One night in Bangkok… sorry… haven’t downloaded the rest of the song, but I am sure it is appropriate.  The view of the city from our balcony at night was stunning, with the ferries lit up and travelling down the river, and the hotels creating a stunning reflection with their multitudes of lights.

1730hrs, as promised found us in the Riverside Lounge bar, consuming cocktails and little french things that you eat but I can’t spell….  This was followed by dinner at 2030hrs at the Salathip Riverside Garden which is a part of the Shangri La Hotel.  The food was fantastic, but the day had taken its toll.  Neither Cathy or I could eat more than the entrée (another french word that apparently I can’t spell) and a couple of mouth fulls of the main course.  Don’t get me wrong… the food was superb.  All that was lacking was our appetite.

We returned to our room with a ‘doggy bag’ which we had no hope of consuming, did our washing and hung it on the balcony (bet that impressed them!) and took a couple of night time happy snaps of the river before retiring about midnight.

OK… we slept in… again… but since this is a holiday and we were in a really luxurious hotel with a fantastically comfortable bed, I’m not complaining.  It was 0800hrs when we finally emerged from our hibernation and faced a world of bustling cars and sunshine.  The pollution haze above the city was evident in the humid air.  A few daytime happy snaps and a check of the computer (as it is pay day!!) and we headed down to our complimentary breakfast.  After breakfast it was time to pack and depart from luxury… if we could find the bus station that is… considering our luck with the train station, I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

We checked out of the hotel and discovered that we had the opportunity to take the limousine to the bus station.  What luck… the driver surely knew where the bus station was.  We arrived at the new Southern bus station at about 1100rs, plenty of time to get to Kanchanburi, and were graciously pointed in the direction of the ticket counter.  We paused briefly to obtain a weeks worth of funding from the ATM and then arrived eagerly at the ticket counter.  Cathy asked for the first ticket… and the ladies face said it all… She looked at us, and the back packs we were hauling, and explained “But for that you need the old Southern Bus Station”... I must admit, the new one did look impressive, but a tad unused.

Seeing our confusion the lady commenced writing down bus numbers for us to get to the Southern Bus Station.  We stopped her… “Taxi”  By the time we got to the bottom floor, the taxi was arriving… 110 baht later and we were in the correct place, obtaining our tickets and within minutes were seated in the bus, on our way to Kanchenburi.  It was now mid day… Lucky we started early eh?

1400hrs and we arrived at our destination, shouldered our packs, and to the horror of the taxi drivers, commenced walking towards where we expected to find our accommodation.  4km later and River we arrived at the Blue Star Guest House which is costing 650 Baht a night.  For that we get a log cabin, two single beds, a flushing toilet (bonus!), airconditioning (double bonus!) and hot water (I am melting!! What do we need that for?)  We booked three nights.  By 1500hrs we were sitting on the banks of the River Kwai, skulling Singha beer and listening to the crickets… that changed dramatically by 1730 when we were listening to the crickets and karaoke.. bad karaoke… really bad karaoke… sigh… more on that later…