A second visit to a town is nothing like the first

Sometimes when you’re bouncing aimlessly around some country, you find yourself passing through the same town multiple times. You can either use this as a sign that you need to be more creative with your explorations, or to get to know the town a little better.

After passing through Kanchanaburi, Thailand on the way towards towns near the border of Myanmar a few days ago, I found myself back in Kanchanaburi for a few days, and I had found the town so pleasant before that I was happy to spend a little more time here relaxing and seeing what I’d missed.

In the spirit of newness I got a room at a different guesthouse than before – this time Sam’s River Raft House, right down the street from the delightful VN Guesthouse where I was last week.

My room at Sam’s was not beautiful, unfortunately. The cramped concrete room was just big enough for the sagging bed and its dingy linens, and the small plastic mirror in the bathroom/shower area had dried-on soap droplets that looked like they’d been there a while. Most distressing was the line of little ants that marched across the wall and led hungrily to some gross-looking gob of crusty slime in the drain.

By which I mean, you get what you pay for and I was pleased to be saving money at Sam’s. Maybe I could ignore the ants!

I probably could have taken a few days there but my room had no view, and the next day I returned to VN Guesthouse where I could see the trees opposite the river from my balcony, and where I could watch a Siamese crocodile swim around and could hang my sink laundry to dry in the sun. The same staff remembered me and I ate many a meal in the little bamboo-covered outdoor restaurant up the hill from the rooms.

So, re-ensconced in my favorite area guesthouse and with some free time on my hands – and having already visited the Bridge On The River Kwae and the Chinese cemetery – it was time to cool my insulin down in my pack, grab some low blood sugar snacks, and go see what else Kanchanaburi had to offer.

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

Actually, right outside my guesthouse was the town’s second-most famous site (after the bridge), the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. With the remains of almost 7,000 prisoners of war killed during the brutal Japanese-led construction of the so-called Death Railway, the cemetery is a beautifully maintained but unnervingly stark reminder of the horrors that visited the area during World War II.

Row upon row of little black plaques mark the graves, with gold embossed lettering in English giving names, dates, memorial quotes, and images of crosses and Stars of David. Sprinklers were turned on while I was there, and every blade of dark green grass seemed cut the exact same length. It is really well-maintained, and wandering up and down the rows and reading the gravestones in such lovely, placid surroundings is rather haunting.

Goodbye Kanchanaburi

Finally though, it’s time to leave Kanchanaburi. I’m taking the train back to Bangkok but continuing on to a town north of the capital known for its arresting old ruins and its large numbers of wild monkeys: Lopburi.

You may not often find yourself in the same town twice, at least not on the same trip. But when that happens, a traveler tends to have quite a different relationship with that town. It’s funny; staying in place X for two weeks is one thing, but visiting place Y twice for a week each is very different. A more profound familiarity sets in for the second visit. A mini-pattern has been established, and you feel more forgiving and more protective of the place.

Absurd as it may seem, a place like Kanchanaburi, a small Thai town in which I’ve spent about six days of my life, feels much more like “home” than many other places I’ve been.

What places have you visited multiple times and gotten to know well?

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