Khao Tong View Kanchanaburi

How to handle a Thai massage:

1. Be prepared to laugh. Laugh at yourself, laugh at others, laugh at the situation.

2. Do yoga prior to getting to establishment

3. Leave your shoes outside the door or directly inside. Do not leave without them and make sure no one else walks off with your shoes, or you theirs.

4. Once given a room stand their ...

... 8230;on the other side you can see the Mon village (the predominate ethnic minority group from Burma residing here) with stilt houses, dusty lanes, houseboats, smoking fires, and amazing gold Burmese style temples. On the Thai side of the lake, there is about 3 streets, a 7/11 convenience store, a market, with a women who has an old singer peddle sewing machine, lots of fruit, chillies and fish drying in the sun, and the odd plastic chair road side restaurant. There is a few ...

I am a little disappointed by the tours that they offer. The one I took to the Death Railway zipped us here and there with a guide whose Englis was not good - but hundred times better than my Thai.


Anyway I decided to hire a motor bike and do my own thing. The local tourist gave me some directions and I launched forth on the biggest motor bike I could rent. A 250cc Honda. All others re mopeds. The bike looked like a minature Harley.

Road signs are not ...

... the results. So Ms. Shirley started to announce (keep in mind there were 11 teams) “In third place, the Orange Tigers.” “In 2nd place, the Brown Monkeys.” “And in 1st place and the winners of the Ninja Games………..the Blue Vipers!” Yep, much like a down-and-out Michigan team beating a highly ranked Florida Gator team, me and my rag-tag group of students won the Ninja Games competition. The kids on my team were all jumping up and ...

... argueing as we had sat in their lounge/patio area using their internet all day so we didn't put up to much of a fight when she said that one of the dudes from the guesthouse would drive us there for a slightly higher fee plus it was starting to bucket with rain. No dramas he dropped us off with plenty of time to spare so we found our platform and started to read our books that have been neglected since the last long journey. Once we got our stuff loaded on the bus and we made ...

... working on the railway.

Now for a little bit of background on the Thai-Burma railway from the booklet that we picked up there:

In June, 1942, 61,000 British, Australian, American, New Zealand, Danish and Dutch POWs as well as an estimated 200,000 laborers from India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Burma and Thailand were put to work by the Japanese Imperial Army to construct a railway line ...

... POW's and lots of other people lost their lives while it was being constructed.Our guide was telling us last week that the engine came off the rails last week, the train track is perched on the side of a cliff! This made us a little uneasy but we live to tell the tale. Today was a bit of a lazy day but good. Love from the Mulcares

... I couldn't have made it faster from the Suvarbhumi airport to the southern bus terminal if my airplane had taken me there. Along the way, I got to listen to some great R&B hits from the early 90's-- Mariah Carey and Boyz 2 Men, which at least distracted me from Wut Wut's driving. The bus station is enormous and dominated by Thais, and after walking nervously around all the ticket stalls looking for the bus to Nakhon Pathom, I find the ...

... going up and down the river. Feel a bit bad to see people zooming around on jet skis though, considering the history of the place. Yesterday we went to the museum to learn all about the death railway between thailand and burma. I havent actualy seen the film bridge over the river kwai, although according to the museum its inaccurate. It was a bit of an eyeopener, and kind of made us quite down for awhile i think. We also saw the grave yard as well. For those of you ...

... might have been going by his massive dislike for the japanese!). After the cemetry we went the the Jeath War museum which although there was very little in it, it did tell the story of the bridge and how many people both POW and locals that died in its making. There were a few model reconstructions and it did amuse me that some of the POW models although their faces were really un life-like they had spent time to give them proper genitalia!!! Anyway, I digress ...