We headed to Sangkhlaburi on Saturday morning, stopping at Hellfire Pass on our way. The Hellfire Pass is a railway cutting on the former "Death Railway" in Thailand which was built with forced labour during the Second World War, by prisoners of war. Jess and a few of the others decided to do the short 4km walk through where the railway used to be, which was supposed to take 40 minutes altogether. So they set off very eagerly and walked through the pass to a small, modest memorial which they thought was too small, and there must be something else ahead. So they continued walking after the memorial down a path in the middle of the jungle stepping over snakes and huge trees in the middle of the path. After over half an hour they decided to turn back, and then noticed they had walked straight past several signs saying "ALL TOURISTS TURN BACK. UNSAFE JUNGLE TRAIL AHEAD". We had walked way too far... the 40 minute walk took us way over an hour - typical!

We arrived and were given our room, complete with one double bed (luxury!) and a single bed, we're just going to swap each night! The rain hasn't stopped since we got here but we cant complain because we've had really good weather up to now. We've invested in some very sexy full length, bright pink rain ponchos complete with a hood with a cap! We're staying here for the next 13 days and have been told that our shoulders and knees have to be covered everyday, huge disaster. We were told our longest shorts were inappropriate at the meeting last night so we're really struggling now!

We went on an orientation around the town this morning. First stop, of course, the temple! Possibly the weirdest experience yet... A monk flicked water in our faces with a stick and if we flinched he kept shouting 'NO NO'. Next he called us up one by one, we bowed down to him on our knees and he hit our head about 5 times gently with a stick then whacked us really hard! Jess was by far the funniest. As he was doing the gentle hits, Jess started making yelping noises so he stopped and when she looked up, he whacked her in the eye with the stick (much to everyone elses amusement) then made her bow down again so he could hit her head again! So funny. We got a free bracelet at the end which is a bonus. We then carried on with the orientation but couldn't hear a thing the guy was saying and so we dont know where anything is in the town - not ideal!

We start our volunteering tomorrow for 5 days. Jess has swapped with a girl that really wanted to do teaching but had been accidentally booked on the building option. So we're splitting up (shock horror!). Jess is building a new road to a new orphanage in the town and Lucy is volunteering in a local school with the Thai children. We're going out for burgers tonight (very cultural) before we head out to one of the bars for one of the girls birthdays tonight where you apparently just bring your own ipod - bit strange.

J&L x