Day 2

It was a good night last night at the Thai dance and dinner.  I went down to the lobby bar before we needed to head off and decided to shout myself to a B52. I think that it has similar impact on the body as drinking jet full, and i loved it!!! At the show there was plenty of food, but only complaint is it could have been hotter, heat wise.  I washed my main meal down with a margarita.  Who knew that Thailand people love to make cocktails for foreigners so much???
Thankfully the dancing was only about an hour as the music does my head in.  Sounds way too much like cats wailing and fighting for my refined taste.  How the girls manage to bend their fingers back so far without breaking them off defies thinking about. You wont be surprised that I waas asked to get up and dance with the performers on stage for their final number but I declined as I was too busy taking photos...
Back to our lovely hotel at a reasonable hour with enough time for a night cap and packing as early start in the morning. Good night sleep had (with the entry light off) but up at 5, bags out at 6 and straight to breakfast.  Off we headed at 7.  there is still so much more to see and do in Bangkok but it has been a great taster for the group and my kittens are all having a fabulous time so far.  Similar weather as yesterday and even though it is 35 degrees it doesn't feel too hot and the humidity is very bearable, even pleasant for most of the time.  Our first stop is unexpected as we stop at the village that has the train which runs through a little market.  Cant remember the name of the place but Ive seen it shown on tv programmes.  The locals set up their little fruit, veg, fish, etc stalls immediately on top of the railway line and sell their wares.  They have rigged up plastic canpoies ov the top.  The train runs through 5 times a day, so 4 minutes before the train is due they pull back the canopies and remove any of the wares that are sitting up about the level of the rail track, wait for the train to pass and then set up their stalls again.  Absolutely incredible.  Thankfully the train is in for repairs at this time so we were in no real danger of getting run over by it! The market is only for locals who clearly use it well, but because of recent overseas media coverage about it, it is becoming more of a touristy spot.  We were the only 'foreigners' there though when we went through.
Next stop was the Damnern Saduak floating market.  it was buzzing and exciting and fun.  Wasnt too keen on the guys with the huge snakes that you could have your photos taken with, and some of the stall vendors were a bit pushy, but i did buy mself a little white blouse that i was happy with my bartering over.  it did however get very humid amongst all the stalls.  I know I keep promising photos, but I really did take some good photos of the floating market! Trust me...
Then back on the coach to head to our next spot which was at a floating restaurant on the River Kwai.  lots of choices from the buffet and i am becoming very adept at making the soup, chicken today.
After lunch we then headed to Hellfire Pass which you are probably aware was the Burma to Thailand railway that the Japanese forced our prisoners of war and the local Thai people to build under the most horrific conditions. Had the opportunity to have a very good look in the little museum.  Managed to shed a few tears whilst watching a video which was a compilation of photos and chalk drawings of the building of the track and the state of the POWS. Just heart breaking. Composed myself sufficiently to walk down into the actual part of the railway track and saw what was Hellfire Pass.  There is a very special plaque commemorating Weary Dunlop. It is impossible to tae in what was required to dig out the rock face to create the railway and bridges.  Something like 20 % (12,399) POWS died working on the railway and about 70,000-90,000 locals. The living conditions were appalling and if the dseases and malnourishment didnt kill you then the torture and beatings carried our by the Japanese would.
We were all very touched by the whole visit and are kind of looking forward to tomorrow when we go on a train ride on part of the track and a visit to the War Graves Cemetry at Kanchanaburi. But back on the coach it was, and time to head to our next hotel.  We got in about 5.30 and once again are in a very nice hotel, but quite old.  My room is huge!!!.  Time for some hand washing and get today's blog started and then to dinner at the restaurant.  The food was okay but way too much. 1. chicken salad entree followed by 2. pumpkin soup, followed by 3. chicken maryland followed by 4.fruit salad.    I thought I would keep trying out new cocktails, so had a Gin Fizz which I've decided i could become quite partial to. we had quite a few laughs over the entertainment during dinner.  A man on guitar and a woman singer did a darn good job of destroying every song they sang.  It was terrible.  I actually threatened to slap one of my kittens when she went up to them and asked them to play Tie me Kangaroo Down Sport.  Thankfully they had no idea what that was so we were at least spared that embarrassment.  I offered to go and grab the microphone off them at one stage and do a few ABBA numbers.  I think I even had a couple of the kittens ready to storm the stage for me, but in the end we all decided that it was all aprt of the experience so we sucked it up and hoped that their performance wouldn't make our ears bleed. So it was then time to say our farewells to each other after another great day.   As I now sit typing these lines, I can hear thump, thump, doof, doof from the restaurant area and have a sick feeling that it is our entertainment duo performing in the bar!!! Hope that isn't going to go on all night or there will be trouble.  Should have stormed the stage when I had the numbers behind me... night, night.