Bangkok and Kanchanaburi

We spent Tuesday night in Bangkok. Man that place is masive. We spent the day, after arriving at 5:30am tiki-touring around the city in taxi's, public buses, tuk tuk's and the river ferry (see picture for a typical house on the river). The city is incredibly smoggy and there are many locals wearing scarfs and covering their face. We hired a tuk tuk for like 2hours (which cost $2 NZ) and visited a couple of temples, but unfortunately the Grand Palace was closed as the King was there :(. We also purchased a custom made suit each at a apecial promotion that Armani was having. We got measured up and chose the materials. Dave also got a shirt and a winter jacket ready for the English winter. Hopefully they will do their part to secure us a job! We stayed the night at a Thai house which is the home to some family friends that stayed with us in New Zealand 15years ago. It was a great experience..they had a maid..we slept on the lounge floor in front of the air con..and got taken out for dinner. Everywhere we went the story was told (in Thai but we could make it out) that we were from NZ and visiting. Dave and I also went to the night mnarket - Pat Pong - got harrassed by stall owners and club workers. Poor old Dave sticks out so i just follow on behind trouble free.

We came by bus yesterday (Wednesday) to Kanchanaburi - famous for the Bridge over the River Kwai / Death Railway. In 1930/40's, the Japanese forced hundreds of thousands of POW's to build this railway that links Myanmar (Burma) with Thailand. During the building of the railway, over 100000 POW's died by exhaustion, malnutrition and from diseases. Its an amzzing story and we spent a couple of hours at the museum reading about it. You can see the bridge on the left and the war cemetery on the right. It was pretty touching!

We stayed the night at an amazing guest house - Jolly Frog, right on the river Kwai. We are about to bus it back to Bangkok (2hours) and then make our way to the train station where we will go overnight to Chyinag Mai - some 10plus hours away. We are having a fabulous time (apart from me having the cold). We are trying lots of different types of foods (most of them spicy) and enjoying the sights and sounds (and smells).

Hope everyone out there is well!

Dane and Dave