It can be a gamble whipping out your camera or phone during Songkran but these people were prepared to risk the ruination of their photography equipment to capture the watery madness that is New Year in Thailand. We in turn jeopardised damaging our third camera in Southeast Asia to photograph them doing so.
A travel photo of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
We have mixed feelings about Songkran, in that one of us loves charging about town squirting water into the faces of old women and children, while the other loathes it and won’t venture outside for the duration.
We could have had to take an inconvenient detour and add time to an already long journey to the Laos border had we not taken photos of these timetables at Kanchanaburi bus station. Hopefully, they will be helpful to anyone getting else looking to get a bus from Kanchanaburi.
We love the Frog, but it was other critters that tested our fondness this time around. The Jolly Frog is an old favourite of ours but we are not blind to its faults. Having stayed here now three times in 14 years we know both what we like about this place and what we hate. And I mean hate. I hate its main problem with a visceral loathing but still come down in favour of staying here whenever we are in Kanchanaburi. Having said that, this time we did cast a glad eye at other potentials to see what else we could have won.
We stayed at this place because our go to Kanchanaburi abode the Jolly Frog was full. Our songthaew driver had told us this while we were sitting in the back of his truck waiting for more fares, and made two attempts to take us to the Sugar Kane instead, but we assumed he was fibbing and insisted once he lowered his fare to our satisfaction that he take us to the Frog. Damn. The Jolly Frog was full. And there goes our ride.
After being castigated for walking into the first place I found and paying over our budget at the disappointing Sri Bumphen Plus, Deirdre resolved straight away to show me the error of my ways. I might point out here that, sure, she paid less but only tried one place too, walking around the corner to the Malaysia and negotiated the 500thb rate down to 450thb if we stayed three nights and didn't go mad with the aircon, plus a 200 thb key deposit.
Sri Bumphen Plus was our first choice for where to stay on arrival in Bangkok after our flights but we decided against once we realised we were unlikely to make their 9pm check in time. This turned out to be a good decision both because we wouldn't have made it on time and because we - mostly me - were largely unsatisfied with our stay here.
We spotted this sign when we arrived at Kanchanaburi bus station and thought it might be useful for anyone searching in advance for the bus times to Erawan, or from Erawan to Kanchanaburi.
We booked two nights with Airy Resort, paying 630thb for an ensuite double per night, and got plenty of use out of the room as we slept pretty much for most of our stay, screwing up our body clocks so much we twice paid for an extra night to further acclimatise. Travelling has never hit us so hard before. Perhaps we are getting too old for this?
