Hellfire Pass

For once we were all relatively sensible so none of us felt like crap yesterday.....we had all had a good night's sleep and were ready for the day ahead!! (The hotel was lovely but breakfast left a little to be desired so if you go you might want to skip breakfast and just get some fruit from town!! In saying that - if you like warm bread (toast would not be an accurate description) and odd looking sausages then go for it!!). We headed to the train station and sat and watched the world go by till the train arrived to take us to Nam Tok (This is the last station on the Thai-Burmese line). Chris and I had done part of the journey before when we went with Sadie and Margaret but not the whole trip - It was fab (although you might want to take a cushion as there is no padding at all on the train seats and boy does your bum go numb!!). We got some fantastic photos and saw a Thai guy who's hair was worse than mine much to Moon's amusement!!

After the train journey we grabbed some lunch at Nam Tok and then headed over to The HellFire Pass Museum (We didn't make it there the last time - This is a photo of the Peace Vessel there). It was amazing.....the actual museum itself is really good (what I didn't realise was that the POW's (Prisoners Of War) were actually in the minority and that far more natives (People from Thailand, Burmese and Laos) were killed working on the line!!) - The museum itself is full of items that have been donated by the family's of the POW's so it really makes an impact!! We went down the stairs to where the actual line had been.....looking up at the sheer face of the stone it's gobsmacking that they managed to achieve what they did!! It was weird.....I know that my Uncle Will (my Grandfather's brother) worked on the line and I was standing there thinking 'I wonder if he was ever where I am standing now'.

After walking round we headed to the Tiger Temple unfortunately we were too late (What the guide book doesn't tell you is that it closes at 4pm) so we decided that we would just get some beer and crisps and head home. What a laugh we had - you know I told you that the driver had decided that we were incapable of going anywhere by ourselves....well.....you should have seen the look on his face when he stopped at a service station and we all headed off in different directions - Chris, Tracey and I to the shop, Derek and Moon to the toilet and Jo for a cigarette. I think he decided that each time he would just keep an eye on one of us so at the first stop he decided to follow Jo (she said she felt like she was being stalked by a van as it crept slowly along behind her), at the next stop he drove Derek the 100 yards to the toilet and on the third stop he had to go into the shop to rescue Chris. Jo had spotted three pig fans in a jar in the window and had decided that she just had to have one to go with her phone - Chris tried to buy two of them......he was in there for about 15 minutes and had three people serving him (In the end he only managed to buy one of them!!). So after a couple of beers Jo decided to turn on the fan and, to her delight, discovered that not only was it a fan and a pen it also had flashing lights!! It was at this point the driver put on the sexy karaoke!! The video's featured fruit displayed in suggestive positions (I will never look at a kiwi fruit the same way again!!), a very odd small dancing Elvis on a motorboat (no, I don't know why so don't ask) and some of the campest men I have ever seen - I also have no idea why this was called sexy karaoke but it gave us all a good laugh!! So between that and Jo scaring other drivers with her flashing pig fan the journey home passed in a flash (Get it.....in a flash.....oh never mind!!!)

This is a photo of the love rivals with The Driver!! (now girls....no fighting, fighting, fighting!!)

Hang Hang Hang (In a Bag)

Oh my god you should have seen the state of us yesterday!!! The alarm went off at 7am - Chris and I reckoned we were still a bit tipsy, a very white faced Tracey just looked at me and said 'Oh God......I need painkillers', Jo groaned and refused to let anyone mention anything about last night and Derek was just very very quiet!!

