Now on the flight it was a smoothish ride to SYDNEY international. 3 and a bit hours later I had arrived at my destination. Managing to pass through customs for the day I thought I would have a look around. 0930 passed and I had managed to look through the entire airport......surely not. Sadly it seemed I had. Meaning to continue as I had started I found a nice bar (LAMORE like the song sort-of) hence the name there were two italian guys who owned the establishment. They were great and gave me a few freebies as I had told them my situation. With that i settled in for a long wait, plugging the lappy into the near power socket and slouching into my leather couch :D . A few movies later I began to get stiff had another walk around phoned home and then it was time to depart.....(FINALLY).
SYDNEY - BANGKOK
In the departure lounge I struck conversation with two (conincidently) striking females from the UK. They were luckily on the same flight as me en route to London. Awsome two good looking girls to talk to what more....well a lot more....the plane began to fill with more and more. If there is a heaven...and I am not religeous....then this is mine if only I had a camera. Anyways we had a good time free booze and all......whatever they say about British Airlines being crap on the booze sector is complete BS they were like a 24/7 bar. This being my first long fight I got around half way and could not sit down any longer. So I walked down to my english girls and stayed with them for the remainder. Shortly after.....5 hours in fact.....we touched down at the new BKK international airport the captain informed us it was a mild 32 degrees.....nice for 11pm at night I thought. Walking straight through the gates without question and a mega hand full of duty free it was a gauntlet of "taxi, taxi u want taxi la?" untill I found an alert AL standing there....as I walked toward him he glanced at me and on second look he noticed it was me....we had a manly hug and that was nice. Went outside and it was a trip up and down escalators to find where he had parked his car.....typical. After that we were off to his house......and mum its twice the size it looks in the pictures. We had a beer and crashed out. In the morning ALs mum had brought me some cakes and stuff to eat as I have learnt is the thai way for bfast. Then I was asked if I wanted to go to Kanchanaburi for the weekend and that we were leaving at 2pm. Not wanting to miss out on the oppourtunity off we went. I packed a bag and set off on the 2 hour trip.
BKK - KANCHANABURI
Sitting in the back of the landcruiser I was reading my lonely planet guide to Thailand and found that Kanchanaburi is in fact the city which lies on the bank of the mae klong river which the bridge on the river kwai crosses. Primo killing two birds with one stone.....eventually we got there as Charn's driving is to be expected on a 65 year old asian man. Note: yes it is true all asians are crap at driving. It was late at night however I had managed to get AL's camera although it was no use now. So I had a dip in the river after charn had eased my concerns of aligators by going first. This is something I will always remember swimming at 8pm in the river kwai with the sound of monkeys and such in the distance. In the morning I managed to grab some snaps of my river pad after another dip naturaly.
The next few days would be interesting as I found it hard with the language barrier that I thought would not be there as AL had not come on this trip due to work....however I kept on. We went to a wood furniture manufactureer which was about 60km north of kanchanaburi in a small town called ban khao. This proved to be a shock to me as saftey in the workplace was and is not excercised in thailand on majority.
Then it was a few days of hanging around as I had suspected with Charn and his wife. I had been invited to a party at his good friends house. Noi was nice and his wife and family were very good to me. On the night of the party I became rather popular with the girls as I was prepared to dance and being foreign (farang) was an added touch. Many bottles of whiskey later and 3 mariage proposals later it was time to leave. The next day would prove to be the funniest. We headed out on another journey across central thailand from kanchanaburi with my 3 70, 70 and 65 year old escorts. Finally we came to our destination....in the middle of no where....to look at?.........you guessed it...more hand crafted wood. So armed with my lonely planet guide.....and plenty of water (naam) I was settled into a small heat escape on the side of the road outside the shack office. After which (an hour in the 39 degree heat) we were off again....or were we Charn and his mate (something or rather) were jumping up and down about some furniture they didnt see on the way which to my and loaad (Charns right hand man) we looked at each other and without words rolled our eyes. however it looked like a short trip as i think charn had sensed our frustration in the heat. However I could not help but laugh at somehting or rather as he ( a 70 year old man) tried to get door unlocked in the landcruiser obviously new to modern technolgy he put the window up and down several times with quick bursts of annoyance in thai. Me wetting myself laughing did not help the situation however I think loaad laughing also made it alright for me to do so.
Kanchanaburi sites:
Now to the good stuff. Heremy experience begins as I launch myself in the deep end.....well kinda. Charn has hooked me up with a guest house called the bluestar...looking in my travel guide it got a good rating and the english speaking host is very helpfull and has been told to look after me very well. So armed with my travel guide and various other little maps and things I went off to the bridge.
Then of course it was off to the thailand-burma railway centre. lonely planet tells me that this is the best place to start your experience to kanchanaburi. Which it was great models are to scale and video help you really see the traumatic events that took place. The power went out half way through which is not uncommon with thailand. After waiting around with the swedish girls that I had been talking to earlier we were offered a free drink and that we could come back tomorrow free of charge. With that I was pleased (ha ha ha tiny ben once again) we set off and went to the memorial cemetary across the road.....After a few minutes walking I started to sob (yes me, I admit its rather heavy feeling walking through the graves of so many POW's) anyways the girls gave me a hug and I returned back to my new home. The bluestar nong ( the owner) was washing his car and after chatting to him he handed me a 25% discount at the internet place across the road...so with that here I am.
Tune in next time......love to all....ben.
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