Day 42: Edawan National Park, Kanchanburi

After doing our washing we set off on the 7 step waterfall trail. The first 3 steps are easily accessible; the second even has a life guard watch station. Having visited the first 2 stages yesterday we went through the “water and food check point”, where the man tried to take all our full water bottles off us: we understood that the reason they worry about people taking stuff up is because once use people leave the bottles behind as litter, as he grabbed at the bottles though he seemed to struggle to understand why we would want to keep them with us…maybe the fact that the route to the top and back would be in excess of 3 miles in total, climbing steeply for the majority of the way and it was about 35 degrees!
Luckily, a lady attendant was on hand and provided us with an information card explaining that we could take them past the check point but we had to pay a deposit of 20 baht per bottle. On our way back we would get the deposits back if we were able to show them the 3 bottles (which they marker penned just to make sure). It seemed a shame that such measures were necessary but as we later spotted people had dropped the odd bit of litter despite their check point and vigilance: why anyone would visit such a beautiful place to admire its beauty and then leave rubbish behind is very difficult to comprehend.
As we moved up the different steps the number of people dwindled and we began to have the scenery more to ourselves. It is difficult to put into words without sounding dramatic, how beautiful and picture postcard it was. We will upload the pictures so that you can see for yourselves…they are real we promise.
About 2 hours later (it all has to be approximate timings I’m afraid as we have now broken 3 sports watches so far on this trip and so are currently without a watch!) we reached the top. Like the other 6 steps this was no disappointment, by now we were both hot and dusty so took the opportunity to have a dip in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall. I was particularly eager as there seemed to be fewer fish in the milky blue water so my feet might be saved from getting nipped. Within seconds I was proved wrong when martin got “nibbled”. Similarly to a foot spa these fish seem to be after the dead skin on whatever body part is against the rocks, they are however slightly bigger and a lot more determined than those found in a beauty salons and nobody has explained to them that when you move the limb they are supposed to let go. The sensation isn’t great and your immediate reaction is to kick….not a good reaction to have around rocky areas, which I discovered today when I accidentally kicked a rock trying to get one of the little blighters off my toe!
After a few photos at the 7th step (not sure why the water cascades down from the 7th to the 1st step, surely that should be the other way around) we left the Russians, complete with Russian flag to continue their photo shoots and headed back down the path. A large number of storey book scenes, rustic bridges and make shift stairways later we were back at the food and water check point to show our empty bottles and get our deposits before walking down to the town area in search of transport available for hire.
Now, we have an up to date Lonely planet for Thailand, which gives us less leeway to excuse any anomalies due to the book being out of date, however, arriving yesterday at the park we were told that they didn’t have any bikes for hire; as detailed in the book. This had left us with no options other than using the bus back to Kanchanaburi which was an hour and a half away and then getting buses back out to visit other, reasonably nearby attractions that we wanted to see. This would be costly and time consuming in comparison to the 40 baht bike hire that they mentioned in the guide. We therefore went in search of either a couple of peddle bikes or a scooter so that we could stay at the park, use it as a base and then explore from here…no such luck. After walking a mile into town there were no hire shops to be found, even the tourist information centre was well and truly shut. On our return we weighed up the situation and decided to tomorrow morning, a day early, so that we could get back to Kanchanaburi, get accommodation there and then visit Hell pass and the tiger temple from there.
Tonight it was my turn to seek revenge on our flying enemy. Whilst martin was having a shower I took charge of the tennis racket. I must have killed more than 50 of them: before I started they were lining a corner of the roof like a black carpet. Buying the racket was definitely a worthwhile investment.