Escaping the pollution and confusion of Bangkok for a couple of days brings us 2 hours west to the pretty riverside town of Kanchanaburi.
Our 2 quid digs are superb, comprising a floating thatched bamboo hut strapped to four empty oil drums. It's a tad wobbly whenever one of the larger river boats speeds by, but this is more of a novelty than an annoyance, and after the last hectic few days the tranquility of the place is just what we needed.
Strange then, that if we look 600 metres upstream from our idyll, we see the infamous bridge over the river Kwae, which accounted for so many lives during the second world war (not the original, obviously, Alec Guinness and his stiff upper lip put paid to that back in 1945).
It's thought that 14,000 POW's and as many as 90,000 Chinese, Thai and Burmese labourers perished at the hands of the Japanese taskmasters as they toiled on the ill-fated rail link from Rangoon to northern Thailand.
Sobering stuff.
There's a museum near the site of the original bridge, but to be honest it's a pretty shabby affair. The curator, in his infinite wisdom has decided against sticking to the story of the railway - which let's face it, is quite a big one - and opted to chronicle every significant world event between 1939 and 1945, be it in Europe, northern Africa or the far East. All within a gallery the size of a tennis court.
Life sized plastercast models of Hitler, De Gaul and Stalin stand guard at the entrance and provide some amusement. Winston Churchill is particularly poor, looking worryingly like Parker, the Thunderbirds chauffeur.
Of course, Thailand didn't have a Hitler or a Churchill 60 years ago, but with a nod to local sensibilities, someone has painted a truly awful portrait of the current leader of the Thai armed forces. The thick rimmed glasses and sly smile making us think for a minute we were staring at Sgt. Bilko.
Our mood was lifted in the afternoon when we went on an Elephant safari.
This was great. Despite only having a solitary tusk, our mount BooPar, was a majestic beast. A huge, lolloping, lump of thing who was wily enough to know exactly what he had to do to earn a bonus banana.
His mahout (driver) told us he was a stately 55 years of age, which if my maths is correct makes him one of the few living creatures on earth who is old enough to remember Newcastle United winning a trophy - they never forget you know.
Highlight was the hosedown in the river at the end of the safari where we got to give the big fella a scrub behind his sizable ears.
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