Thailand – Laos Travel: Day 6 – Part 4 – Trip To Kanchanaburi and Reviews About Rainbow Guesthouse | Trivacker

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Continued from Thailand – Laos: Day 6 – Part 3 – Travel to Nakhon Pathom and See the Largest Stupa in the World. For pre-travel, please refer here.

Until the 6th day, how far have we been travel via overland? We have passed through five states/districts with a journey of 936km excluding Kanchanaburi.

For new visitors, the state/district is:

Click the link above to start reading our previous blog entry.

As soon as we got on the train, we immediately looked for empty seats. To your knowledge, there is no booking number on the ticket or seat and it is up to you to sit anywhere. The uniqueness of this train is the seats and interior are old and made of wood. As in the 60s/70s.

In fact, the floor still uses old wood. I am very curious to know what kind of wood is used to be able to last so long. This is 3rd class. Don’t be embarrassed or feeling poor or cheap. Look at the passengers in there … all foreigners who are citizens of Hong Kong, China, western countries and others.

Due to the journey taking 2 hours, this is the activity we did. Photo sessions with a variety of styles. Aqif looked very happy, but his legs were held tight by Tatie. Worried, right?

Actually, the photo of Aqif was taken by a Hong Kong girl. How did these girls from HK show up?

Lots of sugarcane trees here.

As for these Hong Kong girls, how did we get to know them? The middle man was Aqif. Various memes and their jokes with Aqif. Until it was noisy with laughter and from a distance, I could see the faces of some foreigners who did not like the voice of a noisy kid. The so-called highly civilized country should be ready to understand the factors of children’s behavior. I really don’t want to stop Aqif from having fun. I don’t want to threaten his freedom. Unless he cries out loud or disturbs the people and their stuff inside this train.

With facial expressions of various shapes. I felt like wanted to smile. In my mind, it is impossible for me to make friends with those girls because I am here with my wife.

Just reached the Tharuanoi area. The clock shows 4.17 pm. There is an hour left before arrival.

The train stops here for about 3 minutes. It looks like many Thais are relaxing and reading the newspaper. A sense of peace when looking at their activities.

But there is one that interests me. Take a look at the leisure and exercise facilities available. Lots of people here too. In my opinion, adults to the elderly from China, Vietnam to Thailand are mostly very diligent in exercising. It is rare to find their people who are big and fat in size.

Aqif and the HK girls are still playing and joking. I left Aqif there while Tatie watched from afar. Meanwhile, I wandered around the other train carriages and took some videos around, including the train toilet facilities (I will upload the video later).

Beautiful views of the mountains.

View of rice fields here.

If I’m not mistaken, our carriage is the second carriage after the head of the train.

Village houses here. The scenery is more or less the same if you go to Kedah and Kelantan in Malaysia.

Indeed, I am very interested in taking pictures of these kinds of hills and mountains, that is, there are no layered forests from the bottom till the top.

Exactly at 5.14 pm, we arrived at Kanchanaburi Railway Station. Eh, why are we taking pictures with those two women? They were passengers from another station and boarded later. After joking around and playing with the Hong Kong girls, Aqif switched and became friends with these two women!

The station still retains an old wooden building. This is the view we want. Luckily it was not demolished and replaced with new buildings that supposedly wanted to resemble the progress of the city of London.

Ting! Ting! All aboard! I don’t know how old is this bell. We better take pictures first before this station is hit by future progress that will ruin its old look. This bell also reminds me of the animated film The Polar Express, which is the story of a boy who boarded a train heading to the North Pole and met Santa Claus.

“Welcome to Kanchanaburi!”

Finally, we got here. In 2012, both my parents arrived here by overland and boarding a sightseeing bus starting from Bukit Kayu Hitam (Kedah, Malaysia) to the Cambodian border. And now it’s our turn.

Like a group where everyone uses Osprey bags. I’m the only one who uses the Deuter brand.

While at a counter available at this station, there was a girl asking about our destination. I thought she was promoting a hotel or resort. Apparently, her job as a tourist guide under the management of Tourism Thailand. Indeed, she’s very helpful with location information, places of interest and so on at free of charge!

We can’t stay here long and have to hurry because it will be dark in 50 minutes.

