kanchanaburi Tiger Temple and Water fall

After lunch we went to visit the Tiger Temple.

As it's monsoon season here in Thailand it rains now and again and when it rains it poor's as we found out. We actually missed out on having photo's taken with the tigers. The tigers are not very playful when they are wet or when it rains. Just like cats back at home, they prefer to be dry.

They had to be chained up as humans would not beable to get as close as we did due to the rain.
and 4pm the tigers are set free in the temple.

The story of the Tiger Temple.
A monk come across two baby tigers after their mother and father had been killed. He took them back to a temple which has been renamed tiger temple. The two little tigers mated and started their own family. Now there are more than 20 tigers living here, and a few baby tigers.

Everyday a Buddha Monk will sit with the Tigers. The tigers are actually scared of him. I do have a video of the monk playing with the tiger. 

On the way back to the pick up point we started to notice different animals, there were wild bore, peacocks and deer. We also stumbled upon these bad boys, Water Buffalo.

As you can see we did get a bit soaked.

We wasn't really impressed with Tiger Temple, we thought there be a little bit more to do but the rain did have a lot to answer for.

Next stop a waterfall. This is a small waterfall we stayed for a few minutes because of the weather.

And so the tour of Thailand Begin's

After an early night we have to wake up for an early start. We have actually woken up before the kitchen staff, so we checked out of our hostel and then left our bag's and went in search of breakfast.

We found a 7 eleven (you'd think these shops was open from 7am to 12pm but they are actalluy 24 hours). This shop was actually 2 doors up from where we was staying, why did we not see this before? So we grabbed a bite to eat, a box of frosties and a croissant (is that how you spell it?)  We ate breakfast and waited for our pick up. We waited and waited and waited, and then it turned up one hour late. Oh well this was the start of something good.

So we drove nearly two hours to a place called Kanchanaburi,  it's slightly west of Bangkok. Here we stopped at a War Cemetery, from world war 2. We walked around, it was quite touching as we have never been to a cemetery where our hero's have been laid to rest. In the cemetery there are, a few countries from europe and Russia.

This stone, stood out to us most the poem reads:
'He left me with a heat so Brave, he sleeps now in a hero's grave'

Then travelled to the Jeath War Museum. This museum shows you about what the Japanese done to the city of Kanchanaburi. There is so much English history in this city and I have never heard of it.
During the world war 2 the Japanese used Allied Prisoners of War (English, American, Aussie ect) to build the Death Vally Railway. They had to build the Death Vally Railway bridge too over the River Kwai.

To be-honest the museum was a bit eerie at times, but also very random. On the ground floor you see all the ww2 things and then you take the stairs up to the next floor and you see all of the Miss Thailand winners, and also stamps and some of the clothes the king wears. Oh and theres an iguana called Mark?
Here's a few photo's from the place.

Mark The Pet

The first wall painting I seen in this cave house.
Ooohh Bitty.
(we did actually say what have we let ourselves in for?)

POW's buliding the Death Vally Railway.
These are our boys.

This Picture shows a POW in a cell on the train.

The man on the right is meant to be Winston Churchill?

I leant the Albert invented the Atomic Bomb.

After the Museum we had a short walk up to the train station where we jumped on the train across the death valley railway. Oh Joy. We had to sit on an old train for around 90mins. The high light of the train journey was going across a wooden bridge which actually wobbled.

Eventually the train journey come to an end, The longest 90mins of our life. We jumped in our ride and off we went for some Lunch and to see where we was staying for the night.

Our ride

The high light of the morning was seeing the baby leopards, whilst walking from the museum to the train station.

Bangkok Day 3

18th June 2010

This was actually our first day of being a 'tourist'. But first we had to check out of our first hostel and find a new one. So before breakfast we both went for a walk around the pack packers hell hole called Kaho San Road, we decided to give that place a miss as its full of people trying to sell things to you like suit's, t-shirts and second hand stuff, but a good thing is tho that if you have brought to much stuff over and you want to loose a bit of the weight out of your backpack they actually but the stuff from you. Them kind of stalls are good for guide books.

We found a great hostel, called Happy House. It had AIR CON. Air con a is god if you are not used to the heat. This room was the same price as the other hostel but 10000% times better. It actually felt like a room and not a prison cell. After we checked into the room we went for a walk to find breakfast and then off we went to do some sight seeing.

We went from this shitty little box room with two single beds

To this room it wasn't much but we had a great nights sleep.

We noticed that when you jump in a tuk tuk or a taxi they take the long way around so you don't see whats so close to where you staying so we walked around our local area and noticed there was a temple by where we was staying. We spoke to an ex-monk who still works in the Temple he was actually a good person to talk to he told us to visit the temple of the standing monk.

