Sangklaburi Yo

So after a four hour bus ride which was supposed to be three but in Thailand nothing is ever on time, we arrived in the middle of the mountains in a much cooler climate which was well deserved. We decided to travel here for an escape of the typical tourist trail what the Thai's call 'farangs'. Apparently it means potato? Anyway we got a moto ride to a guest house with spectacular views of the reservoir and the Mon bridge. We found the night market straight away and got a scooter to explore the hills. We visited the Mon village and seen the local night life. The following day we found what looked like a party in a field which was another local market which sold some pretty random things. From leggings and betel-nut to play-stations and pigs heads! We crossed the Mon bridge and seen the floating village. The Mon people are refugees that fled to Thailand from oppression and abuse in Burma and now unfortunately the Thai government will not grant them Thai rights and are now in a no win situation. Unfortunately the Mon people do not have rights to education, health care and cannot travel out of sangklaburi through border checks forbidding them entering other parts of Thailand. Sangklaburi is known for having the biggest ethnic hill tribe communities throughout Thailand including Mon, Karen and Laotian  tribes so we were excited to explore! We visited the Mon village and souvenir stalls and met a friendly Mon shop keeper nick named 'Yo'. He taught us that Mon used to be a country between Burma and Thailand but 500 years ago through a war it was split between the neighbouring countries therefore making Mon people refugees. Yo served us up some tasty pork rice and spicy basil with Chinese tea for afters. He also taught us some phrases and told us about how himself and his other ten family members live in his small house but the Mon village is his real family. Gem bought a ring carved from elephant bone and we headed back to our guest house to change. That night we booked our elephant trek and bamboo rafting through the jungle for the following day :-D. We started at 9a.m. but managed to get some boiled rice with pork veg and an omelette for breakfast. We sailed down the reservoir through the floating village to where we would be getting a tuk tuk through the jungle. The road was rough but it was worth it because when we arrived two huge elephants were crossing the river to take us on our trek. After getting mobbed by Thai people wanting photos with the westerners we climbed the bamboo ladders onto our elephant. We wandered through the trees and rivers for over an hour taking turns sitting obvious the elephants head and steering her (Shirley gem named her) down the paths. Our tour guide got some great photos and we were devastated when we had to get off :-(. We had dinner and our rafts arrived which we got on and nearly sank straight away which the bamboo captain found hilarious! We floated down the river looking at the picturesque views when suddenly it got abit out of hand. The river soon turned into rapids and the bamboo captain of the raft just ahead was having a bad time! He fell off his raft head first and lost a shoe then tried to jump back on and slid with both feet and landed flat on his back! We thought it was hilarious but he obviously never and was splashing us with his oar and tried to flip our raft. We reached the end of the river and our trip was over back in the tuk tuk we went and we headed back to our guest house. The next day we crossed the bridge and went to see the Gold Pagoda that made the city glow at night which contained Buddha's thumb bone and the local temple where we seen some young monks and a white and jade Buddha statue! We got there just in time before more torrential rain and waited with the young monks for into go off. We had lunch with Yo and he made us the best Mon curry ever! He gave us local bananas for desert along with some green spaghetti looking stuff with milk and sugar in which he couldn't explain in English...We had Chinese tea afterwards and watched Thai 'Take me out' on tv while the rain went off :-). We said our farewells to Yo and headed to the centre for a wander. We went back early to pack as tomorrow would be the four hour bus journey back to Kanchanaburi :-).