Wednesday found us waking up at 10.30am and getting ready for the long trek to Kanchanaburi. We were glad to be getting out of the hustle and bustle of Bangkok; we were looking for a more authentic Thailand and this city was far too westernized. You get the feeling that it relies on tourists for income, and their scams prove it. People come to Asia to do Eastern soul searching, find things out about themselves they never knew, the meaning of life - the meaning of their lives, what they were hoping to accomplish, to even figure out hopes and dreams. Lying on that massage bed with the Thai therapist working her Eastern magic on my feet, we watched old men, 30 years past their prime, stumbling along in a drunken haze wearing hippie pants and bamboo hats. They'd come here to find themselves and ended up losing themselves to the illusion instead. They either hadn't realized it, or made the choice to ignore the reality: the eclectic Bangkok air had sucked them in.

We set off for the Southern Bus Terminal and Edd managed to haggle with a taxi driver for 130 Baht (from about 800 Baht, which is the usual starting price for everything really). Unfortunately, we didn't know that if we'd said Sai Tai Mai, he'd have known where to take us, because we kept saying Southern Bus Terminal, he had to use my phone's satnav to guide us there. The satnav kept telling him to basically drive in circles, and after turning around for the 4th time, Edd took the reigns and confiscated the phone off him. We managed to get to what was supposed to be the bus station according to Google maps, but it turned out to be a shopping centre with the bus station still an hour bus ride away! A lady at the information centre wrote Sai Tai Mai in Thai on a piece of paper for us and we gave it to a new taxi driver who got us there in 5 minutes. We bought our tickets at 1.15pm with the next bus, number 81, leaving at 1.40pm.

The tickets we booked were 1st class… apparently. Edd reckons people in cattle class get strapped to the roof. There was a TV in front with some type of Thai version of The X-Factor playing. It looked like singers went head to head with their songs and the judges picked the better singer; they all sounded like they had holes in their nasal cavities, so I was glad not to be on the judging panel. The girls gyrated their hips and danced around like they had water in their ears they were trying to get out. The contestants then stood in a glass cubical, with judges voting either A or B. The loser got flour dumped on their head - no surprise the girls with the loose hips never lost.

2 ½ hours later we were in Kanchanaburi. The heat here is distinctively different from Bangkok; it's hot, but the humidity is a lot lower. Seeking shelter under trees in the shade in 39-degree heat here meant you actually felt some relief; in Bangkok however, the humidity clung to every inch of your body - shade meant nothing there, we were glad it had value in our home for the next 5 days. We could have taken a taxi, but decided that 2km's wasn't that far and decided to walk instead. We bought these inanimate balls of meat on skewers from a street vendor as well as some franks. I'm still not sure what was in the balls, but the man didn't speak English and I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to know what was in them. Edd assured me it was minced chicken and pork, I ate 2 of the 4 balls on each stick and he hoovered the rest; the franks were good, we should've bought more of those.

We finally found Tara Raft Guest House situated on the River Kwai, we checked in looking like we'd jumped in it just before. Our room was right next to reception and we were looking forward to a cool shower. The room was so small you couldn't swing a cat in it, not even a small one (no ill harm meant to all feline friends). It had its own fridge though, which meant that we wouldn't have to buy new cold water every 2 hours. Edd needed a hand getting his shirt off - it was just about glued to his skin; we took a shower and had to consult the medical bag for the first time… I had heat rash. We then headed down to the high street to find the 7/11 to stock up on a few supplies for the next few days. We stopped at the KTC store (a place that offers package tours) and looked at things we could do while we were here; we booked the floating market for the next day and then a full day of activities for the day after that. Edd wanted to order a beer at the bar next door as it was run by the same company and we were told that no alcohol could be sold that day, as it was the day of the Buddha - a public holiday and holy day. It was going to be a dry night.

We decided to have some dinner there and ordered our daily dose of spring rolls. Edd ordered a Thai green curry for mains and I ordered fried prawns with cashew nuts, we both got some steamed rice to go with it. We ordered our cool drinks and chatted with Eric Clapton playing softly in the background; our steamed rice came heart shaped and we ate the best food we've had since we've been in Thailand. We decided to get an early night and headed back to our Guest House along the deserted streets. We hit the sack at 10pm in our miniature room with air con excited for the next day's activities.