Another Bus Journey

Today started off rather boring, although I did have a lovely night's sleep. We once again had eggs on toast with some fruit juice for breakfast and a few of us also made ourselves a jam sandwich for lunch as we were going to be on a coach for 5 hours. We got on the coach and left the hotel about 11am; I was lucky enough to have 2 seats to myself so that meant I was able to spread out and the ride became slightly more bearable. I never realised quite how many days would just be spent travelling between places on this trip; today we were travelling to a place called Kanchanaburi, this is a more tourist part of town, so we are going to be spending 3 nights here as there are quite a few bits to do. On the journey we did stop at a service station to allow people to use the toilets, the toilets here were the native Thailand ones where they are just a toilet bowl in the ground and you must squat over it, then once done, tip water down the bowl to flush it; there is also no toilet paper here but instead, a hose which you are meant to use, it isn’t the same as toilet roll though.

We got to our new accommodation around 4.30 and once again, there

were 3 in a room, so I shared with Georgia and Daisy. The rooms were nice with 3 proper mattresses (though one mattress was just on the floor) as well as a hairdryer, kettle, Wi-Fi, fridge, safe, tv, ensuite and the best part is a pool! We quickly all got changed and headed straight down to the pool to relax for a couple of hours before dinner. The pool was not particularly big and there were not enough sunbeds but there were some seats in the pool which was perfect for sitting in the pool and reading. I was the last person left in the pool today as I thought there was no point going up to the room with everyone else and just having to stand around wet, so I gave it about 30 minutes so that the other 2 could have a shower first before I headed up. The showers here are not powerful but at least they are a decent shower and do the job of making you feel clean. We had dinner in the restaurant downstairs today which had such a wide variety of choice with both local and western food – I opted for a Thai green curry. My curry was lovely with so much flavour and not too spicy, it was also so cheap with only being £2; the best part about it though was how filling it was. I am already looking forward to having a chicken pad Thai from here tomorrow as that also looked so nice, even though I could do with a nice chicken roast, but I doubt they do it quite as good as back in England so think I will just have to wait till I am back home.

As we are not starting our activities tomorrow until 11.00, everyone is going out tonight. I did say I was not going to go out before we got back to Bangkok, but with everyone including the guides going out and the prospect of a lie in tomorrow, it didn’t take much to persuade me to go. We all left at just gone 9.00 and walked about 10 minutes down the road to a bar; the bar had lots of fluorescent decorations inside and was playing some decent songs that I could sing along to and, in the middle, there was a pool table. At the bar, was another tour group also just visiting for a few days; songs continued to play such as the Cha Cha Slide and Grease megamix. I was in my element with all these songs that I could sing and dance along to and next thing I know, the staff were pulling a bunch of chairs together in a circle and then asking who wanted to play a game of musical chairs. They were going to have 6 people from Xtreme and 6 from the other tour; obviously, without even thinking about it, I jumped onto a chair ready to relive my childhood. I was atrocious though being the first person out, but it was fun whilst it lasted, it was also fun to support the rest of my team as they battled it out for Jalley to eventually win the title for us. After a few rounds of normal musical chairs, the bar team mixed it up a bit by saying that they had to grab something from a member of your team before being allowed to take a seat; the items varied from a condom to boys boxers which was highly entertaining to watch. It was such a great night, with loads of

singing, dancing and getting to know people. It must have been around 00.30 when me and Georgia decided to start making our way back to the hotel, although this was a mission and a half as from the way we were walking, you could not see the hotel sign directing you down the side street, so we ended up walking straight past our turning till we eventually sat down outside a 7/11 stroking a stray dog. I think Georgia would have quite happily have sat there all night with the dog if I had let her, but I managed to persuade her to stand up so that we could back track and find our hotel. Once we walked back the opposite way, it did not take us long to find it although everyone else had also come back in the time it took for us to navigate to our hotel. We went back up to our rooms and promptly passed out basically as soon as our heads hit the pillow, that is when you know it has been a great night plus even better when you are in bed nice and early from a night out.