Bangkok to Kanchanburi

Its our day 4 and we've now moved out of Bangkok and west to Kanchanburi via a 2.5hour very rickety train. Kanchanaburi is famous (or infamous) for the building of a railway bridge over the river Kwai by British prisoners of war at the hands of the Japanese in WW2. We haven't ventured to look at the bridge yet, having only just arrived at the Apple's Retreat, a splendid looking hotel on the banks of the Kwai river. Its a warm sunny day, 11:30 in the morning with a light breeze making it very pleasant to chill out in the shade, idling away our time.

Our 2.5 days in Bangkok were interesting, but its nice to get out of the city. We did a couple of walks, yesterday going to the old city, having caught the Skytrain and then a boat ride to the Grand Palace. The Skytrain is Bangkok's metro system, built up in the air rather than underground. It works very well as you can also (if you want to) walk at this level above the streets to get a better view of the city. We didn't go into the Grand Palace as we've done it before, but also we were wearing shorts and these are forbidden! Instead we took a walk up the Golden Temple in the Old City, as it affords great views of the city:

Approach to the Golden Temple

On our way up

The view from the top

It was a pretty hot walk, not sure what the temperature was, but we noted that at 9:00pm (3 hours after dark) it was still 31 deg.C, so it must have been mid to high 30's. At any opportunity we'd walk into an air conditioned shopping mall just to cool down!

 

Some local wildlife. It was about 1m in length!

We ate every night in the Atlanta Hotel, where we were staying, it was easy and the food was superb. Thai cooking is an absolute delight for both of us! Favourite so far is the Panang with rice, a superb taste that we're hoping we can learn to cook while here.

We did venture into town one evening for a beer and made for a bar area that's frequented by lone European males looking for Thai ladies of the night, just to 'people watch'. Its just amazing to see what goes on - and how easy it would be. The waitress who served us asked us if we would like a friend to join us! We declined!

Bangkok's 'Thonburi' railway station The first taxi driver had no idea where it was, so we had to get a second one

On the train - wooden seats and no windows. Vegetation would break off and get thrown in as we went along