River Kwai and tigers!!!

Ohhh it's suchhh a perfect dayyyyy

I have had an amazing day today so I'm in a very jolly mood indeed!!!! We organised a trip out so we were picked up from our hotel (we don;t do things by halves you know) at 7am. Another early start!!! First stop....WW2 cemetery. So basically the people buried here were Japanese POW. Basically we all know the Japanese wer evil bastards during the war. This included forcing POW and pressganging the general public into building a railway, now known as the 'death railway' as so many people died due to the terrible conditions. The bridge over the river Kwai was also bombed killing more people. So basically we visited some of their graves, it included Aussies, Brits and other nationalities. I don't really like taking potos at places like that as I think it's disrespectful and we just had a quiet wander round, readng the various inscriptions on the gravestones.. However, busloads of Japs (of all people), were giggling away and taking a load of photos. They were prancing around, posing and laughing. Now groups of Jap tourists annoy me at any time. But they really pissed me off today. Twats.

Anyway, so we then visited a museum which was pretty interesting and we actually visited and walked over the 'bridge over the river kwai' which was rebuilt. So that was cool. It was a bit dodgy in places..it wasn't actually that wide and quite a few people were on it. Fat Americans shouldn't really be allowd on it, firstly because their fat arses take up so much room and secondly because they don't move to let you past, they make you hop over on to a wobbly plank right on the edge so you're looking down on the river thinking "shit I'm going down". I'm clumsy at the best of times and I kept on stumbling over bolts and uneven planks of wood. So we made it to the centre took a few pics then we suddenely heard a low horn coming from behind us...it suspiciously sounded like it was approaching us. We turn around and there's only a bloody train coming towards us!!! So ok it was going pretty slowly, but still!!!! We survived to tell the tale though!!!!

Oh our journey wasn't over...we got back in our bus and drove for about an hour passing some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. Thats what I missed in India...we barely saw any greenery but looking out of the window were mountains in the distance, lush forestry in front and a river!! It was lovely. We then got a train on 'death railway' which was such a cool train ride!! Nick and I sat on the step of a doorway and had an awesome view.

We had lunch on a boat on the river and then drove to a waterfall, then to a tiger temple. The tiger temple was set up by a Monk. Basically some monk set up a monasterywhich was surrounded by a forest so lots of birds etc lived amongst the monks..now the story goes that an injured wild boar stumbled in and the monks cared for him until he was well enough to be released...the next day he returned with his family in tow!! They couldn't get rid of him and after that many villagers brought unwanted pets and injured animals. Eventually a tiger cub was brought...a local had attempted to kill her for a clent who wanted a stuffed tiger cub....more were brought which grew up and breeded and theres now about 20 tgers living with the monks!! Because thy have all been reared by humans they are all extremely tame and you can get your photo taken with them!!! It was a cool experience...

So tomorrow we have booked to head up North to Chiang Mai where we'll do a three day trek in the jungle. The views are supposed ot be some of the most beautiful in the world so I can't wait!!

Hope everybody is well.

xxxx

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