Escape from the Flesh Sucking Fish of Kanchanburi – Kanchanburi, Thailand

Escape from the Flesh Sucking Fish of Kanchanburi
Kanchanburi/Thailand

The town of Kanchanaburi is about 100km West of Bangkok and it’s best known for being the site of the infamous Bridge Over the River Kwai. It’s also well established as a weekend destination for residents of Bangkok to cruise up and down the river on disco boats singing Karaoke. Jo and I timed our visit to coincide with the middle of the week.

Today’s destination was Erawan Waterfall, some 60 kilometers to the north. The method of transport was local bus, something we’ve been avoiding using since our experiences in Sri Lanka. It was time to grasp the nettle though, and we were surprised by what we found.

The bus we clambered aboard was an old one but it was well cared for by someone. It looks like the buses here are owner driven and the driver had gone to some lengths to do his bus up in the style of a 1950s American diner. It was a greyhound style coach and he’d added a chrome plated ceiling and red and blue vinyl trimmed seats. There was also the biggest stereo I’ve ever seen on a bus with speakers lining the roof all the way down the aisle. It was like travelling around in a Burger King. To complete the effect, the driver’s seat had been replaced with one from a 1986 Vauxhall Carlton.

Erawan is another place that’s a perfect tourist attraction. If Pinnewala (Sri Lanka) is the place to go for elephants, then this is the place for waterfalls. They go all the way up the hillside in different steps with pools for swimming in between. The water is blue-tinged-with-green due to its mineral content and is beautifully clear.

The second level is where the excitement starts, with a deep pool of blue water that contains a mob of inquisitive fish. It was the dry season and there was only a gentle trickle of water down the rock face into the pool. I sat on some rocks to put my feet in the water but the fish were already there and they started to nibble gently on my toes. The ones in the shallows were only small, but some of the larger ones in the middle looked like they could have your arm off. I wasn’t going to mess with them.

We picked our things up and went for the next level. The path winds its way gently beside, around and over the falls. There are seven main stages in all, but in between them the water tumbles down steps and into alluring blue pools. Some of the falls are dramatic drops of ten metres or more and the water foams noisily into the pools below. Others are more sedate and it slips over the edge of a pool and drops a few feet into the one below.

Those Pesky Fish!

At the fifth level were two flat blue pools separated by a gentle fall. They looked almost like the rice paddies from Sapa (Vietnam), and I walked along the lip of the top pool which was flat and dry. Below me, I could see a school of fish in the crystal blue water. But it was hot and I wanted to swim. They were gathered in one corner so I dipped my foot in at the other end. They all came rushing over. I went into the other corner and the same thing happened again. It was a standoff. I let the fish nibble at my foot in the end. It’s the kind of feeling that you don’t really like but it makes you laugh anyway.

Further up the hill, the path got steeper but the falls stayed magnificent. We got to stage seven and found it to be the best of the lot. The water here was pure blue and the sediment in the pool was white and fine. Walking along the bottom was like walking through plaster of Paris. There were three pools with a gentle waterfall between each one. The whole effect was so perfect it looked like we were in a Sandals resort. The crowning glory though was the towering fall that charged over the rocks into the first pool.

Beautiful Rockpool

I really wanted to swim here, so I did. The fish were fine once I was in, but if I stood still then something came along and investigated my legs. Their jaws weren’t strong enough to draw blood but it was very creepy nonetheless. The water was cool and fresh but I didn’t stay.

We caught a bus back to the cemetery where some of the POWs who died building the railway to Burma are buried. Most were worked to death, forced to do 16 hours of physical labour a day with almost no food. Its green lawns are immaculately tended and it contains rows and rows of identical almost flat black gravestones. Some have just a name on them and some are inscribed with messages, many of them very poignant. One said this, “When God saw how much you had suffered, he closed your weary eyes and gathered you into his arms.” In this monument to needless suffering, I think that says it all.