After something more cultural, I took a short boat trip down the Chao Phraya River to Thonburi train station, then a 3 hour trip on an old wooden-seated train to Kanchanaburi. Arriving with my Lonely Planet map, and looking at the scale of the car park loop for the Kanchanaburi train station compared to the distance to my hostel, I figured it was an easy walk. There's probably some fine print somewhere about these maps not being strictly to scale, but a long walk later and I eventually made it to the http://www.bluestar-guesthouse.com" rel="nofollow">Blue Star Guesthouse on the river.

Kanchanaburi is the site of the famous Bridge Over the River Kwai, and so attracts a lot of people who had ancestors fighting in Asia during World War 2. It also attracts tourists in its own right due to its beautiful setting on the river, with Erawan waterfalls nearby and an annual biker convention and rock concert held in honour of the King (I can't think of any other country where bikers get together in support of the head of state!). All up, there's a lot to see and do for such a small town. I visited the site of Hellfire Pass, which has a modern museum detailing the terrible conditions suffered by Australian, Dutch, British and other allied POWs – as well as conscripted Asian labourers – at the hands of the Japanese, and a short walk to the site of the pass itself which has its own memorial. It's a pretty popular place of pilgrimage for many foreigners as well as Thai locals (a couple of schools were visiting when I was there). I was a little surprised by the large number of Japanese tourists, but they seem to go for the nature rather than the history...

There's plenty of other sites of historic interest, including various museum, war cemeteries and the bridge itself. It's a bit of a tourist trap, and there's busloads of people being ferried around the major sites, but the popularity is justified in my opinion. It's also possible to cycle around many of the sites (except the waterfalls and Hellfire Pass), but I did manage to get lost pretty easily on the winding streets. This was my favourite stop on mainland Thailand.

While staying at the Blue Star, I met an American family travelling with their three young children, who were quite inspirational. They both work in the medical profession, as well as having teaching experience, and for the past few years they've taken their kids out of school for a few months each year to travel to Thailand and Burma, do some sightseeing, and visit and work in some of the orphanages and remote schools. From their experience, travelling with kids gets you welcomed into Asian families in a way you wouldn't otherwise, and they couldn't speak highly enough of what a great experience it was for the whole family. A side-benefit was that all the kids – even the youngest at 5 – had a better grasp of the Thai language than any of us, and the eldest son (11) is the only farang I've met who can write in Thai script.