Thursday 14th February
I checked out of the room and put my luggage in the guesthouse storeroom before making the trip into town to do some of my 'chores'. First up was to buy the 'exchange order' for the Japan Rail Pass. Although I could have got this further down the road in Phnom Penh in Cambodia or Hanoi in Vietnam, I thought it would be good to get it out of the way and allow my time in Bangkok to have served some useful purpose.
Instead of going on foot, I worked out a route that involved taking a ferry south on the Mae Nam Chao Phraya (the river that runs through Bangkok), then getting the Skytrain for a few stops to the office of Air Nippon Airways. This turned out to be much more congenial: less polluted, fewer roads to cross, and less impact on my feet. The cool breeze as we sailed up the river and the air-con of the train made for a much more pleasant trip than the one the previous day.
I got my exchange order, picked up my contact lenses, and, on exiting the shopping mall, bumped into Freddie, the Swedish guy who I had hung out with for a few days in Udaipur in India! I almost walked past him at first, as he was jumping about trying to get my attention (at this stage, if someone is trying that hard to get my attention, it can only mean they are after money!). Anyway, it proved how close the backpacker route really is, and we caught up briefly before we once again went our separate ways. I have a feeling that it may not be the last time we meet.
I took a bus to the Southern Bus Terminal and got on the coach to Kanchanaburi, the town which is home to 'The Bridge Over the River Kwai', and a significant tourist hub in southern Thailand (really, it's the middle of Thailand, but the long part south of here, made up of the beaches, islands and national parks, seems to me to be an almost separate entity). The bus took two hours and I called all of the gueshouses listed in the Lonely Planet, but to no avail. It was clearly a popular place, as there is usually some sort of room going. I asked one of the guesthouses if they knew of anywhere else that I could contact, so I was put in touch with the 'Tamarind Guesthouse', and it turned out they had a pretty decent room for a good price of 150B per night.
I got my gear in order, and went out for a look about and some food. As is usually the case with these tourists centres, the main street is lined with restaurants, bars and tour agents. There were a large number of local people about, and a fair amount of tourists, but my first impressions were quite good. Anywhere would have been an improvement on Bangkok.
There were one or two English pubs on the street, some of which advertised all-day English breakfasts, with boasts of 'proper chips' and 'pies' being spat out in multi-coloured writing on sandwich boards. Perhaps they are catering for the sex tourists who come to Thailand to get their end away, and who were propping up some of the bars on the main street. Old, ugly men, with younger Thai women hanging off them, getting pissed up in the bars is not an uncommon sight in Thailand. And neither is it in anyway illegal, from what I can make out.
Thankfully, all of this seediness was very discrete in Kanchanaburi, and the number of normal people seemed to outweigh the others. It didn't present a problem, and, overall, I liked the place and it had a good, friendly atmosphere, which the Thai people generally guarantee most places that you go.
