Back in in bangkok again after three day trip to kanchanaburi to see the bridge over the river kwai. Really interesting stuff, loads of history about how the prisoners of war were treated by the japanese and made to suffer terrible conditions in order to construct a railway between singapore and the burmese coast. Of the western soldiers kept there (australian, american, dutch and british) it was the british who lost most men to the conditions (disease and starvation mainly) and the reality as always was a bit different to the film (which they put on in the guesthouse in the evening!). The place I stayed in was quite hard work, a bed and a cold water shower (I think I'm done now with real budget accomodation). I couldn't work out where I had seen the metal bed before until i realised it was in one of the torture rooms of the genocide museum in cambodia! Also, the woman running the place was called 'poo'

Also went elephant riding which was great, if a little uncomfortable. Once you've been travelling in such out of the way places, its actually quite nice to get back to bangkok which has everything you could need - there's a real impetus to 'buy things' in this place which hasn't helped the size of my backpack from increasing once again....

Feels like I've been away ages, not really much cultural stuff planned for the next couple of weeks as heading for phuket (to do very little) and then a national park to hopefully see some wildlife - then its home. South-east asia is great, vietnam really sticks in the mind but then I was there the longest....everyone would love it here.