The first destination that has set in my head is to head to VN Guesthouse because of the good reviews and being the focus of most backpackers. As always, without any booking and just trying your luck.

Then we stepped between the streets and alleys, including through the War Cemetery which is so large with the symbol of a big cross in the middle (I will write in the next blog post). And Google Map took us to this back alley. The distance from the station to here is 500 meters. Got tired of the dogs barking in some of the houses here.

Travel video from Nakhon Pathom to Kanchanaburi.

At the end of this route, we saw a guesthouse called Rainbow Guesthouse. But the destination we wanted to go to was actually next door, which was VN Guesthouse.

As soon as we arrived, I docked my backpack and went to the reception.

The answer … all rooms are full !!

Ok ok … I was silent for a while, meditating a little while standing and waiting for my instinct.

The feeling in my heart is indeed right on Rainbow.

So, we switched to Rainbow. Waiting at the counter there but nobody was around here.

Wait again ….. our feet felt like wanting to step somewhere else. And when we’re just about to step out …

Suddenly came a woman older than me. She came with a smile on her face and said sawadikap!! I smiled back and immediately asked, “Are there any vacancies for accommodation?”

She answered … “Oh yes, but only one room with an airconditioner which is THB450 per night. Do you want to check it first?”

So we immediately followed her. Wow …. the location of this room is facing the river Kwai. The room is not that big and nice for the three of us.

My thoughts … it’s not a floating type of chalet but got the same ‘spec’ with VN.

Alhamdulillah .. Ok … We took one night. After all, we have set the highest level for the price of accommodation here, which is a maximum of THB500. If you can get something worth THB450, it is considered good. Actually, VN is cheaper. But it doesn’t matter because it’s better available than nothing at all. This is a problem if you are looking for accommodation while carrying a heavy backpack. If we want to travel further to find more accommodation, we can, but we are worried that we will be tired in the middle of the road. (It happened to me suddenly when we were in Bangkok later).

It was great to have a room overlooking the river Kwai in Kanchanaburi. But unfortunately, we rarely hang out here because we spend a lot of time out there. When we returned to Rainbow, we were tired and off to bed earlier.

Early on, Aqif was lying in a hammock. He was feeling like being in a cradle used to put babies to sleep.

Tatie was posing inside. The colorful houses are like mini huts in Australia.

Reviews of Rainbow Guesthouse

Also known as Rainbow Lodge according to a search in Google Maps. For me, it was well worth it even though it cost THB450 per night.

Among the interesting:

Location overlooking the river Kwai.
The location also overlooks mountains and long bridges.
A bit of privacy.
Located just 650 meters from Kanchanaburi train station (just walk and no need to ride a motorcycle tuktuk).
The bathroom is clean and the water is fast.
There are platforms for relaxation and recreation as well as mattresses, especially for book lovers.
There are hammocks and swings.
There is paid snooker available.
The River Kwai in front of this place is clean and odorless.
Fast WiFi.
No mystical distractions
Also sells food/drinks (only suitable for non-Muslims)
Can rest first on the platform after checkout if it is still early to board the train because the train schedule will arrive a few hours later.
You can also store your backpack after checkout if you want to go for another walk in Kanchanaburi.
The location is very close to the famous Bridge on the River Kwai (“Death Railway”).
The receptionist counter was so friendly.

What’s less interesting:

The room is small and a bit cramped but the bed is big.
Not a floating house type.
The toilet is simple but clean.
Old TV but still working.

Rating? 7/10. Repeat stay at VN if returning to Kanchanaburi? Because I like this place for its strategic location, maybe next time I want to try VN Guesthouse as well.

This is the GPS for Rainbow Guesthouse: 14.030032, 99.522506.

I forgot to take the Wifi password at the counter, so I went there again.

After check-in, what did we do? It’s 5.50pm. If we want to rest until we fall asleep, our stomachs will be hungry. So, we unloaded our belongings first, took a shower and went out for a walk to the nearest town. While I waited for Tatie to get ready, I uploaded all the pictures to OneDrive cloud storage. Worried if anything happens to our mobile phone or camera. Money can be earned, but travel photos are more valuable.

We continue our journey here …. Thailand – Laos Travel: Day 6 – Part 5 – Kanchanaburi Night Market.