Pick the widest part of Thailand, and it will be pretty close to our journey from Ubon Ratchathani to Kanchanaburi. A few days in an Ubon village was enough for Mum & her hubby, over here for a holiday, so I made a snap decision to visit Kanchan for a few days before heading home to Chonburi. We overnighted at a hotel in Kheng Khoi, Saratburi and enjoyed a fine steak at the nearby Chok Chai farm steakhouse-this is becoming a regular habit in my travels upcountry. Washed down with a quite decent Thai shiraz from the Khao Yai winery.
I'd been curious to check out Kanchan for some time- for the river and mountain scenery, not the death railway stuff. War tourism isn't my thing.
The following days drive was easy enough, and of course passing through the central Thai plains you go over several rivers and klongs such as this one, but barges made this one worth a shot.
And so on to the gradual rise into Kanchan- you're in the mountains here but you'd hardly know it from the drive up. First stop of course, the River Kwai- this quaint little punt was just pulling in.
We're actually looking out on the intersection of three rivers here- the Big Kwai, Little Kwai amd MaeKhrong (?).
Nice and scenic- but I was surprised how relatively 'untouristy' the town was. Turns out we were in the real downtown, but the travellers sector is just over a kilometre away on the road heading towards the famous Kwai bridge. Different scene there- I was glad in retrospect we chanced upon here first.