Kanchanaburi-Ayuthaya-Sukhothai

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After Bankok, the next few days were spent on long journeys to & from major places for seeing many historical sights, which i won't go into too much, but to get the gist...

Kanchanaburi - where the Bridge Over the River Kwai story comes from. very sad & shocking stories about the building of this bridge by the japanese during WW2 in order to have a trading route through to myanmar, using prisoners of war to build, brought over & kept in hideous conditions, where thousands were injured & killed. stories exist for some people, but many have no records at all, as these were not kept well by the japanese at the time. very eerie feeling walking over it & learning about what really went on here.

Ayuthaya - long bus journey over to here, which used to be capital of thailand. full of very important and really impressive wats, each with their own little story. some great ruins & more ceremonies & stuff going on. quite enjoying being blessed by the monks, but am rapdily accumuating lots of stringy bracelets & good luck charms from the monks, whih i just feel obliged to wear constantly! the general feeling i am gaining from all this tho is that buddhism is certainly a very nice & unimposing religion...no harm done to anyone, they just live a very harmonious & peaceful life. Very interesting people staying at our hostel here...with an eric clapton sound-a-like-wannabe. amusing evening!

Phitsanulok - another long overnight train...very uncomfortable this time...completely hard & impossible to do much sleeping at all! arrived at stupid am in the morning unrested but ready to straight away jump on another bus journey to face another full day of wat seeing in (yes...you guessed...all this silly travel, no rest, pask in all the sights in a couple of days was all my idea...the girls were not too pleased with me...but hey, we got it done!!)...

Sukhothai - many more wats, more concentrated in one area. capital before ayuthaya & full of many inportant wats & ancient ruins. made a lovely friend witha seet lady who insited on me holding her grandchild, which i did with please. we then made arrangements for me to buy the baby off of here & bring it home for 100 baht (the whole of 1 pound fifty!). thouht she might be serious at one point, but eventually she took the child back...sigh!!!

after that, headed for anotther very long train journey to Chaing Mai

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