The Apple Retreat, Kanchanaburi
My last weekend trip of my time in Thailand (so sad) was to Kanchanaburi! I always work until 5:30, so I bussed/MRT’d/BTS’d to Victory Monument in order to meet Jill and take a minivan to Kanchanaburi. For a ride directly to the hostel, it was 140 baht. Other bus companies that we had passed were offering a price of about 120 baht to take me just to the bus station. We left around 7:30, and it took a little over 2 hours to get to Kanchanaburi.
Our main destinations while there were 1) The Erawan Waterfall, 2) The River Kwai Jungle Rafts, and 3) The Bridge over River Kwai (yes, like the line in “We Didn’t Start the Fire”). Since the Jungle Rafts were awfully expensive, we decided to stay in a more budget-friendly place the first night. Though there are many guesthouses/hostels in Kanchanaburi, we chose a place called the Apple Retreat. Apparently there’s another place called the Apple Guesthouse or something (has two names?) so if you head to the Apple Retreat, make sure to specify to your driver.
Apple and Noi own the place, and are both super adorable and nice. The property was actually a lot bigger than I expected. One side is the restaurant/lobby area which looks out onto the river, and the other contains all the rooms which look upon a nice grassy area with beautiful blooming trees.
The room has A/C and a fan, though we didn’t really need them since the nights are cool. It was really clean, and the whole guesthouse had a natural-but-modern feel.
The next morning, we headed over to the restaurant-like outdoor space. We were up pretty early, so we had to wait a little while until Apple and Noi appeared for breakfast. They had a great selection of options (eggs, french toast, pancakes, muesli, baked beans, etc.) and all for really good prices. We ate a leisurely breakfast, then Noi gave us a ride over to (what we thought was) the bus station. Turns out he thought we said “train station,” but we didn’t realize where we were until after he drove away. We took a motorcycle taxi for about 20B to the real bus station – only about 1-2 km down the road.