Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Oh Kanchanaburi, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways: riding and washing elephants, bamboo rafting, Tiger Temple, Erawan Falls, River Kwai Bridge, raft rooms, "flushable" toilets, banana and pineapple pancakes, beautiful sunsets on the river, Damnoen Saduak Floating Market and Alex (the new Fab). Yes, Kanchanaburi is awesome! Very worth a visit. It's so beautiful and chill and there are so many things to do!

Here are our berths on the train! It was really fun to sleep on the top bunk in a moving train! The next picture is Russ (the new Fab from Malaysia to Chumphon) showing us Fame (the premier backpackers joint in Chumphon).

Ah, here I am with the proprieters of the VN Guesthouse, and the magnificent chef who created the most amazing banana and pineapple pancakes ever. The next picture shows my contentedness as I eat a banana pancake at the VN guesthouse.

This is a "Thai-style" toilet. Notice it has no back. And yet, it has a strange bucket filled with water next to it. To flush a Thai-style toilet, one has to ladle buckets of water into the toilet until the toilet is clear. The second picture is our raft on the Kanchanaburi River (or the River Kwai, I'm actually not sure). We are the second room after the ramp.


We arrived at the train station in Bangkok at 5ish on Sunday. We then needed to find a taxi to the bus station to Kanchanaburi. After rejecting a taxi who wouldn't use the meter, these two guys gave up their taxi for us! We insisted on the meter, so he drove round in circles until he arrived at the bus station after an hour. It was a glorious bus terminal though. It looked like a stadium on the outside, with various bus company checkpoints on the inside. It turned out we went to the wrong station. No company had any more buses that night. After arguing with the information people, an English guy from Kanchanaburi overheard our plight and told us of the south bus station, how to say it in Thai for taxi drivers, gave us some pointers on a bus company to use and good places to stay. So we had to catch another taxi to the "south" bus station. After saying the Thai for "south bus station" fifteen times in different tones, we headed out.

We arrived at what looked like a tourist flea market! I never would have taken it for a bus station were I on my own. The contrast of the huge, orderly station we left was enormous. There were buses, to be sure, but it didn't look like a proper station, per say. It was this small building with hordes of people every which way you looked and buses parked wherever they could. We finally got a bus to Kanchanaburi! And true to all buses, it was a freezer. Our blankets saved us again! It was a nice, relaxing two hour ride to Kanchanaburi. After an hour, the bus kept stopping to let people off. We were unaware there would be more stops than the central Kanchanaburi city stop, so we got a little confused for a while, but after discussing with several other confused tourists, we decided to sleep until they kicked us off! Not a perfect plan, but what can you do?

When we arrived in Kanchanaburi at 10 p.m. We got a driver who knew the VN Guesthouse. As the guy pointed us in the direction of his taxi, I had a slight trip down memory lane. There in front of me were the well known safari taxis of the Virgin Islands! I never thought I'd see one again! I didn't realize how much I loved those taxis, until I caught sight of it in the dark. We arrived at the VN Guesthouse and were happy to get a river raft room! It has a personality all its own and therefore deserves its own post.