If you are ever passing through Phetchaburi, it's worth a stop for a few days. We stayed in a lovely little guest house near the river (JJ's Home run by a sweet Thai lady and her American husband), just across the road from a little restaurant serving great, cheap food (Rabieng Rim Nam) and only a 5 minute walk to the local night market every night. Keen to shake off the last of Hua Hin, we got out straight away and explored some of the nearby Wats before sunset. James, as usual, had assumed the role of map reader and plotted us a route which would take in most of the nearby sights. I'm still amazed that with the number of Wats in this country, the ones we've seen so far are all so different from each other, and these were no exception. At one Wat, James was accosted by a school teacher with his group of kids and asked us to pose for some pictures with them - we couldn't work out exactly why or what they were studying (something to do with technology/computers?) but how could we resist?! The boys were so quiet and shy, but we were quickly directed into a few poses (in front of a giant Buddha being handed flowers, etc) and pictures were taken, then we all went on our merry way! The last Wat of the day was the most impressive, especially at sunset - Wat Mahathat Worawihan; an enormous 5 tiered Khmer style stupa built in white marble (maybe…but it was definitely white!) which caught the last of the sun's rays perfectly. Having satisfied the 'culture' craving, it was time to fill our stomachs, it took a while to work out how the night market worked - but by the 3rd night, we were pro's.

We decided that we liked it here so booked an extra night in our guesthouse to give us a bit more time to explore at a leisurely pace before tackling Bangkok. There is a big palace complex (Phra Nakon Khiri Historical Park) on a hill to the West of town, walking distance thankfully (just about), it's got a cable car/tram to get up to the top if you don't want to hike up the hill in the heat which worked out to be a lot more expensive than anticipated - 200B per person (about £8 in total!) and had we seen the sign at the main entrance (we came in at the side) then we would have noted that the main building housing the museum was shut for renovation until the end of the month. It was a shame as we managed to cover the whole complex in a little under half an hour, and although really pretty, to us, it wasn't worth a quarter of our daily budget. Also worth noting that for all the signs up saying to keep an eye on all your stuff as the monkeys are likely to scratch and bite to get your bags - we didn't see more than 5. Never mind though, at least we can tick it off the list. We'd been told about a park just south of where we were staying, so decided to check it out, somewhere nice to spend the afternoon….what is it with Thailand and their public parks/beaches in the middle of military bases?! This time we were trying our luck with the military police area…the park, well, it was ok. Nice enough to sit and have a snack, but probably not somewhere to spend the whole day in the sunshine.

On our last day, we went North to the Tham Khao Luang caves, about 4km out of town. We ummed and arred about hiring bicycles to go up there but in the end just settled for a local bus - it would not have been a very interesting ride along the main road and it all cost about the same price. Again, we'd heard here that the monkeys were a nightmare, so prepared ourselves for the worst…which turned out to be a few monkeys ambling about generally ignoring everyone - well except for the other (Asian) tourists getting right up close and taking pictures/making noises and stamping their feet at them! The cave was beautiful and lovely and cool, a nice break from the midday sun. With so many Buddha statues around, including an enormous reclining one, we took our time wandering around. It also gave me the opportunity to play around with the camera a bit more (After being shown how to use it properly, I've been using the completely manual setting for a few weeks - it's good fun playing around with the light settings and getting some different effects).

This whole travelling thing can be quite exhausting sometimes though, so we spent a well-earned afternoon resting, catching up on bits and looking at what we were going to do in Bangkok, our next stop!

Oh - word to the wise - if you're in Phetchaburi and you fancy a dip in the river….don't. While having a spot of lunch, we saw some rather large (bl**dy massive!!) Water Monitor lizards…apparently they don't eat humans, but still, I'd rather not take my chances!!