Tigers and temples

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We flew into Bangkok on the 1st of Feb and found a small guesthouse off Koh San Road, the backpackers' central location. We tried to discover some of the sights of the city by foot, refusing many offers of " Hey where you go?" from kind Tuk Tuk drivers who wanted to help us find the lesser famous temples as well as some new clothes at there friends shops, as the temples we wanted to see were apparently closed on that particular day. We had read about these 'offers of help' and still nearly believed one guy who said he was a school teacher. However, ignoring his advice we finally found what we were looking for with the help of two French ladies, with a real map. The Wat Pho temple - one of the most famous ones in Bangkok, which was open after all - was quite impressive, with its giant reclining Buddha and colourful stupas. As it took us the best part of the day to find the place, we decided that we would try to see more sights at a later date.
We left the city after two days (Jim was delighted to leave his massive backpack in storage as we left with the strict minimum of essentials all in one bag!) and headed to Kanchanaburi with Michael Schumacher at the wheel. Amazingly we arrived there in one piece and found a cheap bamboo hut by the river Kwai. We went to see the famous bridge and took a last minute trip to a place called Tiger Temple. We hadn't heard of it before and therefore didn't really know what to expect... we got to the Tiger Canyon and were lead one at a time to pose for photos next to several half asleep tigers of various sizes. All but one were quite happy to be tickled and it was a rather unusual experience!
From Kanchanaburi, we then took local buses to Lopburi which is famous for one thing: monkeys, and lots of them! We stayed at what was discribed as Monkey Palace as the hotel was protected by a metal screen which serves as a climbing frame for the monkeys when they are not at the temple across the road. We visited the temple the following day and Jim ended up with a monkey on his head trying to steal his water bottle whilst I dropped all my seeds when a big cheeky monkey started climbing on my leg. The locals seem to control them with home made catapults - very much needed to stop the monkeys helping themselves to all the products available in shops and restaurants.
We then caught a train to Chang Mai where we did not do a lot other than arrange a flight to Laos - we could not face the 3 day boat trip down the Mekong to get to Luang Prabang.

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