29th January 2013
Having a lazy few days before India. I think it may be a little more hectic there, so make the most of our time here.
Before we head into town, we have some lunch in the basement of the shopping centre, where they do good, local fast food, very cheap. I don't normally fill you in on our lunches, but this one was so entertaining! We tuck into our spicy, noodle fish soup, when suddenly, out of nowhere, the man at the table next to ours, has his bowl of food tipped down his front, by a very anger young lady, who then proceeds to throw her shoe at his head! It may have had something to do with fact that he was sat with another young lady, in a very short skirt and tight top! I have to say, she didn't bat an eyelid. She just gestured that the man should go after the 'one shoed' women, then carried on wiping the food off her phone!
We head to Kao San Road, (the tourist area), as we need a Lonely Planet book for India. But first I want to post some birthday cards. This proves easier said, than done! I really hope friends and family appreciate the fact that it took us over an hour to find a post office!!
We eventually find a half decent, second-hand Lonely Planet. We couldn't find a new one, unless we were happy with a photocopied rip-off one! We have a couple of drinks to recover from our days walking for hours, (yet again), then I decide to go and get my nose pierced! I have been thinking about it for a couple of years (would you believe?). Couldn't believe how little it hurt.
30th - We decide that we can't miss out on seeing 'The Bridge over the River Kwai' whislt we are here, so decide not to do the tourist package, but get the train ourselves and just do a day trip. The train leaves at 7.50 am so we get in a taxi at 7.15 to Thonburi station, but because of the rush-our traffic, we get to the station 25 minutes late, as luck would have it, so was the train. It was literally pulling out of the station, the man behind the ticket counter, got on his walky-talky and stopped the train for us!! The ticket costs us 100 Bart each for the four & a half journey to Nam Tok. We are not going to stop at the River Kwai, but carry on over the bridge to this destination, as it is the most scenic part of the journey, apparently! Here, we will just get the train to Bangkok again.
The train is not overcrowded and we have a window seat each. We soon realise why the train was so late leaving the station. It is very old and seems to be having engine problems, up hills are a bit of a challange for it. I will cut what could be a very long story short, by telling you that the engine packed in altogether an hour after the River Kwai bridge, so we were 3 hours later than we should have been.
There is not a lot I can tell you about the River Kwai, other than the fact that, it only became famous after the film was made and that at that time, the river was not the Kwai, they had to rename it when the film become so popular! (and the film was actually shot in Sri Lanka not Thailand!). It is extremely touristy and would I do it again....No, not the way we did anyway. We would do an overnight trip there though. We got home after 9.30.
We leave Thailand later today. We have the hotel room until 6 pm, as our flight isn't until 1 am. We are repacking, as our cold weather gear needs to be at the top for Shimla. (Just looked on the internet, it is 10 degrees there and it is 32 here!!) It could be interesting at the airport, as Matt has just realised that our visa ran our yesterday!!
India - country number 15 coming up!!