Moon arrived with breakfast.....took one look at us, laughed her head off and announced 'you all Hang Hang Hang today!!' - Chris, Tracey, Derek and I all ate something and had a cup of tea (Jo groaned) then we all filed down to get in the van that was taking us to Kanchanaburi (We didn't do too badly.....we were only an hour late!!). Jo discovered a Garfield cushion in the back seat, lay down and went back to sleep, the rest of us laughed about how bad we were all feeling then either listened to music or dozed!! It was at that point that I was nudged on the shoulder by Tracey 'Quick....I need a bag I'm going to be sick!!' (We had one on stand by..... along with face wipes and mint chewing gum......perhaps I would have made a good girl guide after all......). Whilst we were all teasing her about being sick Jo rose like a vampire from the back seat (honestly I didn't know it was possible to be that white and still alive!!) and asked what she had missed - Tracey raised her hand and said, in the most pathetic little voice, 'I was sick.......in a bag!!' (The rest of the day was spent making 'in a bag' comments). We stopped at a 7/11 and bought a couple of bottles of Hang - this is Thailand's hangover cure, it's full of sugar and caffeine and it really does cure a hangover!! (This is one of their adverts) Jo felt much better after taking it - just a bit tired and Tracey decided, after taking one sniff of hang, that re-hydration salts was the way to go.

We checked in at the hotel, River Kwai Bridge Resort, (which was lovely) had some lunch overlooking the Bridge over the river Kwai and then decided that we would go and visit a couple of temples and that we would do the death railway etc tomorrow. It was a good decision!! We went to Wat Tham Sua and Wat Khao Noi (We decided to give Wat Tham Mangkon Thong otherwise known as the Floating Nun Temple a miss - apparently if you give the Nun enough money she will go and float in a pond and according to the guide book Taiwanese visitors are particularly impressed!!!) which had virtually no tourists because everyone else was only in the area to see the bridge etc. Wat Tham Sua was amazing - it was in the usual Thai style but a little different (as we say here in Thailand same same but different) It had a giant sitting Buddha in the centre and so that your offerings could be put into the giant alms bowl in his lap you put them onto the conveyor belt which ran across him. Whilst we were looking round we could see a section of the temple that we just couldn't figure out how to get to so eventually we gave up and got back in the van.....the driver asked if we wanted to visit the other temple to which we all replied yes......so we settled into our seats as he turned the corner and stopped!! There was a stunned silence then we all roared with laughter.....the section that we couldn't get into WAS the other temple and we could have walked there in about two minutes (It literally was round the corner - I think that this was the point when the driver decided we obviously couldn't be trusted on our own and he followed us round the next temple keeping an eye on us all). The other temple, Wat Khao Noi, was built in the Chinese Style and was absolutely stunning - The guide book said that it was gaudy but if you plan to go don't let that put you off.....go up the tower.....you will not be disappointed!! The views across the valley towards Burma (I can't get used to calling it Myanmar) were absolutely stunning and got better the higher we got.

We then headed back to the hotel, had a beer looking over the river as dusk fell then headed along to a restaurant called Keereetara (The driver dropped us right at the door - even after we had pointed it out to him and told him that we could walk!!). The table we were at had lovely views across the river but only one little candle so we really struggled to see the menu (and the food when it arrived). We ordered waaay to much food (as is our want!!) and Moon entertained us all by telling us that the driver had taken a wee shine to Jo and had been asking what age she was and if she was single and then she went on to tell us that he had also asked if she was attached - this let to much hilarity Jo and Moon were going to be 'fighting fighting fighting' over the driver and we all agreed that we were going to have to keep an eye on whose room he left in the morning. We then had a fish moment!! (now there is something you don't hear every day!!) We were really making an effort to make a dent in all the food we had ordered when the waiter appeared with the ugliest fish I have ever seen (it was cooked and on a plate.....he didn't just arrive wiggling a fish) which we didn't order so we shook our heads and Moon said that we hadn't ordered it......he went away.....the fish reappeared at the table being carried by a different waitress (yeah - as if we weren't going to recognise it!!) and we were told that we had ordered it (probably by mistake!!).....we shook our heads again and Moon, who couldn't think of anything better, told them to take it away as we were scared of the fish......we thought this had worked till a waiter arrived back at the table with the fish.....it was chopped up!!!

By the end of the night my cheeks hurt with the amount of laughing we had all done!!