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Yes, Im back home in good old Blighty, and the time has come for my final blog installment... sobsob!
We travelled overnight to Kanchanaburi on Thursday 24 April and arrived there about 8 am on Friday morning. Our transport to our guesthouse was hilarious - one woman on a pushbike with Ellie, me and all our belongings on a cart behind - what a job! Our guesthouse had a lovely lawn with hammocks, and sat right on the River Kwai.
We spent the morning at the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre, a museum which tells the story of the building of the railway by PoWs during WWII. The museum is brilliantly researched and well laid out but the story it tells is upsetting. We also visited the British War Cemetry across the road - coincidentally it was Anzac Day, and so there was a remembrance ceremony taking place - and walked a few kilometres to see the Bridge itself. There's so much history in this place, and most of it sad.
In the afternoon we went to the tiger temple, which was different to how I expected (less "temple", and more "farmyard"!). Here you are able to touch tigers - the tigers are chained up and 2 guides take you round them, one takes your camera and takes pictures and the other places your hand on the tiger for you to pose. The tigers are supposedly relaxed because they're under the monks' enchantment, but everyone suspects it has more to do with them being heavily sedated, which made the experience a little unpleasant if I'm honest. The fiesty little tiger cub was much more how a tiger should be!
On Saturday 26 April we headed back to Bangkok - the final stage of our trip. As predicted our stay here consisted of shopping, temples and... more shopping!
We stayed near the infamous Kho San road, which is basically guesthouses, shops and bars, stalls on the street, bars on the street, lots of lights and lots of people - it's packed, especially at the weekend, and not entirely undodgy - a couple of stalls, for example, were selling i.d.s and driving licenses, and the street bars prided themselves on not checking i.d.! It's crazy cool and I loved it, definitely think we made the right choice staying a good 5-minute walk away though.
So we did some shopping at Kho-San, also at the huge MBK centre and the PathPong night market. Got rather pro at the public transport system!
On Sunday we went to the Grand Palace, the former residence of the King of Thailand. This sits in huge grounds surrounded by magnificent buildings - breathtaking. This is when we finally made it there after being partially scammed by a dodgy tuk-tuk taking us to weird "lucky buddha" temples - luckily we only lost 10 Baht (about 18p) and about an hour, thankfully!
On Monday we went to the Wat Pho temple, the oldest temple in Bangkok, where we saw the huge golden reclining Buddha - the scale was so impressive. We also went across the river to Wat Arun - we had seen quite a few temples by now but this one was different in that it was decorated all over with old bits of chinese teracotta.
Proud of ourselves after all this culture we treated ourselves to an hour's oil massage back near our guesthouse - very relaxing! We then had one final night out in Thailand...
Tuesday was our last day and we spent it picking up some last minute bits and then preparing for our night flight home. I've had an amazing trip and I hope you've all enjoyed following my adventures!
Love, and farewell...
xXxXx
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