That’s Bangkok finished with now until the 20th October and we’ve really enjoyed our few days there. We where proper little tourists getting up early and cashing in on the free breakfasts before heading out into the heat to explore the busy streets.
We had a day trip booked to cover some sights with our first stop taking us south to the floating markets in Ratburi, this was an experience hopping on to a long tail boat powered by a 4 cylinder turbo diesel engine. All of the market stalls where on boats with the locals coming at us from every direction trying to sell everything under the sun, was like the Lamus Fair but with water.
Next stop was a wood carving factory with some amazing pieces and huge prices to match. One carving was made by two Vietnamese men that took 9 months to make and came from one piece of teak wood – See picture.
After that our next visit was a WWII site in Kanchanaburi in witch the Japanese used British and Australian prisoners of war as slave labours to build a railway bridge over the Kwai River, this is also known as the death railway bridge as over 100,000 lives where lost during the 415Km rail way construction and the same bridge was bombed by the Americans in 1945, now the local village takes advantage of it as a very popular tourist destination.
Finally before returning to Bangkok the trip took us to Tiger Temple, this was pretty cool. The local monks saved orphaned tigers and raised them, they now have 76 tiger’s in the complex. You could get very close to the tigers and have your picture taken with them, thankfully they only allow visitors in after 2pm so the monks can have them fed and exercised so once we arrived they where pretty chilled out.
Our last day in Bangkok we explored more of the city heading to the wealthier parts where there was no shortage of impressive Buddha statues. One of the photo’s shows a 5.5Tonne solid gold Budda, I’m not convinced that Thailand is a poor as it’s made out. Also we tried out a Tuk Tuk for the crack to see what it was like getting round the city on three wheels, was mighty banter flying through the traffic but they tried to con you in to so many things like tailor made suits and bargain tourist deals but unlucky for this driver he didn’t get a penny out of us.
Now we’re hanging out by the beach in Koh Tao for 4days course in scuba diving so we’ll update again once the pictures come together, loving the island life so far, very laid back atmosphere.
Enjoy the pictures and thanks for the messages.
Colin & John