Kanchanaburi, Thailand

From Bangkok, we hopped on a train (recommended by a travel blog) instead of a bus, headed for Kanchanaburi, about 2.5 hours west of Bangkok, not too far from the border with Myanmar. What a relieve! This is much more our style.

Center of Kanchanaburi

Kanchanaburi has two train stations. We talked about getting off at the first one since we had no idea which one is closer to the hotel. We showed the hotel address to one of the train conductors who advised us to use the 2nd station. Similar to direction advise we got in Bangkok, the second stop was about 5 kilometers away from the hotel, whereas the first was only .5 kilometer. Taxi, please!

We checked into the welcoming River Kwai Hotel where later we had a wonderful spicy Thai dinner of seafood and veggie stir fry and chicken wings and Tom Yum soup with chicken, with live music and noisy birds bedding down for the night in the sign tower overhead.

The birds' nest

There is a glaring difference between Thailand and Cambodia, at least in the two cities we've traveled in Thailand so far. Whereas, in Cambodia you will always find someone able to speak some English, not so in Thailand. I asked a couple kids in Cambodia where they learned to speak English, and their response was, from tourists and American TV shows. I even got shouts of Obama on the streets in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Not because l look like Obama (I do not) but because he is a person of reference to them on seeing me. On the streets or businesses in Cambodia, everyone quote prices of goods and services in US $, not so in Thailand. Everything is quoted in Baht only. Exchanging your US to Baht is recommended. At least not yet. I simply boil this difference down to Thailand being so much more developed than Cambodia.