Thailand

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Monkeys

Hello again, this time from Thailand.

Keep this short and sweet, as I am falling behind on my blog entries at the mo!!

Met up with my friend Jan who is from Thailand, and went out for her brother's girlfriend's 20th Birthday in Bangkok (did you follow that?!). It was her 20th birthday, how to make me feel old!!

Day after the birthday, was actually the Kings birthday, so everyone was wearing yellow "I love the King" shirts in Bangkok, so I paid my 2 quid and got my own one.

After couple nights in Bangkok (didn't really do much there as coming back again later), went to Kanchanburi which is the setting for the famous war movie "Bridge on the River Kwai". Yes the bridge actually exist, though the one in the film was actually a replica from Sri Lanka.

Spent almost a week in Kanchanburi seeing all the sites including the war sites/museums (over 4, 000 British POW dies helping build the Bridge from Thailand to Burma, and in totoal about 12,000 allied POW and 100,000 asians died while being "worked" by the Japanese.

At Hell Fire Pass (so named by the POW because due to Japanese timescales they had to work through the night, and the night fires made the place look and feel like hell) which runs next to the River Kwai, you can see the effort that must have gone in to cutting into the cliff rock to enable rail track to be layed with only hand held tools.

Kanchanburi, also has sone great activies to do. I did a 12,000m Kyaking trip downh the river Kwai, which took (including a stop for lunch and refreshments) 6 hours and left me extremly tired. Didn't realise until we got there on the Sunday morning that they close a damn further up stream over the weekend, so there is no current to help you along.

Also went on an elephant treck, which was pretty amazing. They even let you sit on the elephants neck, and put your feet behind each of its ears. Also took the elephants into the river for a wash, and I got to ride this massive elephant, with enormous tusks, with only a rope around it's neck to hold onto - they were trained to dip under the water, and then after to go up on their hind legs whilst your on top, bit like an elephant rodeo!

Also went to Erawan National Park to see a waterfall which has 7 different levels. Was rewarding to get to the 7th, but took over an hour to get up there, and got tricky at times.


After Kanchanburi stayed with Jan in Nakhom Pathom (which is between Kanchanburi and Bangkok). Couple of things to see including the largest Chedi in Thailand, it's own large reclinging Budha -Nakhom Pathom was where Budhism was first introduced into Thailand from India). Whilst there even did a couple of hours hard labour in Jan's clothes shop/factory (was afraid that I was taking a job aways from a couple of 6 year olds, and 80 year old women, though it's OK as there little hands can probably sew quicker than me!! - joke!!, I prob sow alot quicker).

Then went back to Bangkok, and the famous traveller road Khoa San road (was in the film the beach), to sort my next destination.......Cambodia....................

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