13-15 Jan 2012

13-15 Jan 2012

This is my final blog entry from Thailand :-(

Yesterday we were up for 23 hours. We got up at 7am and went to Kanchanaburi to see the Death Railway and the bridge over River Kwai. We got a taxi to the Southern bus terminal as although you can get the train there there are only two trains a day so we could have been waiting a long time. We did have a slight panic when the taxi driver started driving without turning the meter on and I shouted at him to stop or I'd call the police (not that we had a phone on us) only to find out he was just moving the car out of a busy junction as he wasn't sure where we wanted to go and wanted to make sure he knew where we were going. Didn't I feel like a complete tool. The southern bus terminal is huge and has an upstairs! We found the ticket stand we needed and a bus was leaving in ten minutes. It took 2 hours to get there and like at most other places as soon as the bus pulls in the tuk tuk drivers see a farang on board and rush over to try and get you signed up before you've climbed down the steps off the bus. However we had a map and it didnt look too far so we walked to the museum and spent quite a while there. Its quite moving seeing real letters sent from the PoWs and seeing film clips of people that were there. We then tried to see if we could ride on the railway but there weren't any trains. We then walked to the bridge over River Kwai although it was much longer a walk than we realised! We took a few snaps and then headed back. We managed to get a songthaew with some locals for 10 baht each! We didn't get back until about 6pm and we were supposed to collect our suits and meet Becky, Nicola and the Aussies at half 7. When we got to KSR our suits werent ready so we were told to go back the next day.

We'd arranged through facebook for Becky, Nicola and Chris and Sarah (the Aussies from CM) to meet at our hotel for a night out. Bearing in mind what happened in Koh Phangan we weren't sure it would happen but the plan worked and they all arrived within a few minutes of each other! We caught up on what we'd all been doing over the past couple of days and then went for dinner. We then went to a couple of bars on KSR and got extremely drunk. We didnt end up getting in until 6am! It was a really good night although we felt very ropey today.

We dragged ourselves out of bed around 11am as we didn't want to waste the day. We had breakfast and decided to go to the famous weekend market known locally as 'JJ'. It has 8,000 stalls and Thais come from all over to shop there. We attempted to get a bus but we'd been waiting in the blistering heat for too long with no sign of the bus so we got a taxi instead. Today has been the hottest day so far and we decide to go to a hectically busy market whilst hungover. The market was amazing! We hardly covered any of it and we definitely went in circles a couple of times. I could have spent a fortune there. There were stalls with one-off hand made clothes for less than £8. I did buy quite a few things but not as much as I'd have liked! We got a holdall for our stuff on the way back. If I had more money we'd have filled a suitcase each of clothes as it so cheap here! Once our feet were hurting too much to bear we got a tuk tuk back. The taxis wanted double what we paid to get there so we got a tuk tuk breathing in all sorts of crap on the way - its not a short journey. The driver also happened to be the craziest driver we've had so far.

We got back in one piece (just) and went to collect our suits. I can happily report that they look really good. We then had a power nap before having a disapointing dinner and having a last stroll down KSR at night.

Tomorrow we have to check out by 11am. We had planned to go back to the market but I don't think that would be a good idea for my bank balance. We might have a chilled out day or do one or two more sights before setting off to the airport around 6pm.

I am sad to be going although I am looking forwards to getting home and seeing the cats. I have loved Thailand and hope that we'll be able to come back to see more of the Islands. It seems a shame we only saw one out of the hundreds of Islands Thailand has. The places we've visited: Koh Phangan, Sukothai, Chiang Mai and Bangkok I think we've seen as much as we can. There is more here in Bangkok but we've done more than enough for one trip as its just too intense to do more than a few days in one go. KSR is amazing and everyone should go to it at least once if they are in Bangkok.

I hope you've all enjoyed reading my blog and I'm looking forwards to seeing everyone very soon! Xxx