Country Lake Nature Lodge Hotel Kanchanaburi

Today we slept till mid day because we were drunk (again!) last night, well with 20p rum and cokes it would be rude not to.

Anna left us today and we had planned to go the waterfalls but sleeping late put a stop to that so we had a wander around, put some clothes to the laundry and then went for our first thai massage. For 150baht (2 quid 50) we had a full body thai massage, very rough and firm but it ...

... and various presentations by inspirational humanitarian workers that have worked on the border for years. Only now has it sunk in how high profile and amazing this opportunity with VSO really is. I do have to laugh tho whenever they talk about the border and the work of humanitarian workers, my position is considered the most hard core and remote of all. I’m not scared by it…. I am excited and totally ready for it. It is what I have been wanting to do for along ...

... exactly what it was.

Then of course, the highlight of the day. Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yannasampanno. Or, the Tiger Temple. There's all the chain emails about it, and here's the real thing. Its more than a tiger temple actually. It's a wildlife sanctuary, lots of wild animals live there and come and go as they please. We walked down to the Tiger Canyon where maybe 15 or 20 giant tigers were sleeping and you could go and have your photo taken with them. They just sleep ...

... stations and were timed for how fast it took the entire team. The team with the fastest time won. This was really really fun. The students got a kick out of it, I had a great time with my team just strategizing with them and cheering them on through all of the obstacles. They did really well and truly understood the meaning of team work. More on that later….

When we got back to the resort, everyone was exhausted, and it was time for a some much needed Rj & R ...

... awesome! As we approched the bridge the train slowed right down allowing us to lean out and take photos. We then continued through a bit called arrow hill, the train squeezes through 30m deep solid rock, which cost numerous POW's lives. After that we went over a 300m long bridge that clung to the face of the cliff following the curve of the river, almost every POW that worked on this part of the track died ...

... balls of dust everywhere, Tony's blanket had what looked like blood stains on it, and the bathroom was barely useable it was so filthy. I ended up sleeping fully clothed, with ear plugs and a swim cap to keep from picking up anything. As if that wasn't bad enough, it was also freezing, and there were dogs barking all night. Needless to say we didn't sleep well at all.

... bread with the kids and cooked it in their homemade mud brick oven (which tasted fantastic!). Another night, after discovering that none of our fellow volunteers had any idea what banoffee pie was(!), attempted making one, although we had to substitute cream for yoghurt so it wasn't quite the same! Still good though although the mass sugar intake was a bit of a shock to the system!! Our first weekend at Dada's we took the kids to a local fair which was ...

... and everything is in immaculate condition. Without a formal tour guide its hard to determine/know if things have been restored or preserved perfectly, but either way, I'm in awe of the vivid colors, how fine the edges are, and how intricate the details are. There is a story that is told in 178 painted facades that runs the course of the outer wall of the complex and spans a full kilometer. The story is the Ramayana (Hindu ...

... looked pretty OK and lively to me, and it wasn't heaving with tourists either like I had in my imagination from what everyone had said (OK, I might have thought otherwise if I hadn't been told that!) It was brilliant, I loved it. The tigers have been rescued by Buddhist monks from poachers neer the Thai/Burmese border. Raised by humans from cubs, that's what makes them so timid, and they're a nocturnal animal anyway, so I don't believe the drugging thing. Plus, I ...

... POWs who died during construction is about 160,000. About 25% of the POW workers died because of overwork, malnutrition, and diseases like cholera, malaria, and dysentery. The death rate of the Asian civilian workers was even higher; the number who died is unknown, as the Japanese did not count them. Today only the lowest part of the railway to Nam Tok is still in use. In ...