Footprints and Sailing

Day 3 We had and early start to visit the famous River Kwai - which involved quite a long day in a minibus with J snoring...before we go on - forgot to tell you - we were part of a scene being filmed for some random film during our boat trip.........film stars in the making! Back to day 3 - first stop was the floating market where we were on a longtail boat going round stalls at the rivers edge - very unusual but interesting - we bought some stuff then had lunch in a thai cafe - similiar to the bus tours in UK - masses of people rock in and out at incredible speed! River Kwai was touching - the museum had lots of memorabilia and facts - so the film did not depict everything! We stood at the spot in the film where whatshisname blew up the bridge (not entirely accurate but heyho - you get the drift). We didn't have time to walk over the bridge but a choo choo thing went backwards and forwards taking tourists....hats off to those soldiers who endured the whole thing - must have been horrific - but in the newspaper logs it tells of British soldiers being pests to the Japanese to curtail progress... On we went to the Tiger temple - fascinating place where we were photographed with the tigers (allegedly not drugged) they are kept by monks and volunteers and have bred successfully - we toodled round there then it was back to Bangkok to catch the overnight bus to Chiang Mai which turned out to be an adventure in itself. We were allocated seats upstairs which reclined fully - only problem being Y was sat under air con than froze her weary bones! This meant a change of seat for her and a thaw out with extra blankets! Just as we thought we had an extra two hours sleep - the lights went on - and hey presto we were in Chiang Mai - 3 hours earlier than we had predicted.............So on to day 4.....