The Dog Mafia of Kanchanaburi

Hello friends :)

We are checking in earlier than expected because the Wi-Fi is working quite well here. On the second day, to be honest, we slept the entire morning until 2 PM (jet lag greetings) and fortunately, Hedda and Lea got their luggage back!!! Luckily, everything is still with them, but unfortunately, I discovered that my dearest silk sleeping bag and my moon straps (the strings for my hammock) were stolen. I have no idea where exactly, but it seems that someone helped themselves. Afterward, we went back to Khao San Road to plan our next trip a bit further and buy new moon straps (Yes! There was actually a 'Ticket to the Moon' store there). Now we are slowly heading south so that Lea and Hedda can snorkel, dive, swim, and sunbathe a bit more. Meanwhile, we have made our way out of Bangkok - the big, loud, and smelly city - and arrived in Kanchanaburi. As soon as we arrived in the 'city', we walked straight to see the River Kwai Bridge like tourists do, and we even walked on it. It is truly a spectacular piece, but it is crowded with tourists, so you have to push your way through at first. The heat was already a little shocking for all of us, but on that day, we really thought it must be 40 degrees. Within seconds in the sun, we felt like we had to lie down in a corner to die. By evening, we wanted to make our way back and see where we could find something to eat. But it didn't go exactly as planned because someone didn't want to let us through. You might be thinking of a taxi driver who wanted to push his 'tuk-tuk' on us or a hotel owner who wanted to sell us a room. No! The street dogs from all over Kanchanaburi gathered to form a dog mafia and united against us. We were chased, shooed away, followed, marked, and almost eaten. This dog mafia is quite dangerous, not to be trifled with. They had us under their paw for the entire stay in Kanchanaburi, so we had to hide from them. After we managed to shake off the dog mafia, we found a nice place to eat. The owner studied in Germany and was thrilled to hear that we are German. So he occasionally joined us while we were eating and told us a bit about Thailand. After visiting a night flea market on his recommendation, we happily fell into bed, tired but glad that the dog mafia didn't find us anymore. The next morning, we wanted to visit the beautiful national park near Kanchanaburi, but unfortunately, we realized that we wouldn't have enough time because we had to continue south in the afternoon. So we decided to do something no tourist ever does. We embarked on a boat tour that no tourist has ever experienced before, a speedboat steered by a Thai!!! Well, after negotiating well (we know where the hammer hangs now), we got in and had the most spectacular and surprisingly short boat tour that only a tourist could offer. But at least we had fun.

Big hugs and see you soon :)

Philine

PS: Don't worry. The dog mafia was limited to a few (still quite a lot) isolated dogs, although one dog growled at us and didn't let us walk down the street.