The Bridge over the river Kwai (Steve)

From the last post I reckon no-one would guess we didnt like Hua Hin that much! So getting to Kancanaburi was a real breath of fresh air. It is geared up for the tourist, but has the feeling of being real Thailand instead of a resort. Having found Sugar Cane guest house, overlooking the River Kwai, we sorted out a tour tomorrow seeing all the war sites.

So on the morning of the 11th, we get up and join a minibus full of people and set off to Erawan Waterfalls, about 80km's from Kancanaburi. I had managed to cut my right foot in Hua Hin by getting pushed into a rock by a ruff sea, so wasnt really relishing the prospect of a 2.5km hike through rainforest to get to the top. Especially as we'd very cleverly worn flip-flops......

With a moderate amount of discomfort we made it to the top and Sian did do swimming in the blue, calcium carbonate rich water on the 7th tier. The way back was frought with other tourists but we survived and headed of to Hellfire Pass.

This was a very eary place, we havent really been at anywhere like this before, so many allied POW's died from starvation, disease and beatings at the hands of the Japanese occupiers that the place has a real sinister feeling to it. They built a railway all the way from Bangkok to Burma -Myanmar as it is now known.Feeling very hot (imagine what the POW's had to deal with) we saw the HAND tools that were used to carve through mountains, check the pictures but its hard to understand what those guys went through, and you cant feel how hot it is. Should also mention that for approximately 18000 allied POWs that died there were about 30000 asian labourers that befell the same fate. Its a grim history lesson, makes me wonder about our planned visit to the killing fields in Cambodia, but its one of those things that I guess you should learn about.......

After that we had an hour long train ride to go over the famous Bridge over the river Kwai, it is still used today although all but 130km of the original track was torn up. We got off the train and walked up the tracks on the bridge, most of the bridge was renewed after the allies bombed it at the end of the war.

That ended our day trip and after all the walking around in the heat we were knackered!! That was until we got back to the hotel to discover Julia had arrived, so needless to say we ended up going out for a few re-union drinks.........

We woke up today to fire works on our ceiling, our fan decided to wear through its cable and starting sparking everywhere, not the best of alarm calls but it woke us up. Thankfully we turned it off in time as no fuse appeared to be present, and our little room didnt burn down!!

Hoping to go to the Tiger temple this afternoon which should be scarrey, I mean nice.