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Other entries in Kanchanaburi

Drinking with Ostriches

Still here in Kanchanaburi and have decided to stay over Christmas, it would be slightly foolish to attempt moving now so close to this part of the season and on realising that we both didn't really fancy Bangkok again so soon, Kanchanaburi fits the bill perfectly. We've met lots of good people here, both local and other travelers, all of whom will be around this Christmas, so it makes sense to just hang out here a while longer. We're here until the 27th and then we're off to Ayuthaya for a quiet New Year before heading onto Lopburi at the beginning of January. This update is really to fill you in on those things we've been up to prior to, and after, visiting the bridge last Saturday. As the weather has cooled off now we're able to get more enthused about moving around Kanchanaburi and not simply lying around soaking up the rays.

Around the end of last week some time we went for a drink in a local bar called 'The Beer Barrel', if the name doesn't exactly encourage the imagination then the decor certainly does. The Beer Barrel isn't really like any bar I've been to before, for starters it's set under a patch of trees and therefore by definition is totally located outside, however there are glass roofs spread over the area in an aid to deter any rain that might occur. The front of the bar doesn't prepare you for what's inside at all, on first impression it appears like another bad western orientated bar but that's far from the case. What first hits you is how rustic it is, seats and tables are made out of huge pieces of wood, some of which are sleepers from train tracks (probably in homage to the death railway link), trees grow throughout and the bar is located at the end of a huge paved area which has a pool table (the proper kind!) just in front. Before you hit the bar though you come across an unexploded and (we hope) deactivated bomb just lying there with no rope barriers to hold you back from it, in fact you have to walk within a couple of centimeters from it to get to one seating area. Around the main area of the bar are adjoining huts that seat around a dozen people, on our first visit the owner (a hospitable and enthusiastic man) seated us near what appeared to be an open paddock.

The owner bombarded Lindsey with English and American magazines, that he had obviously saved over a number of years, to read at her pleasure and then found cushions for us to sit on. After we had ordered our beer we began talking about the amazing place we had found ourselves in when Lindsey started staring into the open paddock just behind me and watching her face I saw it slowly turn from confusion to amazement within three seconds, she then uttered 'ostrich'. When I turned I came face to face with the gigantic bloody ostrich. It was there, staring at me. An Ostrich. This bird was then joined by another, two ostriches! In a pub. The owner saw that we were totally swept away by this, he pointed to a pot he had in his hand and held it out to Lindsey, it was the ostriches food and he wanted us to feed them. Ostriches up close are intimidating creatures, even with a barrier in front of them, but you soon realise that they're only interested in the food you hold out for them. The photos at night didn't come out so well so we went back one afternoon and the owner let us get even closer to them so we could take some better photos, it was then that we realised he also had a peacock as well as some geese in the same paddock.

The bars around here range from the down right grotty aimed at the middle aged westerner to meet Thai girls to the rowdy to the quieter cafes, in short there is something for everyone out here. We've found the Thai equivalent to the Cannon (impossible you would think but no it's here alright), we've watched the football there some nights and it's hilarious to us because in some respects it's the same bar but with Thai clientele instead. It was after a session in this bar one night when we bumped into a friend of ours from Bangkok, a French wanderer by the name of Patric, in, of all places, a 7-11. Patric is so French that you could stick him on a postcard and people would know instantly that it came from France, he's slightly arrogant, waves his hands around a lot and hysterically funny. We first met him one night, another drunken occasion I'm afraid, when the bars in Bangkok were closing but knowing that the Thai Chav (Diamond) was still open we showed him where we could all get a late drink. We stayed up until 4:30am eating seafood with the locals and talking utter crap; because of this seafood I got severe food poisoning and was laid up for three days, an amateur mistake that I shall never repeat for which is 'never eat raw cockles'. Anyway here he was in a 7-11 in Kanchanaburi, we arranged to met up that night and we'll be seeing him a couple of more times I'm sure.

We made friends with a couple from Harrow (the before mentioned Ros and Hugh) who we took to see the Ostriches and went out for dinner with them a few times. As they're vegetarian they had all sorts of problems ordering food over here, the Thai are a carnivorous bunch, but they did manage to find one place that did an exclusive menu for vegetarians as well as the traditional Thai dishes. We went along with them and as the food was good we decided that instead of looking elsewhere we may as well do it the second night (and their last night) to save all that hassle. Well that was an experience. First off I should mention that this place is called the 'Apple House Guesthouse' and has been recommended over the years, however lately it's losing its reputation and we saw why. The place is geared towards the westerner, which isn't a bad thing but we believe that maybe some of the westerners' attributes had rubbed off on the staff because half of this lot were so rude, not at all the Thai way of being. We then had some trouble with our food as half our starters didn't arrive and then Lindsey's main dish was burnt, if this wasn't enough they then got annoyed with us when we told them we didn't get our starter. All of this was put in to the shade though, when obviously still hungry we ordered a simple pancake for dessert. 10 minutes passed no pancake, 15, 20, 25 minutes no pancake. Suddenly the waitress came over and said 'sorry, pancake will be another 5-10 minutes'. For a bloody pancake? Were they waiting for the chicken to lay the egg first? All of this was funny though, slightly annoying but we were having a laugh at the absurdity of it all as none of us has experienced anything remotely this bad in our time in Thailand. To top it off the pancakes were rubbish and they started to close all around us without giving us the bill, I wanted to do a runner but the idea of being in a Thai jail held me back.

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