Destination: River Kwai, Thailand

Massage on the River Kwai - by Marc Llewellyn

 

When was the last time you floated down a river on the trail of a cocktail and a massage? And I don’t mean floating in a boat, I mean actually bobbing along in a warm river up to your neck, with the jungle drifting past.

This is one of the highlights of staying at one of the world’s most unique hotels – the River Kwai Jungle Rafts resort.

Located not that far away from Kanchanaburi, near the Myanmar border in Thailand's west, the resort is made up of two long rafts featuring a line of simple double rooms made from woven bamboo. In fact, the vast majority of the resort is made from bamboo, including the restaurant and bar. The whole thing floats a few metres from the shore, tied to a sandy bank by ropes.

There are no TVs here, no electricity and no Internet connection. Each compact room has a simple toilet and shower, and a comfortable double bed surrounded by a mosquito net.

At night the rafts twinkle with candles. It’s a total escape, made even more interesting as you relax in your hammock on your private balcony, watching a trio of elephants bathing and trumpeting in the water with their mahouts on their backs.

Most of the staff here are from the Mon ethnic minority, and originally lived in Burma where, like other minorities, they are persecuted by the military regime. A short walk through the jungle is their village, which you can visit.

Each night the Mon take part in a cultural dance program, a rare performance that you hardly see anywhere these days.

The resort is situated on a particularly scenic bend of the River Kwai, and the jungle is alive with birds, including kingfishers and hornbills.

After dumping our bags in our rooms, we raided the large onboard life jacket pile and jumped into the river at one end of our raft and floated for a few minutes down to the other end. We then clambered up, galloped the length of the hotel, and jumped in again. We only paused for the occasional cocktail or beer at the bar.

After dinner several of us decided to have a soothing massage. Several local Mon women were ready and waiting in the outdoor massage area. We all flopped onto bamboo mats, ten of us in a row, and succumbed to the relaxing pleasures of a Royal Thai Massage, or other treatments.  

The next day we decided to visit another jungle retreat, the River Kwai Resotel, which is perched on the riverbank about an hour downstream if you travel by bamboo raft. Or, you can pull on a lifejacket and float there yourself, with a guide. We chose the latter – partly because you don’t get the chance to something this unusual everyday, but also because it just looked like great fun.  

And so it was. Pulled by the current, which was sometimes sedate and at other times persuasive, we were swept along the river’s course through a landscape of thick jungle and fluttering butterflies.  

We floated up to the resort’s pontoon, borrowed a towel from beside the swimming pool and explored the pleasant grounds. We even borrowed a couple of free bicycles and took a quick ride to see the impressive displays of stalactites and stalagmites.

You could easily spend a week or more relaxing alongside the river, but there are more things to see. Don’t miss a visit to Kanchanaburi, to see Hellfire Pass, The Bridge over the River Kwai, and the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.

The cemetery is only a short distance from the site of the former 'Kanburi' - the prisoner of war base camp through which thousands of prisoners passed on their way to other POW camps during the Second World War.

More than 5,000 Australian, British and Commonwealth troops, as well as 1,800 Dutch casualties, are buried or commemorated in the cemetery. Rows of neat gravestones poke out of the manicured grass.

A short distance away a memorial museum commemorates the victims of the ‘Death Railway’ between Bangkok and Rangoon. Just outside you can join a track that leads along part of the former railway and through the notorious Hellfire Pass, a rock-cutting dug out with picks, hammers and bare hands. On a sleeper, people leave flowers, candles, and even jars of vegemite.

Then there’s the area’s most famous tourist drawcard – the Bridge over the River Kwai. On the near end of the bridge hawkers profer postcards and books, and crowds of people gingerly attempt to walk across the bridge, aware of the large gaps beneath their feet and the wide green river far below.

Fortunately, there are platforms you can stand on off to the side in order to get a good view while still avoiding getting hit by the trains! For the ultimate experience, however, buy a 20 baht ticket for the 15-minute train trip across the bridge and back.

Fact File

For more information on River Kwai Jungle Rafts, look up www.riverkwaijunglerafts.com
For more information on Thailand see www.tourismthailand.org