As Pat and Rajanmenji were interested in the KanchanBuri Province, I will take you all with me on a virtual tour. I will go into as much details as possible for some of you planning to visit this part of Thailand.
Day1 (27 Aug 2004) Kuala Lumpur-HaadYai-Bangkok-KanchanaBuri
Why take a circuitous route, you may ask. Malaysian National Day falls on 31 August, and many Malaysians were taking additional off-days to extend their vacations. The AirAsia air ticket from KUL to BKK was naturally very expensive due to demand. I decided to take NokAir from Haadyai instead.
Four of us took an overnight bus from Kuala Lumpur to HaadYai for about 300 Bahts per head. On arrival at the border, we realized that it may a bit late to catch the NokAir flight which departed at about 9:00 AM, if we to go on a bus. So we took a cab directly from the border to the HaadYai airport. It was a right decision.
On arrival at the Bangkok airport, we took a cab to the southern bus terminal and took a bus directly to Kanchanaburi, arriving just after noon. We got on to a tuk-tuk and got the driver to take us around to look for a guest house along the Kwai Noi river. One of our team members was a bit more hygiene-conscious and was apprehensive. We decided to pamper ourselves and checked into the River Kwai Hotel for 1000 Baht per room per night. It was not too expensive, after splitting the cost for twin-sharing and with the breakfast thrown in.
We stayed here 2 nights
We went back later to Sam guest house to make our travel plans to Three Pagoda Pass bordering Myanmar. We were disappointed to find out that the journey was not as straight forward as we thought, and that we will waste a lot time taking buses. Renting a car was an option but as the road was hilly with a lot of bends, we decided not to take the risk. Anna from the Sam tours (if I am not mistaken) was persistent that we should take a day trip around Kanchanburi first, and then depart the following day, as there were 4 confirmed 4 vacancies. We considered the options.
Dinner at the restaurant opposite River Kwai Hotel was not a particularly memorable one. We decided to take up Anan’s offer and I telephoned her to meet at the 7-Eleven near the market. There were 3 7-Eleven surrounding the market! Knowing that the tour van (Rot Tour) had to make the trip with or without us, we had the upper hand of the bargain. She had to make a few calls to her bosses on the offer and counter-offer. Finally, a deal was struck. How much? I don’t remember and it did not matter. But for the sake of practicing my Thai, it was fun.
A deal was finally struck and a happy Anna writing a receipt
What I’m sharing with you for now is that it was a VERY GOOD decision as we really enjoyed the trip and the company. And we would not have covered so much in so little a time.
The night market was full of people and the food was definitely better than the dinner we have had. We tried all sorts of finger food. The ice cream was good. We also had a lot of beer before calling it a night.
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