to hurt the spirit of the Thais. It was really neat to see the old buildings and all of the Buddhist influence.
Another day we took a trip West near the Myanmar border. Kanchanaburi is a city in Thailand that is famous for it’s Bridge over the River Kwai. It was a place impacted during WWII, and was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. They commissioned the building of a railway in Thailand which later became known as the “death railway”, as the work and terrain was so treacherous, over 100,000 labourers lost their lives. We went to a pretty brutal WWII museam that actually had Canadian Tire money in a display case that held currency used in different countries during the war. Ha! We saw the bridge, took a train ride along the death railway, went to Sai Yok Noi waterfall and lastly visited Tiger Temple. This is a place where monks care for orphaned tigers and other animals…but is definitely a tourist trap. I do look forward to coming back to Kanchanaburi with a Grade 6 trip I am supervising!
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