Pung-Waan (Kwai Yai) Resort Kanchanaburi

... 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 ...

... if I hear one more black eyed peas song I am going to puke). The dance was a costume dance with a number of different themes, and most of the students really got in to it and dressed up. We chaperones had to judge so it was really cool. Then, at the end of the dance, they finally announced what everyone had been waiting for: the results of the Ninja games competition. All of the students were standing there just crazy nervous and were yelling their team’s chant and eagerly ...

... t get my bearings at all and couldn't find any landmarks that I was using previously to navigate and make sure the taxi was going were he said he was, anyway he dropped us off fine at the little one track train station, with my best thai and alot of pointing at place name in had written down, the lady looked at me shock her head. Then we managed to communicate to each other that the line was closed due to an accident and wouldn't re-open til tom, dooh.
Plan B, so we had to think ...

... br>
I then stopped by the Thai Woodcarving Cultural center, which was filled with local craftsman and beautiful woodwork.

After leaving Central Thailand, I headed west by road to the city of Kanchanaburi. After a brief but refreshing lunch, I proceeded to the World War II Museum and crossed the Bridge Over the River Kwai.

The bridge appeared small at first, but when I started to walk across it I ...

... of the kids got off and I got to sit on the carriage steps, where you climb aboard the train, for a literally hair-raising and thrilling ride with fields of ruderalis flashing before my eyes just inches away, with a backdrop of sun-scorched yellow Thai mountains. Occasionally we passed places I had read about where large numbers of people had died in the construction, and also the P.O.W camp kept today as it was then in the war, all ...

... and a nice break for us too! We got to see water buffalo and elephants come to drink and bathe occasionally which was awesome. In our first week at Dada's we tried to structure our days by splitting the volunteers into 2 groups of - half of would help Meng with whatever construction work he needed that day and the other half would teach a lesson to some of the kids after breakfast. The next day we would alternate so we didn't get too many blisters or lose ...

... or pants. The food is really good, even though I'm not eating all that much and I make assurance double sure that no dish is spicy before paying for it. Breakfast looked more like a dinner today, but it was actually really good! Dinner was a simple yet amazing chicken fried rice. I fall asleep in a great mood under my bug net ready to catch an early train back to Bangkok in the morning!

... with groves of bamboo. Lots of vines hanging. Lizards, black with red stripes, about 5 cm long. Many levels of different waterfalls, one as beautiful as the other. Some with pools of sky blue, from calcium carbonate. Many fish, 2 species I saw. When you stand still int he water, they sucker and nibble your toes! Tickles and sometimes a little pinch. Cool water but not cold. Went swimming, jumping, sliding down waterfalls. Hung out with some ...

... to Tiger Temple!!! Now, for those of you who know me really well, you all know about my ghra for animals, so when I heard about this place, I knew we had to come here. It's an active temple where monks keep and protect tigers, from newborns right up to grown-ups and you can touch them and walk right around with them and everything. I didn't know this previously, but they also have a lot of other animals which have been given to them but as they are so ...