Last night I went back to the English pub where I blagged the poker game the night before, it had a nice atmosphere.
I caught up with Sophie, who cashed out nicely from the game, and she proudly showed off her new nails courtesy of our cash, Lol!
I also met a couple of Aussie sisters, one of whom had only just arrived to meet her sister here. They were pretty cool and I picked up some tips about the place seeing as I'm visiting soon... there was also a random Aussie bloke in there who got chatting too, and he has been traveling for 15 years! He was actually in Bangkok the day the tsunami hit and went out to Phi Phi to help the clear up job...! Quality bloke.
After a decent kip in the dorm room (in my own bed!!!) I got up and packed ready to go. Had an omlette for breakfast, which turned out to be a mistake as the squits have started today and omlette is not good fuel! :/
After a taxi driver offering me a lift to Kanchanaburi yesterday for 1500B I decided to just wing it today. I walked to the skytrain, took that to the furthest point west, then got a metered taxi to the bus station where the buses run to Kanchanaburi. Lots of the meter taxi driver will refuse to put the meter on, instead offering you excuses like "its really busy, cheaper with my offer", or "thats moved, its x kilometers further now"... this guy had a brand new tactic, which I have not seen employed yet! He started driving and I got my compass out (superb device for this trip!) and noticed he was going the wrong way! Had a quick word with him but he was suddenly not as good at English as 5 minutes ago... I got him to stop and he said he thought I meant another place which sounds just like where I said! Nice work fella, turn your ass around...! Even with this little effort the cab was loads cheaper than any fixed price.
In total I paid 35B for the skytrain, 130B for the cab to the Southern bus station and 87B for the bus to Kanchanaburi. Plus 30B when I got there to take my first rickshaw ride (pedal power) to the hotel! So all in all a lot bloody cheaper than my 'friend' the taxi driver had offered yesterday!!!
So I've arrived at the place I reserved a room at, it is not as close to the famous bridge as it has you believe on their website, but it is still nice, and it is cheap! It is only a 5 minute walk to the main pub street, which is handy and means its not too close if I need sleep at any point! (My sleep patterns are completely screwed at the moment!)
Tomorrow I am going to view some of the local sites in the town... cemetaries, war museums, bridge over the river kwai etc. I will probably book some excursions too, to the tiger temple, waterfalls and maybe a trek. I'll be emailing the elephant place near here too to see if they have room for a little un from Brizzle! 8)
I've also bought a ticket for the grand prix on the 23rd March in Malaysia!!! Woohooooo! Can't wait for that. Gonna have to call Qantas now to move my flight to Aus back a week to fit it in... :)
Think thats it for now!
Laters...
Sloggs :)
