Sawadee Ka (again!),

We arrived in Kanachanaburi (River Kwai region) on Friday afternoon. We had a few problems at the bus station - we were trying to get the bus to our hotel but the bus driver didn't want to stop locally as it added time to his journey (damn the inconvenience of passengers wanting to get off the bus!) so in the end, with a little help from the tourist police, we got a Songthaew to our hotel. Songthaew's are interesting vehicles, they're basically pick-up trucks with two benches in the back. We were swept off our feet when we got to the hotel. A man ran to take our backpacks off us, we were given some bright green liquid to drink - looked a bit like Fairy Liquid, didn't taste too different either! :)

We checked in and went for an explore around the resort, which is on the bank of the River Kwai. This place is amazing, even better than the place in Bangkok (and better still, cheaper!) It's huge, the views are outstanding from every angle, the service is by far the best we've ever received and the staff are ALWAYS smiling. You really can see why they call Thailand the "Land of smiles". We tested the pool facility and headed down to the restaurant for dinner. 2 main courses, 2 deserts and 4 drinks... £10! Top dog. The food was lovely too.

Saturday we had our first rest day since Shanghai. It was a much welcomed day, we're both exhausted from non stop exploring,, its been amazing though! We had our inclusive breakfast - Holly was adventurous (starving) and went for the Thai option (stir fried veg with chicken and rice) and Pete was adventurous and went for the healthy option (fruit, cereal and scrambled eggs). :-)

We chilled out (heated up) by the pool, had a paddle and generally just adapted to the heat. We both look like freshly cooked lobsters now :-(even though we were only out for a few hours and we were both coated in factor 30 sun tan lotion (which we reapplied every hour as instructed) ...Think we need to upgrade to factor 50 tomorrow :( Despite the lobster-ness, it was a nice morning. We spent the afternoon taking cold showers and applying aftersun liberally. It's really strange that we've burnt so much as we seem to have "developed" over the afternoon, we were just a bit pink beforehand. Lesson learnt though...

The hospitality here can't be faltered, we've been waited on all day, even when we were sat by the pool the staff were bringing us drinks - we certainly don't feel like backpackers at the mo! We had the most amazing dinner this evening, the food is certainly more palatable than in China - and it's nice to know exactly what meat we're eating for a change! There was a huge tropical storm at dinner, and we were sat in a beach like hut eating so we had a wonderful view of it. There are loads of tree frogs croaking in the evenings, and gecko's climbing all over the walls, it's really tropical here.

It's been back to backpacker life today... we've been to the Death Railway Museum to touch up on our history before we go to the Death Railway Bridge and Hellfire Pass on Monday. It's a very sad history that surrounds the River Kwai but very interesting learning more about it and paying our respects to the fallen. (For those of you that are wondering watch "Bridge over the River Kwai", it's based on true events).

Will write soon,

Love

Pete and Hol

xXx