Adventures with Jack and Julia

Kanchanaburi:

In an effort to travel to the lesser known areas (and extend our trip through choosing cheaper locations), we’ve found ourselves in Kanchanaburi. After a quick 3 hour train ride from Bangkok, we went to On’s Thai-Issan Vegan restaurant. We had the most delicious massaman curry and chicken with cashew nuts with rice. So tasty! Perhaps poor planning on our parts, but we next headed to the gym on full curry stomachs but still had good workouts! On the way to the gym, our Grab drove past a cat cafe, so of course post workout, Julia said we had to go check it out! To end off our first day, we went to a night market and saw a bunch of delicious food.

On our second day in Kanchanaburi, we got up early, had breakfast, rented bikes and began our 15km bike ride to Wat Tham Suea, also known as the Tiger Cave temple. Before we arrived at the temple, we stopped at Meena Cafe and had a delicious coffee before walking the boardwalk through the grass. This coffee shop is located on the outskirts of the temple and is a very instagrammable spot. We continued on to Wat Tham Suea and climbed to the top, enjoyed the view and saw the massive Buddha!

We hopped back onto our bikes, went about 4km towards home and stopped at Wat Ban Tham to check out another temple. To reach this temple, you need to climb up the stairs and pass through a dragons mouth statue, which leads down a long, colourful staircase. It then leads up inside a cave, where there is a large Buddha statue. This is still an active temple, so there were monks around the facilities praying. There was hardly anyone else there, so it was very peaceful and we really got to soak in the calm beauty of this mountain side temple. At this point, we had been biking for a few hours total so we were just about ready for an afternoon treat and to cool down. Fortunately, there was a lady selling ice cream and cold drinks just outside the temple, so we enjoyed those before continuing our ride home. In total, we biked about 35km! The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging at our hotel’s pool before heading to a restaurant down on the river for sunset.

The next morning, we got up early, ate breakfast, and headed to the bus station. We took an hour and a half long bus ride to Erawan Waterfalls (no, it’s not sponsored by the high-end grocery chain!). It is a series of seven tiered waterfalls located in Erawan National Park. Every single level was different, and just as beautiful as the last! We hiked to all 7 levels, and swam in a couple (level 5 and level 2). Level 7 was truly magnificent as it was the final and grandest waterfall of them all. After hiking back down, we took the bus home, grabbed some snacks and drinks, and went back to hotel. We decided to go back to the vegan restaurant again since it was so delicious the first time we tried it. The owner even had gluten free oyster sauce and soy sauce so Julia got to enjoy pad see ew for the first time and loved it! We wrote a review for this place as it was so delicious. After a busy day, we had an early night as we had a train to catch at 7am the next day. We had another long travel day ahead of us as we travelled all the way to Sukhothai – another spot we didn’t initially have on our lists but was recommended by our travel guide, ChatGPT!

Sukhothai:

To make it to Sukhothai, we had to first travel back to Bangkok where we were set to catch a bus. For the first couple of hours of our journey back to Bangkok, we sat on wooden benches in the train before realizing some cars had cushions. Unfortunately (or actually fortunately), our train broke down and we had to switch to a different one. This new one we managed to get comfy seats for the rest of the journey and we made it to Bangkok just in time to catch a Grab to the bus station. The traffic is and the arrival time on the map kept changing so we were unsure if we’d make it for our bus. Fortunately we did and it left right on time. To add to that, we were treated to our nicest bus experience so far! It had comfy seats, a bathroom, it stopped for food, and they even provided us with free Jr. Chickens on our trip. Julia can’t have those so Jack had the misfortune of getting two but he managed to suffer through it! 😉

Thailand’s roads are substantially more developed than Vietnam, so the nice wide highway was a smooth ride. We even got to see Wat Phra That en route from the window. We checked into room late and we were starving so went to nearby spot for dinner and met a litter of 6 day old kittens!

Day 1

After a long travel day, we got a slower start at a local restaurant where we had some coffee and congee for breakfast. We then did some trip planning, and sat by the hotel pool to read our books. Travel can be exhausting so it’s important to take time to relax from all the excitement (ha ha). We finished the day by going into town for smoothies and massages before going to Poo Restaurant for some great Thai food. After laughing like immature little kids for a couple minutes, we found out poo actually means crab in Thai which makes a lot more sense.

Day 2

This was our big culture day! We rented bikes early in the morning and went into Sukhotthai historical park. We stayed in a hotel near this area specifically so we could make sure to arrive before the massive tour groups and we’re very glad we did. For a couple of hours, we marvelled at the temples and buddha statues built between the 13th and the 15th century. It was amazing to see how well some of them have been preserved, and we also liked that they had signage that showcased what they used to look like in their former glory. Just as we were finishing up, a whole bunch of huge busses pulled up and people flooded the place in droves. We escaped and got some food from a nearby restaurant then went back to the hotel for more pool time and cards.

Day 3

Our hotel booking ran out this day so we switched to the hotel attached to the restaurant that had all the kittens (plus some grown cats – see photos below). The family there were so nice and truly made it feel like home for us. They offered us breakfast, and even drove us into town the next day so we could catch our bus. Not much else to report this day other than we had lots of cat visitors on our patio, and we went for a yummy dinner at a fancy restaurant nearby where we were way under dressed. We were made to feel welcome nonetheless and we enjoyed a peaceful evening before making our way to the city of Chiang Mai.

We’ve been having so much fun on our trip so far. It’s been an experience that we will remember forever and we are so blessed to have the opportunity to do something like this. Exploring all the places we’ve heard so much about while also having the freedom to travel to these lesser known spots has opened our eyes to what’s out there in the world. It’s helped us become way more comfortable abroad, way more confident in the unknown, and been a heck of a lot of fun along the way We’re learning about new cultures every day while living every moment to the fullest in and we can’t wait for what’s next!

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