We arrived at kanchanaburi on January 22nd, after around a three hour journey on a mini bus. Sharing the journey with us were a french couple, a young woman and two thai mothers with their adorable little daughter ( i have a soft spot for babies, especially cute, round raced oriental ones!). We had not yet seen or knew much about the guest house that we had booked as a lovely woman named Fin had arranged it all for us in a tourist information spot in Bangkok. I must add that we did not plan to book so far ahead but we fell under the reigns of another tuk tuk "scam" so to speak; this included being driven to two suit shops in bangkok in order for our driver to get a free gasoline token. We passed on buying a suit but felt inclined to book our guesthouses and travel with fin in the tourist info. She really was bursting with personality.

So, as our bus pulled into a small community of bamboo huts, we unloaded our backpacks out of the boot to be greeted hastily by a man handing us our key and telling us that our pick up time for our next destination was at 13:30 four nights later. We bypassed reception as we already had our key and were curious to see what our room was like.

It really wasn't half bad, especially for around 200/250 TB a night. It was a small bungalow made from horizontal pieces of bamboo with an en suite bathroom and a comfy enough bed. After unpacking a few things i needed to use the loo. One thing which baffled me about the toilet was that there was no device to flush it. Mind boggling, we later asked about this at reception to which the answer was to fill up the bucket provided with water and manually flush the toilet ourselves. Can't really complain too much as its better than a hole in a ditch. Also, there was no hot water for the shower which was a bit off putting but luckily enough i had bought some family wipes!

Aside from the room, which to be fair was very cosey and quite apt, the view of the lake was spectacular. Daniel and i would retire to the small pier and sit with our books, a beer and a pack of fags and watch the beautiful sunset. There were often boats going by too which gave us something different to look out on.

The next day we decided to get our bearings and go exploring down the road of our guesthouse. We passed numerous cafes, bars and street food trolleys. Along with an endless amount of sleeping dogs on the pavement, they never caused any harm and later on i even found myself wrapping up leftover pieces of chicken and beef from a meal to feed them.

The end of the strip took us to war memorial. I'm not as interested in war as Daniel is but as i was wandering through the grounds, reading the gravestones it got a little emotional for me. I read boys as young as 19 who were buried in that cemetery, the holy and thoughtful words left on the stones by mothers, wives, siblings and daughters were very devastating but hopeful at the same time. I suppose they are now all at peace now albeit with god or with the stars.

After wandering down the main road a few times we found a marvelous restaurant, i have no idea what the name of it was but you could tell it was tasty as it was the only eatery on the whole road that was always heaving with hungry locals and travellers. We ate here three times during our stay at kanchanaburi! The fried chicken with cashew nuts had to be my favourite, along with the ice cold slushy like mango shake- to DIE for in weather like this!

The day after, we thought we'd have a go at renting a motorbike or a scooter. This turned out to be a pretty bad idea. Out of me and dan, i'm the one with any motor experience i thought i would have a go; after handing in passport and paying deposit. The man at the bike rental place was showing me how to start it but it was all a bit confusing as i've only ever driven manual/automatic cars! Dan had told the lady that he'd driven a motorbike before; bit of a lie there. The man got up hastily looking really pissed off with us so we got back our deposit and passport and kicked it old skool with a bicycle.

Renting 2 bicycles cost us 100TB, around £2! Not bad at all! And so we mounted the saddle and began to cycle on the road amidst the tuktuk drivers and motorcycles (half of which had a maximum of 4 people on 1 bike! Health and safety isn't really a big deal here in Thailand). I was under the impression dan had planned for us to cycle to a museum, not so far from the war cemetery; boy, was i wrong.

He then said that it wasn't a museum we were cycling to and that it was a surprise. You can tell what i was thinking. My guesses ranged from temples, cat sanctuaries, food factories and fish farms, after every guess the boy wouldn't give in. After cycling down a long main road way passed the cemetery and over a bridge we took a sharp left onto country lane type road. There were not many cars on this road so i literally had no clue where we were going, half convinced myself he had lost us! The sun was blazing down on my bare shoulders and the dust and dirt was getting into my mouth and throat while cycling, you can imagine the saddle sore also.

En route to the top secret destination we passed a picturesque thai cemetery nestled between the hills among the river. We stopped off here to take photos, stretch our legs and have some of our now warm water. After the little pit stop we set back on the road. By this point i was feeling hot, faint, tired and agitated and really just wanted to get back to our quant little bamboo shack.

Alas, after around an hour cycle in the scolding heat we had arrived at the surprise, Wat Ban Tham; a temple going up the cliffs in the style of a Chinese dragon. As breathtaking as it looked all i could think of was how i was going to manage climbing hundreds of uneven, rocky stairs in this heat after that epic bike ride. My pessimism seemed to annoy dan which led to us both taking our separate routes up the cliff and into the caves.

It wasn't busy at all, aside from me and daniel there was only one other couple in the entire place. I managed to drag myself up the stairs about 3/4s of the way to the top when heat stroke defeated me so i was unable to make it to the very top. The view from where i stayed was really spectacular, perched on a cliff with a few Buddhas i was by myself and i wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I quickly descended down all those stairs again to meet Dan so we could start our journey back to the hustle and bustle and kanchanburi. Before going back to the guest house we stopped off at a war museum situated by the river where i read about how the american, british and dutch prisoners built the river kwai bridge also known as death railway.

We then cycled back to the guesthouse where daniel fell a bit sick, i managed to look after him and get him feeling well again as we still had to take the bikes back to the woman we rented them from. Dan didn't have an appetite so instead of a meal at our favourite restaurant, we got some crisps and chocolate from 7/11 and retired to bed with our books and ipads ready to message home.

On our last full day we decided to visit the river kwai bridge, just a short walk down the other way of the strip. We passed a leopard cub chained up advertising a wildlife zoo, as beautiful as he was, i felt sad to see him chained up in order to attract money from tourists rather than in his natural habitat. I prefer to boycott places like this, on our way back we saw the sane leopard sleeping with the zoo keeper spooning him so i suppose he isn't so badly treated otherwise he would feel inclined to scratch the mans face! The bridge was heaving with tourists taking photos and strolling along. Ob the bridge there was a busker playing the violin along to one of my mum's favourite songs by "queen". It was like a little snippet of home in a land thousands of miles away, this made me feel sad but nostalgic all the same.

I've been on the search to try the exotic "jackfruit" ever since we landed and i managed to find it on a market stall situated next to the bridge. It was a little dissapointing and nowhere near as juicy as i thought it would be, tasting very similar to tutti frutti; i'm glad i finally managed to taste it though! After casually strolling around the market stalls we made our way back to our favourite spot to eat for our last supper. I opted for beef in oyster sauce with rice and a watermelon shake and dan had chicken with cashew nuts (lucky for me he's not so fond of them with chicken), rice and a coke. With our bellies full we went back to the guesthouse to pack some of our things together and sit by the lake to watch the sun set one last time. A travelling french man named Christof sat with us and spoke of all his experiences he's had travelling south east Asia and painted a horrid picture of Pattaya, lucky for us it wasn't in our itinerary!

As we were unsure of our pick up time the next day we got an early night in order to be ready for 09:00am. Turns out our pick up to Ayuthaya was at 13:30 so we managed to grab breakfast at the guest house, i had banana and muesli with yoghurt; yum!