The Wanderings of busman7

Traditional Chinese Medicine that is.

Regular followers of this blog might remember an entry from Nov 6, 09 titled not so nice China where I mentioned going to a clinic in Beijing that specialized in treating Patients in traditional ways where I was given a prescription that would improve blood circulation + improve respiration after a consultation which took less than 1/2hr from entry to the building to exit.

Upon posting this a regular follower by the screen name of Oncearound commented that I had wasted $100 on a placebo. WRONG!!!

Well I wasn’t sure but what he might be correct but as I explained at the time that due to the sad state of the Canadian health (un)care system & having no family doctor it was worth a try.

Now since I quit smoking last year, prior top the start of traveling, + doing a lot of walking my stamina improved greatly however I still experienced shortness of breath & had to stop to rest frequently when exerting myself especially in hilly terrain or on stairs. This has been the case for 16 months since smoking cessation, of course prior to quitting a walk of more than 10 ft or a climb of more than 3 stairs was nearly impossible.

Hadn’t really thought anything about it until on an excursion yesterday we visited a waterfall & the guide warned that there were 150 steps leading down to the fall so to take our time coming back up.  Well I reached the top of the stairs only slightly after the group with no shortness of breath & no stops, something that would have been impossible 2 months ago before I had started taking the Traditional medicine. Once this dawned on me I realized that for a while now I have been walking distances regularly, with no thought, that I never would have contemplated before. It just kind of snuck up on me! 

One case where checking alternatives while traveling improves the quality of ones life, which never would have happened at home in Canada!!!

Bangkok is great but after a couple weeks even using 3 different hotels/guest houses in 3 different areas of the city it starts getting long in the tooth. Now for some strange reason I gained a day (in my mind only), thought I was leaving on Monday but when I bought my train ticket it was dated Sunday Jan 3, 2553, yep the 1st was on Fri. not Sat!

So now that we are back on the right date & out of the city things are looking up, arrived in Kanchanaburi a 3 hr ride on the local train, ordinary class only (windows open + fans in the roof) & stops at every station. Didn’t have a room booked as bootsNall & Lonely Planets websites were only showing availability at one hostel bookable on line so figured pi$$ o9n it there will be touts at the station, which there was & got a nice room for only 500 Baht.

Only draw back was no internet so on my quest for a decent internet café while walking past this sidewalk bar the (American) guy behind the bar asks “how’s it going?” when I told him he pointed to the internet place across the street. Now that was pretty cool so when I finished with my emails, forums etc stopped in for a cool one, as it was 90+F & found it was an ex-pat bar/book store with a sign proclaiming: “COWBOYS, REDNECKS, OLD HIPPIES, BACK PACKERS, VIKINGS, DUTCH, ALL WELCOME”. Gosh, Golly, Gee a little piece of home in Thailand!! And Jimmy says he is pretty sure it is the only bar in Thailand with a sign welcoming Red Necks!!

Day 2 in Kanchanaburi a central city of 100.00+ with a tourist section by the river that has been overbuilt for about 5x the tourist trade that exists (according to Jimmy at  Birdland Books/Louise’s Red Neck Bar) so prices are cheap ie my big room at Pong Phen, double bed, AC, Sat TV, patio by the pool is only 500 Baht ($15.75). Also the town is not overrun with touts, only place you run in to them is at the bridge which is about 1 mile from the main section of town.

Returning to the Red Neck bar for the second night I was greeted like a long lost friend & even met a Canadian who owns a guest house which is for sale as he has gotten itchy feet after 3 yrs in the same place. Seems ex-pats are a bread apart & basically the same the world over, willing to put up with whatever it takes for the greener pastures away from home. Willing to bet that karma from past lives plays a major role in that & the ex-pat is more in tune with it than the so called “normal” (read sociological brainwashed person)! Whatever this Red Neck Cowboy only feels at home in the company of other travelers who are happier on the road than in the country they were born & raised in.

Night 3 was better than ever at the bar, it was busier the whole sidewalk was blocked with the party, a couple travelers who were there the night before returned also 2 Alberta sisters that stopped by to check out the books stayed around & partied for a while. Then a guy rang the bell which meant he was buying a round for the house, same happened a few more times by others so ended up having a cheap night out, with some great conversations, even though stayed ‘til the last dog was hung lol. Oh yeah the restaurant across the street makes the best, by a long shot, musman (spelling) curry I have ever tasted.

Bottom line if you ever find yourself in Kanchanaburi Thailand stop in at Birdland Books on the main backpacker drag by the river, just look for the yellow Harley out front, & say Hi to Jimmy.

 

 

 

Manaña going to check  out The Bridge on the River Kwai (yep the actual bridge, not the movie)!!

Well yes the bridge is there, just an ordinary railroad bridge but it’s history makes it a major tourist draw.It is estimated “The Death Railway” from Rangoon to just out of Bangkok was built at a cost of the lives of 100,000 prisoners. The State Railway of Thailand even runs a small tourist train over the bridge giving a 15 minute ride across it & a couple miles down the track on the line from Bangkok to Nam Tok, cost 20 Baht ($0.63) & they even issue an official ticket from the KhwaevYai Bridge destination Khao Pun,which doesn’t seem too bad unless you consider the 3 hr trip from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi only costs 100 Baht. No matter one more bucket list trip crossed off!

On my third day checked out the Death Railway Museum in town then caught a local bus for  the jus under 2 hr ride to Hell Fire Pass up in the mountains north of town. A pretty good museum there but the main attraction is a 4 km stretch of the old rail bed that has been restored by the Australian gov’t www.dva.gov.au where they erected a memorial dedicated to all the Allied POW’s & Asian laborers who suffered & died there. A very enlightening day & I came away knowing that anyone who complains about how hard their job is & how badly treated they are had best thank their lucky stars that they never had to suffer what those people did!

Sadly today my time in Kanchanaburi came to an end so stopped by my favorite bar to bid adieu to Jimmy on my way to the train station for the ride back to Bangkok  where a train awaits manaña for Chaing Mai & the next adventure!

Enough already!! The horror stories I have heard about the goings on at Pearson caused by the moronic knee jerk reactions from retards at Homeland Security targeting ordinary passengers because the CIA  failed to do it’s job is the last ... [Continue reading this entry]