Kanchanaburi (pop. 58,000) could be just another semi-rural town in Thailand. There are touts with strong ideas about where you might like to stay. There's the smell of someone flash-frying beef somewhere -- chilies, garlic and basil; a few feckless chickens are pecking at bits and pieces in the middle of the road; and the sun's hot.
Not at first glance a place worth getting terribly excited about. But this town is a town with a difference.
Kanchanaburi has a bridge pinched from Java then reassembled in Thailand. It also has a floating nun. More of her later. It's the bridge that really puts this place on the map.