Chad and Sharon Moore

The trip to Heathrow was worse than the 11 hour flight to bangkok. An accident on the M25 meant that we were stuck on the "London Carpark" for an extra 2 hours.  4.5 hours in a car isn't an ideal start, so glad my dad talked us into leaving a bit early :-)

It felt good to be back in Thailand, the sights, sounds and smells are strangely becoming homely to us. It didn't take us long to check into our usual hotel (New siam II) and be on the streets enjoying a pad thai and Chang beer.  We even bumped into a street hawker, Wan, a woman from the Karen Tribe who remembered us from our previous visit. Who would have thought she would recall so much about us after we only bought one braclet from her - maybe it is because she took nearly an hour chatting to us for one sale!  It's like getting blood out of a stone making me part with 80 bht :-)

We spent a couple of days in bangkok suffering from our worse case of jet lag so far on this trip before catching a local bus to Kanchanaburi.  Most people haven't heard of this place but many know of the local bridge due to the classic old movie "The Bridge Over the River kwai" (a bonus point for anybody who remembers the name of the lead actor?).  The bus station is just over 2k from the main tourist area so we had our first chance to carry our packs, we had to stop halfway for lunch as we were shattered!  As luck would have it, we had an amzing pad thai from a proper local thai stall.  The cook was really helpful too as when I checked about directions she told us about a shortcut through a Wat (Temple), sweeet!  After helping her cute little daughter practice her english (something very common over here) we set off again.  Whilst cutting through the temple grounds we managed to catch a group of monks (is there a collective name for monks?) chanting/singing.  I must say it sounded superb.  I haven't heard such harmonies from a band of baldies since Right Said Fred!  and yes, the monks were better although it would have been amusing to hear them sing "I'm too sexy for my robes" :-)

We checked out a few places to stay before deciding on Tamarind.  Sharon like the look of one of the rooms which turned out to be the most expensive room, typical. I haggled hard to get it down to 500 bht per night.  It had air con/hot water/cable tv and it also had a beautiful river view.

I'm not going to go on about the history of the "death railway", needless to say, it's an unforgettable story that resulted in thousands of deaths and is something everyone should know about, so find out if you don't know. 

We visited a great informative museum and a very well cared for Allied war cemetary.  We also walked across the death railway bridge avoiding the trains as it's still in use today (after a few repairs from WWII bombings).

We enjoyed relaxing on our balcony, taking in the pleasant river views whilst trying to avoid being eaten alive by the mosquitos!  The peaceful setting was also transformed once in a while by my idea of hell, the floating karaoke!  Apart from that, we had a great time:-)