Thorn Tree travel forum

Poor quality, misleadingly sold Kanchanaburi trips

Be aware when booking these through agents on Khao San Road. Here's a summary of the problems I had last weekend on a three day trip booked through Southeast Travel for a tour run by C&C Tours:

Organization of activities:

-Generally, poor.
-Leaving Khao San Road, I was taken to find another tour group who could take me because C&C had booked too many people. Then I waited for my C&C group to arrive while they did the first activity.
-We arrived at Erawan and had only two hours, 15 minutes, to trek 4.4 km. up the mountain and back down to the van. We had to pay the 200B farang price, but we couldn't stop for anything. Others who were on their Day 2, and joined us then, had six hours for hiking, swimming and relaxing.
-Day 2 we hiked to the water source of the Sai waterfall and then sat doing nothing for 25 minutes at this boring place. Since it was only 2:30PM, and we were then half way to the cave, we wanted to continue but the guide said it was too hot and we should go back to the jungle hut. Until 11PM, there's nothing to do but swim, and with no electricity after dark, talk. Why finish early, in the middle of the afternoon? On Day 3, we had to go to the Sai waterfall again and hike to the source again--repeat the same activities--to get to the cave.
-Every time the songtheaw stops, there's confusion about what every person is doing. We're wasting time, waiting for other people doing other activities. The schedule is only planned for the next few minutes--"Please get in the truck." "Please come out." "Sit down and wait here." We're like children waiting every few minutes for the next instruction. Asking for times and schedules of exactly when we do something for the complete day is a waste of time. There's no daily schedule.
-At River Kwai, we had only 10 minutes for the bridge, then 30 minutes for the museum. Other people complained because they'd already seen the museum on their Day 1 and they had to wait for us. Two of the main highlights, and yet we were given a total of 40 minutes out of our three days to see them.

Accommodation:
-Unlike the nice room in the Southeast Travel photo, the room was a small bamboo shack with an old, uncomfortable mattress on the floor. Dirt and hair from previous guests was on the dirty sheets.
-Sinks, because they were outside, not in the clean bathrooms as appears in the photos, were filthy dirty and had very little running water. Some people couldn't take a shower. There were no tile bathrooms like in the photos.

Meals:
-Meals were very basic with little variety. Breakfast: eggs and toast. Lunch: Fried rice or Pad Thai. Dinner: Rice and some cooked cabbage (no other vegetables) with one dinner including more eggs, and the other green curry, with nothing in it. None of the meals included any meat!

Price:
I paid Southeast Travel 1550B. The other people who were on the same three day trip (Mar. 28,29,30) paid 950B through Hello Guesthouse. Why did I pay 63% more for the same trip?