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First entry from Thailand!
I've been in Thailand for 9 days but the time's gone really quickly - it's such a chilled out place, you can lose whole days quite easily. Rhi arrived a week ago, and we spent 3 days in Bangkok. We failed to do all the touristy stuff, like the Grand Palace, the Emerald Buddha and the Recling Buddha etc, but we did have a good explore of the city, and saw quite a lot on our walks. I think the weather was fairly mild, so walking was feasible. And we had a pool in the hotel too, so that was always a light at the end of a hot sticky tunnel!
Ater 3 days in Bangkok, we moved onto Kanchanaburi, where the death railway between Thailand and Burma was built during WWII. Several thousand POWs (along with many more Malays, Chinese, Tamils and Burmese) lost their lives in the construction of the railways, and the museum, bridge and graveyard were moving places to be. Shame about the rest of the town - there were plenty of tourist facilities, but not many tourists, and it felt like a bit of a ghost town, so after a couple of days we decided to move on to Ayutthaya.
Ayutthaya used to be the Royal Capital, until the Burmese came in and sacked it. However, many of the buildings from the Ayutthaya period (14th - 18th Centuries) have survived in some form, and you can wander (or cycle) around the ancient temples at your leisure. Which is exactly what we did. I've seen so many semi-ruined temples in the last 2 weeks! But I'm not bored yet - they really are fantastic to explore, and the peacefully parkland setting which they are all set in makes it all the more fun.
Anyway, you can road more about our travels on Rhi's blog - she's updating more often than me, so if you want something up-to-date, type Rhiannon in at the top and search by traveller name!
On to Chiang Mai tonight, by sleeper train. This may be the last sleeper train I get on this trip. I've probably spent about 5 days on them, but they're a great way of covering the distances! Anyway, I'll upload some Thailand photos at some point soon!
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