Kanchanaburi - Train journey across the River Kwai

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Tuesday 16 February
Today we have a plan. As we cannot walk or hike very far, due to aforementioned heat/humidity levels, we will walk the 25 minutes to Kanchanaburi Railway Station to catch the 10.30am tourist train across the River Kwai, and onto Nam Tok, it's final destination, taking over two hours each way. The fare is either bht100 (£2) or special class tourist price bht300 (do the math), which includes a cushion to sit on, coffee, iced water, cheesy biscuit AND a jammy sponge cake, not to mention copious cups of iced Coca Cola and chilled hand wipes - AND a certificate to say we travelled on the train! So, we splashed out and travelled in style. Having visited the official museum yesterday, we really did sense the enormity of this railway. It was an incredible journey and we were both really pleased that we chose to experience it. However the stunning scenery was veiled in pollution from the heavy use of crop burning in the region, which takes place after harvesting the Sugar Cane , in fact it was so bad that in many places our eyes itched and our clothing was soot dusted. The bridges near to Nam Tok are still the original WW 2 wooden struts and at the time of traversing were being replace with New timbers which made the journey interesting as we edged our way across at a creep with engineers and workers checking every foot of the old and new track with occasional tilting. En route we pass a cave by the track which has a Wat inside, advertised as part of a popular tourist trip,we don't get off to visit. Back at Kanchanaburi around 3pm and en route stumbled (not perhaps a good word) across an Aussie ex-pats bar. It was cool inside and before we'd even started to sip our ice cold beers, we were being chatted to by some very interesting Aussie Old Boys. They all had interesting life stories to tell and the reasons they came to be in this town. We disentangled ourselves from this friendly bunch to return to our room to freshen up for a pizza feast across the road, the temptingly named 'Meat and Cheese' restaurant. Early night, another travelling day tomorrow.

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