I had kept hearing Edmund speak about this half marathon in Kanchanaburi, Thailand since last year. The name of the race has a River Kwai in it. Sure sounds interesting. Are we running alongside the river? He spoke about the race, the things to play there, the fun and laughter he had with the gang of people he went before. I made up my mind last year I would fly over to do this.
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Ah Chua, Joanne, Soon Teck, Edmund, me
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When Edmund heard I was going, he told me to add him in. Joanne and Soon Teck, still under the high of their first overseas race at Sabah in May, gladly showed their interest too. Soon, Ah Chua was also in. So here we were. The same gang who went for Borneo International Marathon in May gathered again for another fun outing. This time, 2 of my Hong Kong friends would be joining too. They said they were also interested when I flew to HK for a race in January. When I told them the race registration had started, they quickly signed up too.
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Shopping for shades. You got to look good while running too. :)
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Our flight was 0640Hr. We met at the Budget Terminal at 0500Hr. Sooo so early ..
We were at Gate 4.
We waited to board the plane.
We were finally moving.
The flight was around 2 Hr. We reached Bangkok at around 0900Hr. The custom at Suvarnabhumi Airport always has a long queue. Maybe Thailand really attracts a lot of tourists.
Waiting for our transport. For this trip, we were lucky that Joanne was able to liaises with her office's agent in Bangkok to help us rent a vehicle throughout the trip. At 2000 BHT a day excluding fuel charges, its really a good deal after dividing up the costs.
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I like the vehicle number. 8510
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Our transport is here!
Everybody was good to go!
Off to the city to pick up our HK friends.
The trip from the airport to the city took around 45 mins. Thank goodness there was not much traffic jam. Their hotel name was President Solitaire.
Tada .. !! .. Jennifer and Ivan from Hong Kong!
Off we go to Kanchanaburi!
Wow .. we can watch tv along the way too .. :)
We hit the highways and slowly made our way out of Bangkok. The scenes along the way got more and more rural. The trip was long. We chatted most of the way. Ah Chua, Joanne and Soon Teck listened to Edmund's interesting running stories. I tried to catch up with where we left off in January with Jennifer and Ivan. Jennifer said she went for TNF Beijing in May. That was a race I had planned to go in 2012. She said it was very tough. Given her caliber, if its very tough to her, it would mean hell for me. :(
We also spoke about Vibram HK100. "2013!", I told them I would go in that year. I tried to find out more information from them about the race. They said they would bring me to hike a section of the route if I were to visit Hong Kong again. :)
We made a pit stop at Nakom Pathom. Not that I knew where it was on the map.
There were snack stalls around.
We had lunch there. The time was already noon. None of us spoke thai. We ordered our food using our 一阳指.
The journey to Kanchanaburi continued. We would first stop by the River Kwai Bridge. Built during WW2, it was made famous by the 1957 movie "The Bridge on the River Kwai". We reach at around 1400Hr.
Walking across the bridge.
They have this train to carry tourists on a loop passing through the bridge. If you were on the bridge when the train was passing through, you just have to step to the side. The train was not going to stop for you.
On the other side of the river.
Monuments for the soldiers fro China.
They were also building a Guanyin temple at the side. The construction was not completed but the Guanyin statue was up.
Buskers on the bridge.
In the middle of the bridge.
The white building was the war museum.
The wall near the market documenting the story of how the bridge was built.
We walked around the market area and saw some interesting stuff.
I reckon they have a dirty toilet at another corner.
Wow!! What realistic plush toy leopards!
On a closer look ..
they were real ..
We had coffee here. The spot where the people crowded was where the leopards were at.
We also wanted to visit the death railway but looking at the time, we may have to scrap it. We were not sure how far was the race expo from here or the Death Railway. We did not want to risk not arriving on time to collect the race pack although the emails sent to us said it would open till 1900Hr.
So next stop would be the River Kwai Village Hotel. We showed our driver the address and he nodded his head. It started drizzling already. We left the River Kwai Bridge and 10 mins later our van turned into River Kwai Hotel in town.
Oh no .. the driver got the wrong hotel ..
We told him its the wrong hotel and showed him the address again. He did not seem to know where was it.
Oh no oh no ..
The driver got out of the van and approached the security guard at the hotel for help. After some direction pointing between the two of them, our driver got up the van again and drove out. He could not understand much English. I just silently hope in my heart he managed to find out the direction.
We hit the highway 323. As our van move along we were looking at our own maps trying to see if we had passed any landmarks to find our if we were heading in the correct direction. After spotting a couple of landmarks on the map, we seem to be doing fine. Or I really hope so.
We soon got out of town. It was a long, long drive along Highway 323. There was nothing around us and we just kept driving forward. "Who the hell would stay at a hotel that was built at such an isolated place?", I thought in my mind.
In chinese there is a saying: 狗不拉屎, 鸟不生蛋. The dogs dont shit and the birds dont lay eggs. I thought this was it.
After nearly 45 mins on the road, which seems like hours, we finally saw this:
We finally reached! We were so happy and so relieved.
It was another drive in to reach the hotel.
Race expo!
Registration for other marathons.
Standard Chartered Bangkok Marathon and Running for the King Marathon.
Collecting our BIB.
Where's my BIB? Where's my BIB?
This man was wearing the 2001 event tee. 10 years ago!
Osaka! Ok, I am not going though.
The start line was at a distance away from the River Kwai Village Hotel. Nearer to the Highway 323. The hotel was located at the bottom of a down slope. It was a steep slope separating the hotel and the start line.
This was the slope going up towards the highway 323 from the hotel. Thank goodness the start line was not below the slope.
We were here!
The Mizuno inflatable shoe.
We asked the driver to bring us on a recce of the race route. I noticed something along the way. There were no street lights. Now I begin to wonder whether if we can see during the first few km of the race. Hope the sun rises early in Kanchanaburi.
We stopped by this restaurant along the way to have dinner. We were told the owner of the restaurant was once the chef at River Kwai Village Hotel.
As I know Thais normally eat smaller portions compared to us, I ordered extra big plate of fried rice.
The others ordered the normal portion .. which was too little. They ordered another big plate for a second round.
We reached the restaurant at 1800 Hr. Our food took a while to arrive. We chatted as we waited. When I finished my food, I looked out and realised it was already pitch dark. The time was only 1900Hr. No street lights. Nothing. How to run early morning tomorrow?
Jennifer and Ivan had managed to book a room at River Kwai Village Hotel. I tried to book one day later than them and it was already full. In the end we booked the race hotel Pung Waan Resort which was 10km away. We stocked up on water before going to the hotel.
They were selling ice cold towel.
Pung Waan Resort was even further away from Highway 323 than River Kwai Village Hotel, another 5 min drive to get us to the lobby. We were all tired now and really wanted to get to our rooms and rest. As it was a resort, our room was a short walk from the lobby. Reminds me of Cyberview Lodge in Cyberjaya when we went over to run in March 2010. They have a buggy to ferry us to our rooms. It started raining when we reached the hotel. Unpredictable weather.
Edmund and Ah Chua were comparing their matching black socks.
The room was big and nice. Outside the balcony, we could directly see the River Kwai flowing swiftly. The rain got heavier and heavier. The balcony was all wet from the rain. Just hope it would not rain during the run tomorrow.
I quickly prepared the stuff needed for tomorrow. This was my first overseas race that was lesser than a full marathon distance. Not feeling really that nervous or excited about it but I just wish to enjoy the run. Nice scenery, cool weather, fresh (very fresh) air.
The gear for tomorrow.
Bathed, set the phone alarm to go off. Looked through that I did not miss anything for the run.
Done.
Sleeping time.
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