Hi guys. Whilst I was away in Asia I wrote some diary entries.
To be fair, this only lasted a week so here’s a few of them that I wrote.
I also released the first part of my #CH32doesAsia series today! Click on the link below & you’ll be redirected to the short movie!
I’ll also be releasing a talking video on each place, speaking about where is best to go, what we did etc.
Anyways, back to diary talk.
KANCHANABURI
Oh beautiful Kanchanaburi. I’m excited to be inside you.
We finally got to the train station in Bangkok after some crazy traffic, we had the best damn driver ever, he was so sweet and hilarious, also incredibly patient. We were in the cab for over an hour and it only came to £1.80, mental right? The train was a great price of £1.80 also, for a 2.5 hour journey that worked great for us. The train journey was pleasant and on time. We walked from the station to our guest house in about 10-15 minutes which was great. I straight away recognized the area from being there last year so that was helpful. After checking in at Pong Phen Guest house (next to the Tesco Express) we couldn’t wait to jump in the pool after travelling all morning & afternoon. It was fabulous. We were completely revitalized and it felt bluddy good. We just needed some serious food action. The train station is right next to an amaaaaazing food market where I visited last year, that evening I took Jack and we are some absolutely incredible food for very cheap. They have these beautiful sweet potato fries balls which cost 30p for a bag of 6-8 (which fill you up crazily!) we also grabbed some waffles, I say some, we got about 6-7 waffles! Blueberry, strawberry, vanilla, the list goes on! They were 15 baht each (equivalent to 24p roughly) we also got some amazing veggie noodles (HUGE box!) for 15 baht and a corn on the cob for 15 baht too. The market is very easy to find, you’ll see the empty stalls when you come out of the train station to your right (market starts at around 6pm). After the food markets we headed back to the guest house and chilled for the evening playing cards and drinking amazing smoothies the ladies at the guest house make.
ERAWAN FALLS
Friday, you beautiful thing. Today we decided to hit Erawan National park, which is about an hour and a half drive away. We tracked down a bus online which you can get opposite the train station, bus 8170 I believe. There is no official bus stop or station, there is on the opposite side though where the train station is, so just stand opposite that. A Thai lady who runs a restaurant will tell you to sit on her bench until the bus comes actually, which is pretty sweet. They run hourly and seemed to be on time, we managed to get the 8:55 bus. The bus was jam packed when we got on, but the driver still managed to make room for us which was amazing. If you’re worried about getting a spot to sit I recommend you go to the actual bus station where the bus originates from. The stop we got on at was the 1st stop after leaving the bus station. The bus was 50 baht each way (90p), expect to be on the bus for at least 1 and a half hours. Well worth it though since the taxi companies offer journeys for about 1,200-2,000 baht. The ride wasn’t so bad on the bus, a bit of a numb bum since we weren’t on great seats but hey, it got us there! To enter the national park it costs 300 baht per person (£5.40-£6 roughly) usually a ticket lady will come on to your bus where she will come round to each person and collect the money. The park is pretty huge, so expect to be there for a little while If you want to see all the waterfalls. I believe there are 7 in total, the last one is a total of 2,000 metres above the ground so be prepared to climb & walk up steep hills. All of the falls are very beautiful! We spent a lot of time on the 3rd level waterfall. Jack was a little scared about getting in the water due to the fish, but after a while he got over the fear! The fish do nibble at the skin on your feet, which can be rather nice. I personally chose to wear water shoes since I like to have some grip on the slippy rocks, I found that they were great to wear. On our walk back down we noticed that the park had got super busy so we were glad we were leaving, at 12-1pm it really picked up the crowd. We made it back down for 2:30pm to catch the 3pm bus back. We had spent a total of 3.5-4 hours in the park, it was such a beautiful day I would truly recommend it!
DEATH RAILWAY & JEATH WAR MUSEUM
Today is Saturday. We started the morning with some delicious Pinneapple pancakes (again) teamed with a glass of pinneapple juice AND fresh pinneapple slices… Pinneapple crazy right? After breakfast we headed out for the morning, we walked down towards the JEATH War museum and death railway, which was about a 30 minute walk away. It was a hot walk, but it also felt real good for walking the distance. We arrived at the war museum first and checked that out. It cost 40 baht each for a ticket to enter the museum which isn’t too bad at all. The museum had two sides, it had one side which was about the JEATH war, (Japan, England, Australia, Thailand, Holland) and the other was a beautiful building about the history of Thailand. It was super hot that day, so it was hard to walk around the museum for long since it’s all basically in the outside heat (just shaded). Jack didn’t feel too good in the heat so we decided to head to the death railway before we headed back. There’s plenty of gorgeous markets around the area where you can find some beautiful jewellery pieces. The railway offers some lovely views, it can be super busy on the railway so just be aware when choosing your time to visit. We grabbed a Pinneapple ice slush for the walk home (30 baht) it didn’t take us too long walking back, the iced drink really helped keep us on track!
We spent a total of 4 nights in Kanchanaburi. It was one of our most favourite parts of our Asia trip.
It’s definitely got more of a chilled vibe, and isn’t overly swarmed with tourists YET, the area is building up real quick so I can imagine it’s going to take off pretty soon, visit whilst you can!
I’ve written a couple more diary entries throughout Chiang Mai, though I began to stop doing it throughout the rest of the trip, there’s something about writing whilst I’m travelling that I can’t always dig. I get a bit frustrated with myself when I can’t find the right words or a good time to actually take a second out and write.
Any questions on Kanchanaburi let me know!
I’ve featured our Go Pro footage on our 1st episode of our Asia series. So make sure to give that a look!
