Sleeper Trains, Delays & Kanchanburi

The next few days were spent full of travelling, we left Chiang Mai at 5.30pm on Saturday 26th, and after 16 hours arrived the next morning at 10.30am in Bangkok, it had been delayed two hours. 



The sleeper train we chose this time was an Express, different from the special express trains in that all the beds face the aisle rather than being in little cabins of four beds. I actually preferred this and if you're planning on taking a sleeper go for the express option, as its cheap and in theory a little bit better than the superior options. The seats are changed into beds around 7pm and turned back into seats again in the morning at half eight. I'd choose the A/C every time and its probably more comfortable in the bottom bunks, we took a walk through the train and went through the fan cabins, they were pretty much the same but the windows were open and mosquitos were everywhere. Not so much fun. We paid about 790bht, which is about £16. If you didn't want to spend so much time on the train the flights go from around £22 depending on the time you go and only take just over an hour. 

We arrived in Bangkok late and planned to get the train to Kanchanaburi, knowing now i would have taken a mini bus, but if you do get the train you'll need to get a taxi over to Thon Buri Station on the other side of the city for about 200bht and then get the train to Kanchanburi. It's about 2 hours and however long a tourist travels on this line it is always 100bht as it's a historical line. The train had no windows and doors and of course there are ants everywhere but you will see some lovely countryside and some not so nice views of the city on your way out of Bangkok. 

We arrived in Kanchanaburi around 5.30pm, a full 24 hours of travelling and we were finally here. Kanchanaburi isn't somewhere I'd necessarily want to go again and we decided to forget about the fact you could use a map to find out where you were going - so we got lost for about an hour before finding the main area with all the guest houses, if that's even possible in such a small place.We looked around for a while before finding a little gem of a GH, Called The Ploy, Close to everything and the most gorgeous view from the infinity pool over the gorgeous River Kwai. We didn't do a lot of exploring and the past 24 hours had taken its toll majorly and I just wanted to sleep...

Next: Erawan and Good Times Tours