4/11/08 Arrival to Vientiane, Laos On Monday (3/11/08) we took a bus leaving from Bangkok for Laos at 7:30pm. This journey was to take 10 hours to the Thai/Laos border and then a further 4 hours at the border and arrival at Laos' capital city, Vientiane. The bus wasn't too busy which was brilliant and meant we had plenty of space to be comfortable. It stopped several times at service stations bu seeing as it was through the night it meant we had very disturbed...

1/11/08 Tiger Temple (Wat Phu Luang Ta Bua) This buddhist temple is located in the Saiyok district of Thailands Kanchanaburi province. It was here that we visited after the Bridge over the River Kwai. The temple apparently received its first tiger cub in 1999 when villagers found it on its own. Over time several more cubs were given to the temple to look after. It is thought that the current are Indochinese tigers. The tigers are washed and handled by Thai mon...

1/11/08 The bridge of the River Kwai We arrived this afternoon and as it was an organised tour were given 20mins to look round the war musuem and 20mins over at the rail bridge. The museum itself was very moving. As the Japanese moved into Thailand during the 2nd world war, they took over Kanchanburi. They then initiated and supervised the prisoner of war labour in 1943 to build the bridge over the river Kwai (Death Railway) to link Thailand with Burma. It was...

1/11/08 Floating Market (Damneon Suduak region) This is about 60miles west of Bangkok. We had met the minibus at 7am so that we arrived early to the Floating Market when most of the trading takes place and before the temperature rose! We paid 150baht to get on a long boat as shown in the picture. The driver had a single paddle to steer and move us through the market. The river was very corwded with traders and just as we had set off one of the traders in the...

Lonely Beach Resort Contrary to the name this is supposed to be the resort for backpackers and is one of the livelier areas to the island. We woke up this morning, late again, and loaded up with our backpacks. We flagged a minivan down and transferred 10-15mins to Lonely Beach...further south on the island. It was sweltering heat but a very scenic route in the van as it climbed the hillside. As we reached the top it gave us panoramic views of the coast line and ...