Kanchanaburi... A Fantastic Place to live?

Kanchanaburi.

We have a house, (and mainly) a business and study base in BKK, but I’m thinking of renting out a country house as a means of splitting my time 60/40 or 70/30 with most of the time spent in the country residence.

Kanchanaburi seems like a perfect place to live.

Just cross one of the bridges from the main town and you’re instantly in gorgeous countryside with a jungle mountain backdrop. Probably get a decent house in there for a low five figure amount.

Not 5 km away are a plethora of farang restaurants, bars and bookshops due to the tourism trade. The town is also well maintained and kept clean due to this.

The people are friendly and respectful, reminds me of living in Isaan, money is taken and given with two hands in shops etc. People aren’t as jaded as BKK.

Endless mountain air, scenery and National Parks.

Endless amazing motorbike rides in all directions.

An array of fantastic spots to head to – caves, waterfalls, hot-springs, mountains.

Lots of history and a cultural mixing-pot of Thai and Mon-Burmese.

Great jungle waterways. Pick up a nice little wooden speedboat, maybe have one of the waterways at the end of your back garden…

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sounds good. :)

Adventure sports such as ATV and off-road scrambling at your backdoor.

Bangkok is only 120km or so away.

Compared to other country spots the beach isn’t far away for a 2 or 3 days beach break.... Cha-Am and Hua Hin are probably the same distance than from BKK.

Negatives:

I’ve gone on a few bike rides in the hot season and there seems to be a lot of harvesting and transportation by lorry. It seems to make the air very dry and dusty. This might be just along the main transport roads though. I don’t know. Maybe they’ve also taken up the recent national past-time of crop burning that seems to have gripped the Thais over the past few years.

What’s it like living there in the hot season? I imagine cooler than a lot of places due to the mountains.

Western shopping.

I don’t know where the closest expat aimed supermarket is. Foodland, Villa etc. so probably just Tesco-Lotat and Big C except for a drive to BKK to stock up. Wouldn’t be an issue early on, but if I make the move almost fulltime it could be as a minor negative. Not that a twice monthly drive to BKK outskirts to stock up on goodies would be much of a burden.

I think that’s all the negatives I can think of.


Would you consider Kan as a possible great place to live?

Kanchanaburi is nice. A couple of years back I used to spent a couple of long weekends a month there (usually by train from Thonburi). It's cheap, has good food (the big cheap guesthouse has a very nice and well priced, well, cheap!, restaurant), always a chance of shagging a Japanese tourist, has a decent Indian restaurant, the market is pretty good, and everything you said.

The pubs are quite boring and it's noisy. Also, like anywhere, there seem to be a few expat nutters around town, and it's irritating walking past the corner and having all the bloody girly bars bother you (... :) :( ). The worst thing is the noise on the river, early morning (5am) loud speakers and late night Chinese 'singing' boats... :( Also, lots of bugs near the river, I'd look for a place a km or so away from the river and nightlife. I'm sure you could find a nice place, plus rental/buying prices there are far cheaper than most other areas. I think I'll pop back soon...

The police are very friendly in Kanchanaburi , :)

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The worst thing is the noise on the river, early morning (5am) loud speakers and late night Chinese 'singing' boats...

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True. I could see that as an issue. I'd probably look for a place about 10km out of town. I'll have to check the waterways, I'm not sure if there's many smaller river/canals around the place, but having a place along one would mean a good chance to get a nice little speedboat. :)

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Also, lots of bugs near the river.

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That's probably true.

And could be a reason not to get a place on a waterway. :)

^^ The police are very friendly everywhere.

Particularly Amerikkka. :)

I know lots of folks (well 3 actually...) who got eye infections when staying on the river huts (I got a semi-infection once too), so you need to take care. Not life threatening or even sight threatening, but uncomfortable for a couple of days to a week...

If you spent time to search around then I'm sure you could find a really nice place there.

I have been to `Kan`3-4 times, loved it.

But on our last 2 week visit in March it was incredibly hot. At that time I had spent 6 months touring the country and was well acclimatised, but `Kan`took me by surprise. I can safely say that I have never anywhere in Thailand experienced heat like this.
I stayed at one of the raft houses, so the river was never far away I am happy to say.

I met 2 danish girls, freshly arrived from the scandinavian winter. During their stay they only ventured out of their A/C abode to order a meal from the restaurant.
They could not take this intense heat.

Due to the lack of rain for many months, the forested hills looked like a wildfire had went through, all brown and scorched, only close by the river the vegetation was still green.

I met an elderly german gentleman there, 75 years old, he was completely indifferent to the heat and took his daily 30-40 km tours on his bicycle in the area.
I suspect he must have been with Rommel in Sahara :)

Too hot, too far from civilisation, too close to Captain Insensible, too many Japs having nice snaps at the bridge their granddad 'built' and has too many Ockers marching on the place every year.

Apart from that, it's OK.

Hot season... will have to look into that. I kinda like the heat. Hot season in Isaan is fine. :)

^ with you on the heat issue, love it, i will have to to get up there to kanch, never been

^sai yok yai .
into the nature reserve and there are bungalows on the river right by the waterfall.
no bars. one restaurant .few mozzies . but worth a look .
right on the river kwai !!!

We went there numerous times.

Plenty to see, some great places to visit,
better with your own transport though.


Gets very hot at times, we have known it 40 for days on end
which leads to tourists stripping off all over the place, jumping
in and out of the rivers and waterfalls.

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So you might need to wear strong sun glasses,
so as not to be offended. :)

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Nice water-falls.

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Amazing Temples and Caves.


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You can get lost in some of them.


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Spectacular views.

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More water falls.

Watch out for snakes, the jungles around Kanchanaburi
are alive with them, especially Cobra.

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Chinese Cemeteries.

Massive Tesco Lotus, handy for buying good meat etc
have a decent barbecue.

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We have rented a few nice rafts over the years.

Cheap enough.

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Down Town can be bustling at times.

Back-packers walk is quite a friendly area. No Name Bar,
(assuming it's still there) great food.

Cops.


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Thai Cops never change and they never will.

What you see is what you get.

Have fun.

Been to Kan quite a few times, the surrounding area is brilliant bike territory especially up to the border.

As stated the hot season is brutal and country side parched, the river area is good for a while except for the tossers in there party boats banging around all night.

Fine little town is Kan, could do a lot worse. I like it.

Yep we have been to Kanch quite a few times ourselves as we have family live there...I enjoy the place everytime I go....it is quite laid back with plenty of places to discover. Last time there we were invited to driving a couple of hours up the mountains past the everchanging 'tiger temple to somewhere near the border and stayed a couple of nights at Greenworld golf course. It is a beautifully tended challenging course that had almost no-one playing on it. Quite bizarre really as the place didnt even have a golf hire shop so take ya own gear....around the workers huts were all sorts of exotic animals in cages that had wandered onto the course.

A friend from Kanchanaburi mentioned a place a bit outside there toward the Thai/Burma border (which apparently is about to join the tourist trail proper.) Lot of people speculating it will be a good spot to be for business once it's all going. I'll find out the name as I can't remember it now.

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Originally Posted by Albert Shagnastier

A friend from Kanchanaburi mentioned a place a bit outside there toward the Thai/Burma border (which apparently is about to join the tourist trail proper.) Lot of people speculating it will be a good spot to be for business once it's all going. I'll find out the name as I can't remember it now.

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