We left Bangkok early on our Floating Market trip. We were surprised to hear that the first stop would be an Elelphant Village where we would have to pay to either take an elephant ride or watch a monkey show! We didn't want to spend any more money and it didn't sound very much like a market! The rest of the group agreed so fairly soon we were back on the road to the actual markets. We were all quickly bustled into a longtail boat which sped around the narrow canals, past riverside huts/homes, doing a loop so we ended up where we first started. The whole experience lasted about 10 minutes, still no market, but at least there was water! Our guide met us off the longtail boat and demanded money off us to pay for a paddleboat trip around the markets. We were suspicious and told her that she was ripping us off. She insisted it was the highlight of the trip and as we had come to see the floating markets decided we had to pay otherwise the whole trip would have been pointless. Unfortunately our 'driver' couldn't steer, kept being bullied by the other boats so we never made any progress, and gave us another very short repetitive trip, past a few boats with fruits and souvenirs in. The main market appeared to be on land. We then had about an hour to spend looking around the land markets, all pretty dull - the highlight being ice cream and the lowlight being a couple of traumatic snake experiences. We heard a local saying 'hello' so turned to look at him and he had a snake wrapped around his neck. This made me scream and jump in the air, and made the whole market trip experience even worse! This happened again a few minutes later to exactly the same response! Once back in the safety of the minibus, the tour guide slipped in her punchline - the real highlight of the day was our next stop at the Snake Farm to watch the Cobra Show!!! And obviously we had to pay again! Unfortunately I was made to get out of the minibus but was allowed to stay in the relative safety of the restaurant, despite Andrew trying to convince me that it may help conquer my fear of snakes! He afterwards said I definitely made the right decision! From what I hear it involved a man fighting three poisonous snakes, throwing them in the air and catching them with their teeth, dropping a cobra into a cage with a mongoose, until the mongoose had almost killed it and then rescuing it - boo! After the show the trip was finally over! We had arranged for them to drop us at the local bus station so we could go straight on to Kanchanaburi. Instead, they dropped us at the side of a road, saying a bus would come every 15 minutes. We weren't convinced, but luckily one did turn up and we made it to K'buri very cheaply and despite a large language barrier. We then caught a cyclo to the riverside and decided to stay in the cheap and cheerful Jolly Frog guesthouse. We arranged a day trip to see the area the next day. This started at Erawan National Park - a beautiful area of the country with lots of mountains and forest. The highlight was the 7 tiered Erawan Falls. We climbed up to the top first, and then swam in all the pools below the waterfalls on the way down. This was awesome fun although the water was surprisingly cold! Highlight was definately at about the 4th tier where we discovered the water pouring over a large smooth rock - great for sliding down... see videos! This made us slightly late for lunch! After lunch we headed to Hellfire Pass, a memorial museum from the second world war when the Japanese forced many POWs and Asians to live in terrible conditions and work every hour of the day to construct a railway from Thailand to Burma. It was incredible to see the cutting into the rocks that had been necessary to get a train through the treacherous, steep jungle conditions. We then drove to Krasae Cave, which had acted as a hospital for the workers during the construction of the railway. The section of railway next to the cave was named Death Railway, as over 700 workers lost their lives constructing that section of the line. We caught the train along Death Railway, which had stunning views down to the river and through the countryside. We were then picked up and taken to the site of the Bridge Over the River Kwai to take the obligatory photos, before returning home! The next day we had a quiet morning before heading to the Tiger Temple in the afternoon. The Tiger Temple is run by monks who have rescued tigers in the past when their mothers have been killed by poachers. We went down to Tiger Canyon which had about 6 tigers chained up, so you could have your photo with them. We had heard that some people thought that the tigers were drugged to make them docile enough for the tourists but we saw them pacing around and heard a few roars so I think they were genuine. Obviously there were lots of tourists there and we had to queue up before we were taken into the enclosure with a local volunteer who held your hand all the way round and guided you out of the reach of the tigers! They chose a couple of the calmest tigers for you to touch and have your photo taken with. It was a pretty cool experience to be so close to the tigers - they are beautiful animals! We went around a couple of times before it was time for the tigers to be walked back to their cages. The tourists were all moved to one side as the animals came out one by one. Some were keener than others, and one spent a while roaring and going to the loo before cooperating! We were allowed to walk behind the last one, which was off the chains and controlled only by the 'power' of the monk walking with it. We each took turns to walk up and pat the tiger and get the obligatory photo! Up by the cages it was feeding time for the wild boar that we hadn't even noticed - the sound of the food caused a stampede of about 100 to appear from nowhere! The handlers then brought the tiger cubs, which hadn't been down in the canyon, out to play. They were very cute but it was sligtly worrying that we were treating tigers as big kittens! Later in the evening we headed back to Bangkok for the night before catching a sleeper train the next night up to Laos.