Down South

Hello world. This will have to be quite brief as the internet connection here in Nakom Phatom (rough guess at the city we're in) is rubbish. Anyway, we arrived at the hotel yesterday with no problems. We took the canal taxi which was quite thrilling, and a bit insane but it cost us about 15p to cross the entire city, so we didn't complain. A local lad who spoke a bit of english helped us out and told us where to get off, and then another local helped lift our bags off the boat. Friendly lot these Thais.

We met up with the group which consists of 18 people altogether, plus a guide who in our case is a Turkish fella. The tour is very well organised and they're looking after us well. Today, we got up at 6.30 to drive down to Katchanaburi the bridge over the river kwai, then drove for a while before taking an hour and a half train journey back along the death railway. The train was quite hot and dirty, and at first we were stood in the doorway with the doors open, looking down at the river Kwai below. Incidentally, it's pronounced kway, don't you know.

After that it was back in the minibus to get to our current location, and we've just stopped to have a look round a big market, have a look at a big old buddha and then get a bit of noodles for tea. In about half an hour we depart for our 13 hour train journey down to the next stop.

Also, from now on you can also access our blog at the following web address: http://blog.durbster.co.uk