Wat Chana Songkhram

Inside of Wat Chana Songkhram

He also told us that not many people visit this temple and that they don't get much funding, I guess this is to do with the tuk tuk as they take you make you go look every where else.

Later we took a tuk tuk (one that was funded by the government) he took us for a few Baht to the temple of the standing Budda WOW he stood 43 meters high people pray to him and touch his feet for good luck and make wishes to him.

A man praying to his feet. It's good luck to touch a standing Buddha's feet.

As this temple was not that far away we walked home, it took us around 20 minutes. We went out for dinner and then had an early night.

As we started our big adventure around Thailand.

Bangkok Day 2

After a very long night sleep we woke up to the sound of the alarm that used to wake us up for work, as we are trying to get over the jet lag we thought it might be best to set the alarm, but as normal we turned it off and rolled back over. Until the room got to hot for us we had to get up and out as quick as we could as the heat was horrible. The heat in the room was that bad it knocked Aimee sick for a few hours.

We tried breakfast from our café, scrambled eggs/omelette with bacon and toast.

We went to pick up the tickets from the DRO and noticed a tesco, and so what did we do to keep cool? Yes we walked around Tesco's and brought some things we needed. We brought a little note book and a pen for around 23pence, some packs of shampoo and conditioner (like the ones you get for free in the magazines) and some water. The Tesco's is like a shopping mall, you have to go up 3 floors until you get to Tesco's the other two floors where like market stalls and fast food restaurants.

Every where you walk around this park of bangkok you get bothered by the tuk tuk drivers as we have only seen what the tuk tuk man wants us to see we decided to walk back to the hotel, from the store. Its around 9km, we have now have learned not to walk long walks in flip flops if you have soft feet like ours as blisters like to form and make your like uncomfortable. Chafe has already become a friend glad we brought the sudacrem .

Dinner time!! Time for a great feast we have wedges seasoned with chicken breast, Israelie salad, and an egg plant salad, and it came with home made flat bread. I wouldn't mind eating that again.

We didn't do much today. Bit of a lazy one.

Bangkok, from the start

16th June 2010
After a very long day travelling we finally arrived at our first destination, Bangkok. I'm so glad we have a year to wait till our next long haul flight.
We caught a taxi from the airport to the road where we thought our hostel was, but the name of the hostel the taxi driver was taking us to was quite similar to ours, he took us to The Green Guest House where as we was booked into the Greenhouse. After a few minutes trying to work out where we was we finally managed to get a lady to draw us a simple map of where we had to be.
We found out that we was on the right road just on the other side of the big main road which ran through it.


We found our hostel, it looked compact, nice little restaurant/café down stairs then the reception at the back. It looked nice, we proceeded to check in. They gave us our key and pointed to some stairs, we walked up and took the wrong turn the signs were a bit confusing. Eventually we found our room. Compact, and very hot, we had a bathroom and a fan.


We went for a walk and this random man started to talk to us, he was Thai and claimed to have live in the UK to learn how to teach English to Thai children. He said to book all tourist trips through the Domestic Reservation Office (DRO), which we have done they are so cheap, we have booked a months full of activities for £400 pp. With accommodation transport and breakfast.


We later went on to a night market called Bangkok Bizzare where there was a big screen to watch the football, and some great food stalls which were really cheap. We had noodles and Rice then later we had spring rolls and chicken nuggets. YUM


We caught a tuk tuk home then sat in our bar/cafe. Really peaceful, we went to our bed around 2am.

Internet connection is pretty poor where we are so we will have to wait until we get to a internet cafe to upload photo's.

Bangkok first few photo's

Just some of the photo's we have taken,  there are more once the connection is better we can upload more.

 In the back of a tuk tuk, these bad boys go up for 40mph maybe more and there nothing to strap you in. No health and Saftey out here. FUN FUN FUN

 Some of the best foods we have eaten, 1st photo you can see chicken nuggets and spring rolls with dips YUM. 2ND photo Fried rice and pork and noodles and pork yum WOW if only we had smelly-vision we could catpure the smells and send them back to you.

BANGKOK BABY

Hey People,
Just a quick one, we finally got to Bangkok we arrive here at 3.30pm which was 9.30am your time.
We found our hostel, which was a bit of a culture shock for the first 1minute but then it kicked in its only a bed and a bathroom which is what we paid for.

The temperature at the moment (12.19am 17th June) is 28 degrees, very humid and sticky.

Believe it or not we have done quite a bit in the few hours we have been here, we have been in a tuk tuk, we visited the night market. We have had some great food YUM YUM.

We have taken some photos but the connection wont allow us to upload them yet.

We will try and write a longer entry next time

love to all xxx