A 3-day weekend was coming up at the end of September. Prices are always high during the holidays because everyone in Hong Kong will travel. The 4 of us were spitting out destinations that were cheap (or reasonable) and had motorbikes. Seems easy enough but the options were Taiwan or Thailand. We went with Thailand — flying into Bangkok and riding a car for 3 hours to a nearby city called Kanchanaburi.
THE TRIP
Follow me on a 3 day trip through Kanchanaburi and Bangkok, composed of motorbiking through nature, hiking for waterfalls, and eating thai spicy food. P.S. Every meal includes larb (laab).
BRIDGE OVER RIVER KWAI
Famous for its cameos in a few old movies. Built by the Japanese with POW. Surrounded by food stands and children playing music. The track is still in use and the train will pass by from time to time.
THE GIANT RAIN TREE
The ride here was full of nature and animals. The tree was so big I had no way to capture its complete self.
WAT THAM KAO NOI
Walked up 7 minutes of stairs to reach a serene area enclosed with temples, shrines, and rice paddies. A beautiful place to watch the sunset and enjoy a nice breeze.
ERAWAN WATERFALL
Erawan waterfall is supposedly the most beautiful waterfall in Thailand, but unfortunately for us, we went to see it right after the rain. It looked nothing like the pictures. We only hiked up to the 5th waterfall (after the 4th waterfall, the road started getting very soggy and rough). Thank goodness we started heading back because it started pouring rain and we were soaked. The sad part was that we were planning to swim in the waterfall, but it was too dirty to do.
Because it was raining so hard, we tried to wait out the rain with some lunch. It worked! But half way through out ride back to our resort, it started pouring again. I felt like I was getting a black eye with the heavy rain splashing my face. It was getting dangerous so we stopped at a 7-eleven and amazon to wait it out again. This was when I realized the drawback of riding a motorbike — it was not rain proof. A ride to remember. We also saw a huge, dead anaconda on the way.
THE FLOAT HOUSE RIVER KWAI RESORT
One of the best resorts I’ve stayed at. To get here, you need to head to a pier where they have a private speed boat that takes you to the resort in 7 minutes. After a long dangerous motorbiking ride through the rain, this was exactly what we needed — a chill, beautiful place to rest. The best part was the hot shower after the rain, and because we had adjoining rooms, and our showers were outside, we could talk to each other as we showered.
THE AFTERMATH
The whole trip cost me around $5K HKD. This included flights, housing, and everything else. The floating house itself made the trip, but all the things we saw was great. The best part of riding a motorbike is that you can explore the path less traveled.
Recommended.
