【HIGHLIGHT】Khwae Yai River SUP Touring - Day 1

Google Street View:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/CKiLLMXs4fAdJ...

Blog:
https://www.takashimorimoto.com/blog/...

The Khwae Yai River seems to have developed water-friendly environment throughout the upper to middle section. There are quite many waterfront facilities along the way, and most of them accommodates some sort of paddling vessels, such as canoes, dinghies, kayaks or SUPs. The river community seemed to have the casual and accessible atmosphere towards such activities. There are also powered boats, but I have never seen any speed boats or jet skis blasting around in this section of the river. Most of the motor boats are either small fishing boats or leisure pontoons moving slowly. The pontoons were often towing panels of rafts made out of nets and frames, or simply sheets of floating materials with their guests on. It looked like a train on the water, and they were having absolute fun being towed around. I was impressed by the horse power of the motors when I saw them going upriver dragging those rafts while people were on, since the downward current of the rivers was pretty fast.

The riverside resorts, play areas and restaurants were all refreshing to me. Just like Hub Erawan Resort, most of them were on the raft structure floating on the river and had direct access to the water. There were also some camping sites with beaches, and it looked pretty nice. Such facilities are rare to find in Japan where most of the rivers are fast-flowing shallow rocky creeks. It is really difficult to find calm rivers that are deep and long enough to have such setup. There are some rivers in flat regions, but they are usually protected by raised mount of river banks which separate the water from where people live. Usually, Japanese riverside spaces are managed by the government and used for baseball grounds and cycling roads. It is for safety, but I have never seen any riverside environment like here. I was genuinely jealous, but at the same time, I was pretty happy to be there. It's wild, but a lot of the eyes on the water.

The flow of the river felt pretty fast, but it looked like controlled by the dam in the upper section. During the night and early in the morning, the river looked almost completely still with glassy mirror surface. But at some point during the day, the river current was clearly visible, and it was fast. I had noticed this detail when I was staying in the cottage in Kanchanaburi. I don't know for sure, but I assume that it has something to do with the dams. While I was impressed by the accessibility of the riverside environment, the fast flowing current made me a bit concerned for the kids and unexperienced guests. I would pay extra caution if I were a visiting parent with small children. With that being said, the Khwae Yai's current really boosted me to fast. Along with the downwind, I was traveling 5 to 7 km/h with least amount of effort.

I set my first day's finishing point at Lake View Cafe And Restaurant in Tha Thung Na Reservoir. The Khwae Yai River has another dam after this beautiful lake, so I needed to portage there. It was a 17.30 km (11.9 miles) trip with 3 hours of moving time. (Plus, I hiked up to the Level 7 of Erawan Waterfalls in the morning.) I couldn't find much information about Tha Thung Na Reservoir, but this lake itself looked amazing and worth exploring. I would love to come back here for a Street View mapping project. It looked like a great spot to fish as well.

While I knew I was going to portage there, I had not yet planed how to get to my next hotel from there. I walked up the rough terrain to the main road where buses to city of Kanchanaburi stop by. I waited at the nearest bus stop for a while, though the bus never arrived which was not either rare or surprising situation in the remote region of Thailand. So, I asked a gentle man who stopped by at the roadside shop next to my bus stop for a ride. He was with his wife and a kid, and drove a pickup truck. Although he didn't understand my English, but he got the location of my next hotel by seeing my smart phone. It was merely 10 minutes down the road by car, but it would be a heck of walking with my equipments. I got to say I was lucky, but at the same time, I knew I was going to do this. While we were communicating by the roadside shop, the bus I was going to catch passed by, and it was packed with other people who were going back to the Kanchanaburi city.

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