Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Onwards! Out of Bangkok, thank god, the pollution was getting me convinced that I'd get lung cancer from tuk tuk-ing it another week. A two hour rickety bus ride to Kanchanaburi and then a bicycle taxi to the guest house. And let me just say this, he approached us. He saw the two hefty American girls and their even heftier rucksacks, but nonetheless he offered to take us to the Guest house, he threw our enormous and heavy packs on the back and we squeezed into this tiny seat, and calf master Thai Man biked our heavy asses all the way to our spot. It was horrifying, I never felt so bad in my whole life, but he was pretty ripped,and I dunno, when in Rome?
The guest house was nice, a quiet garden w/hammocks overlooking the river and the sunset, a nice little restaurant w/hella good pad see ew, and nearby bike rental, Internet, and massage spots.
So the next day we rented some bikes and rode all over the little town on these rickety bicycles, over to some famous bridge and down some random town roads, it was glorious! Oh how I love a bicycle ride!After our long day biking and busing and all we decided to get some more cheap massages.
A note to my girls at the Tude: OMG would you all flip if you knew the shit that was goin down in Thailand. After all the training I've heard and gone through about making spa guests feel comfortable and at home, and always discussing every little detail of every treatment, and glorious calming music and smells. HA. The sounds you hear can range from traffic and dog/cat cries to babies running down the halls, cows drinking out of troffs, massage therapists answering their cell phones, endless chatting(probably about you)in Thai, and on and on. You never know what's going on, massages are sometimes quite painful, you never know what is happening next. I had a facial and had some tattoo machine sounding metal object ran all over my face like a racecar, AND some vacuum as well(to suck up blemishes?), and bad smelling weird stuff, but this massage in Kanchanaburi takes the cake: Boobie massage. That's right, not just a feel up either, a full on boobie massage.UH. There are no more words.
But I have to say, none of this bothers me, it's a bit awkward at first, but it's so cheap i could care less!it's all quite hilarious when you get down to it, and at least Juli got a boobie massage too right?
Day Two in Kanchanaburi we ventured to the Erawan National Park waterfalls. But first we walked to the bus station and waited in the bus for it to leave for about an hour and a million it seemed like. And only had 3 or so hours till the park closed so we booked it a little bit. The park has seven tiers of waterfalls and we hiked and traipsed all around through there. Very Yelapa Berger :)... The water is this pure aquamarine and full of food apparently for the hundreds of fish in each pool. The trees roots delve into the waterfalls and the water gushes over tempting you to jump in, which we totally did. Coolish but refreshing after a bit of hiking. And after Juli got too close to one of the monkeys(not heeding the Caution:Fierce Monkey! signs) and they almost attacked her! They at least screeched and charged, and she kinda scuttled away and then they kept coming and she side hopped rapidly! It was pretty pretty funny! So we swam and hiked and biked and Kanchanaburi was a nice change from Bangkok, fo sho!