Perfect three-day Itinerary for Kanchanaburi – Including the floating market and the railway market

SIM card

I personally recommend using an ESIM, which is an electronic SIM, and recommend Airalo. I was very satisfied with their user experience (simple tutorial videos for operating the SIM card) and everything worked without any special problems. I wrote more about them in an extended post on the subject of taking a SIM card abroad and also about other options such as buying a local SIM card.

Blog followers have a 15% discount code for the Airalo company to purchase an ESIM – to redeem the discount, click on this link. The discount code is already included in the link. See it at checkout.

The biggest drawback at the moment is that some devices do not support an electronic SIM. How can you know if your device supports the electronic card? Very simple: go to this link and you can see. Link to which devices support ESIM.

Car rental in Kanchanaburi

I think this is the most convenient and fun way to travel. Car prices are low and the roads are easy to drive.

You can search for a car in the search engine Papam Papam. Personally, I really like to search through them because they save me time (instead of going to several websites) and they also have the option of filtering out non-recommended rental companies.

Attractions in Kanchanaburi

You can get ideas for other cool things you can do on the various attraction sites and even order through them (sometimes at a discounted price). The first attractions site is tiqets the second is Get your guide and Viator.

Where to stay in Kanchanaburi

You can search for places to stay in Kanchanaburi via Booking.

Maeklong Railway Market

We arrived at Maeklong Railway Market around 10 and a quarter. The train passes through the market several times a day, so it’s important to know the schedule and arrive one time. It’s best to arrive before 10:30, as it passes both at 10:30 and at 11 and you can enjoy the experience twice. (:

What makes this market unique is that the stalls are built directly on the train tracks and a few minutes prior to the train’s arrival an announcer calls for people to move away from the tracks. All the peddlers move their stalls back and fold some of the stands. It all happens very quickly. We tried finding a place to stand but the peddlers kept moving us. Since the market’s become very popular, there are many tourists wanting to take pictures and creating clusters – so there are certain areas the peddlers ask people not to stand in, since it disturbs their work. We found a spot and the train passed. The train goes right through the market slowly.

Dee told us it used to be much faster, but ever since the market became popular accidents had been on the rise, with tourists not knowing where to stand. So, the government issued an order for the train to slow down to a crawl as it cross through the market. You can also ride the train, as it stays in the market area. If you do arrive before 10:30, I’d recommend going to the market itself at 10:30 to watch the train pass and then board it. Then, at 11:00, follow it through the market. We haven’t done that, but it seems like a very nice experience.

Dee told us it used to be much faster, but ever since the market became popular accidents had been on the rise, with tourists not knowing where to stand. So, the government issued an order for the train to slow down to a crawl as it cross through the market. You can also ride the train, as it stays in the market area. If you do arrive before 10:30, I’d recommend going to the market itself at 10:30 to watch the train pass and then board it. Then, at 11:00, follow it through the market. We haven’t done that, but it seems like a very nice experience.

Amphwa floating market

From the railway market we continued to the floating market, which is only a few minutes away by car. We arrived at the area before the market proper, where you can board a boat to the market. Dee recommended sailing as being the best way to see the entire market and not just a part of it, as well as being an interesting experience. We chose the hour and a half cruise (You may opt for an hour, hour and a half or two hours). The cruise itself is really cool. We got to see the floating market from the boat and even buy fruit from the merchants on the other boats.

The entrance to the market was crowded by boats for tourists, and according to Dee things get even worse on weekends. So, I’d recommend taking this trip on weekdays. At one point we stopped at a coconut farm. We also got to pass by the residential buildings on the river. Seeing how people live there was very intriguing. Put shortly, it was a unique and interesting experience.

After the market we went to have lunch at a local restaurant. We asked Dee and Tom to take us to a restaurant they would have eaten at, as opposed to a touristic one, and so they did. The place we ended up going to only have menus in Thai, so we told Dee what we liked, and she ordered for us. We ordered many dishes to share. The food was tasty, and we enjoyed the meal. The bill amounted to 420 baht for the 4 of us, and we had ordered 6 dishes.

Kanchanaburi

First, we headed to Baan Ma Fueng guesthouse to check in and store our things, then on to Kanchanaburi. The guesthouse was very nice and clean and houses a café with good coffee and breakfasts. It’s located in a somewhat less touristic area.

Cemetery in memory of prisoners of war and bridge over the Kwai river

Afterwards, we drove to a cemetery built in memory of prisoners of war (World war II), who were killed while constructing the railroad (They were held under horrendous conditions), then on to the famous bridge over the Kwai river – construction of which began in 1942 and lasted a year and four months.

The goal was to build a railway from Thailand to Burma to transport supplies to the Japanese. We took many pictures of the bridge and had the pleasure of being there towards the sunset – so the skies were beautiful. We also climbed down to take pictures of the bridge looking up. On our way back, a train passed as we were crossing the bridge and we had to stand on little platforms by the side of the track.

Dinner at night market

Afterwards, we went back to the guesthouse and agreed to meet Dee and Tom at 9am the next day at the guesthouse café. After resting in our room, we went out to have dinner in a night market close by. It’s a local street-food market and most visitors are locals, there were almost no tourists. The food there was really good, we ate there twice more during our stay in Kanchanaburi. The market is next to the clock tower. Map.

Train back to Kanchanaburi

The train station is surrounded by many restaurants, so we had lunch at one and then came back to the station. We bought a ticket for 100 baht per person and boarded. The ride was about two hours and the views really were very pretty. The seats were relatively comfy and there were fans and open windows, so the air was pleasant. It’s a nice way to have a local experience but with good conditions.

Return to Bangkok from Kanchanaburi

The following day we returned to Bangkok. The bus ride is approximately 3 hours, as opposed to a train which takes 4-5. There’s a central bus station with busses leaving for Bangkok every half an hour, but the busses are old and have fans (The ride costs 100 baht). Map.

Just before you reach the central station lies a travel agency’s office – there you can get on a new bus with air conditioning, which also leaves every half hour, for 120 baht. Map.