Day 22 in the world of Sam and Dani: Whilst in Bagkok we booked a trip to Kanchanaburi which is 2 hours outide of the city. We were picked up at 6am and collected other people on route to our first stop which was the floating markets. We were took down the river in a motor boat, then when we arrived at the market were given the option of walking round or taking a paddle boat through. If you ever go here walk! There are no systems in place for the canals so we ended up being stuck in a taffic jam for 30mins. A poor man on another boat had been in the same place for 1 1/2 hours and when he asked to be let off, the thai's used thier selective hearing and ignored him, so he ended climbing onto other boats in an attempt to escape before they took notice, with that we decided to get off too.

We met the rest of our group and left the market, but as we were early for lunch we were taken to an extra stop, a cobra show. Sam stayed in the minibus as she hates any type of snake but Dani went in and held one. When we arrived for lunch we had an option of thai, thai or thai food, yum! This is also where we also got our first experience of thai toilets, a hole in the ground =(

After lunch we visited the Bridge over the River Kwai and Tiger Temple. At the River Kwai we had a look around the museum (boring) then walked over the bridge, we were boiling walking so we have know idea how the people building it felt. This is where we found out that Thai's are fascinated with white people, a group of young boys were following us sneakily taking photo's then there were a few braver ones who actually asked for a photo, ha! The Tiger Temple is where, believe it or not, we seen tigers (and monks). Although it was good seeing these we also felt sorry for them because it was so hot and they were constantly being flicked and pestered by the people that work there so the photo's would be better. When the photos we being took, the staff kept grabbing our hands and pushing down on the tiger causing us to panic slightly as they kept flinching.. We later found out that if you didnt use pressure they would think it was a fly and go for it =s

Next we went to our accomodation for the night, a 'boat hotel'. Now, I dont know what we were expecting but this wasnt it! We arrived at a floating boat which is where we were given our evening meal (more thai food) and where we found out there had been a communication error- we were meant to be staying on the boat one night and in a hotel the other but they had us down as staying on the boat for two. This was soon changed and a hotel was booked for us in Bangkok. After tea we were transported up the river by a boat to our 'hotel' which is not the appropraite description, we like to say hut (see the pics). The rooms were extremely basic and to flush the toilet you had to throw a bucket of water down! We were looking forward to our shower as we werent allowed one before tea despite being in the heat all day, but there was no hot water on the 'hotel', yay! But to be fair, once we got over the shock we had a good night sitting having drinks with the rest of the group.

In the morning we left for Erawan Waterfalls - these were beatiful! There were 7 altogether and each one required you to walk further and were more challenging the higher you went. We all jumped in and despite seeing some quite large fish, thought we'd be ok, WRONG! They kept biting our feet! Worked our way back down and swam in a few more, actually going under the falls. We returned back to the boat for lunch (have a guess what it was) then left for our trip back to Bangkok where we went out with the people from our trip =)