Kanchanaburi

After a couple of crazy days in Bangkok where we spent too many late nights out with mates and too many hours shopping to get a wardrobe ready for Europe, we retired to Kanchanaburi for some sightseeing. As you'd remember, we went to Kanchanaburi back in April when we were travelling with Tim and Traci, but our memory card crashed and we lost all our photos. We had to return to recapture the memories. This time we went with a few new friends - Dave, Doug and Meg. We went back to Erawan National Park with its amazing seven-tiered waterfalls and we also returned to the Tiger Temple. I won't go into details about either of these because I've done that further down in the blog from our last visit - and I'm feeling lazy - but the photos sum it up nicely.

At the second level of the waterfall

Doug, Dave, Bol and Wayne take the plunge

Bol and Dave

Bol and I prepare to go down the natural slipperydip into the pool below

Their paws are bigger than my head!

Bol pretends the tigers are his turntables and has a mix

Bol and I also got the chance this time to go for a train trip along the Thailand to Burma Railway - otherwise known as the Death Railway - across the River Kwai. We also visited Hellfire Pass, where Australian Prisoners of War were forced to work on the railway by the Japanese during WWII. They lived in terrible conditions and had to dig huge tunnels through rock with their hands and dynamite. More than 1000 Australians died during the course of the railway being built. It's an eerie place.

On the train crossing the Bridge over the River Kwai

Hellfire Pass: the POWs had to dig this out by hand

We once again stayed at Little Creek, which is one of our favourite guesthouses. As described last time, it's a series of mud huts spread over 30 acres. There's a great restaurant and swimming pool and it's the perfect place to play poker into the wee hours, as we discovered! It was a great few days and now we're heading back to Bangkok for a couple of nights and then down to the islands for our last two weeks to really relax, because life is just so stressful :)

Our African style hut

Bol unwinds after a stressful day!

The gang - Meg, Wayne, Dave, Doug, Bol and I - play poker at our guesthouse