From air-con luxury hotel to electricity free hut!

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Thailand is an interesting place, which goes from opposite extremes in every sense! When walking the streets of Bangkok, the only place to look is down at the floor as you dodge open manholes, pot holes, 2 foot high curbs, whilst listening out for the motorbikes using the pavement as a footpath. However in the same city, cross the yellow line on the skytrain platform and receive a ticking off from a guard!

The roads are something else... lanes change direction with no common sense, right of way is determined by nerves and size (therefore pedestrians are lowest of all priority)!

After Bangkok, we spent a few days in Kanchanburi - home of the bridge over the River Kwai - which means tourism - lots of english bars and cafes where you can get full english breakfasts etc with a token one page on the menu for Thai food. However with a little searching we found some 'proper' Thai places. Kanchanburi is famous for the Japanese bringing tens of thousands of Allied POWs during WW2 to build a railway across Thailand to Burma - thousands died and suffered from the poor conditions. We walked over 'The' bridge over the River Kwai, went to the Death railway museum and the Allied POW cemetary which was quite a sobering experience.

We travelled by Minibus to Sangkhlaburi further north west and on the Thai/Burma border. We spent the night here before being picked up the following day by two of the volunteers from the project we are going to be volunteering at. Like true Thai people, the four of us with luggage and shopping etc climbed onto a 100cc shopper motorbike with side car for a SLOW 10k ride to the project.

We are settled into our accomodation at the project which is somewhat more basic compared to our experience in Bangkok, in fact our standard of living has gradually reduced from Air Con, swimming pool and breakfast buffet in a nice hotel to a room with a fan and a cafe down the road to a mattress in a hut with lots of holes, no fan or elctricity - but it's home and we are happy to be able to stay in one place for a bit!

Yesterday we spent the morning into lunchtime in the HOT and humid sun (at least 38 degrees) making mud bricks, a process which involves mixing water, mud and rice husk in a big pit, by hand (and foot) and then packing into wooden moulds and leaving them to bake in the heat - we struggled big time with the heat - the locals who we were working with however barely broke into a sweat!

Last night we came into town with one of the volunteers had a couple of beers and a nice meal (meal and beer for three - 3 pounds!). Todays is our day off so are off to the local market shortly.

Write more soon......

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Comments

[John Bulmer]

Luxury
Looks like luxury living compared to Glendhu Bothy, weather would appear to be better than we anticipate, but we will be burning rather than making peat bricks, thats if we can keep them dry! Regards A prospective pensioner