Poor quality, misleadingly sold ... - Thorn Tree travel forum

Poor quality, misleadingly sold Kanchanaburi trips

Replies: 16 - Last Post: 01-May-2006 00:38 Last Post By: WeAreWolseley

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Posted
31-Mar-2004 20:06
by: vamos99

Posts: 1
Registered: 12/03/04

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?

Posted
31-Mar-2004 21:04
by: perfect_strangers

Posts: 80
Registered: 24/06/03

1

best for kanchanburi trip (erawan and all) is from Apple Guesthouse in Kanchanaburi. very nice place with friendly thais. paid THB850 for erawan national park (spent half day there), bamboo rafting (30 minutes), train (the whole route), and there are 2 other spots, can't quite remember but it was really value for money and there are only 5 of us on the trip.

guess that is why it was said NEVER BOOK anything on KSR.

Posted
31-Mar-2004 22:31
by: aroa

Posts: 55
Registered: 19/07/02

2

All trips or bus journeys arranged on KSR can be like that. Travel on government buses and trains as they are better, safer, faster and more reliable.

Posted
31-Mar-2004 23:08
by: Chanchao

Posts: 6,533
Registered: 03/11/00

3

Thanks for posting. Very good warning against doing any kind of organized tour and then especially from KSR.

It's kind of silly.. many travellers get all negative about 'package tourists' but then they go book and organized tour on KSR....

Cheers,
Chanchao

Check out pics and reviews of all kinds of food at chanchao.fotopages.com. Get the Thai Travel Menu, a printable bilingual menu to help you order great food off the beaten path.

Posted
31-Mar-2004 23:17
by: GorShar

Posts: 1,314
Registered: 25/08/00

4

For exactly the 13,203,938 time... DO NOT BOOK TOURS OR PRIVATE TRANSPORT FROM KHAO SAN ROAD!!!!!!!

Stories and photos of Asia at:
http://talesofasia.com

Posted
01-Apr-2004 01:58
by: westwood

Posts: 9,365
Registered: 21/10/02

5

GorShar, thats really defining it!! Maybe people will take notice now.

"The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

Posted
01-Apr-2004 02:27
by: aroa

Posts: 55
Registered: 19/07/02

6

I'd like to add one more thing. Never trust the photos on tour agencies! I like best the ones they have of "luxury buses" (as they call them on KSR) travelling from Poipet to Siem Reap. How far from reality can one get?

Posted
01-Apr-2004 02:39
by: Anil

Posts: 54
Registered: 06/10/00

7

DO NOT BOOK TOURS OR PRIVATE TRANSPORT FROM KHAO SAN ROAD

The forecast today is dark and cloudy with a possibility of a drive-by.

Posted
01-Apr-2004 04:56
by: Connor1

Posts: 18
Registered: 03/03/03

8

Here's a great tour....Get on a train or Bus and go to Kanchanaburi and find a guesthouse, very easily done. Hangout in the town, eat at Apple's, very good food. Then when your ready take another Public bus to Erawan Falls. Get off the bus and walk along the river and falls swimming along the way. When done walk back the same way you came and get on a bus to Kanchanaburi. Get off at Kanchanaburi and walk back to your guesthouse. Done! See easy.

Posted
01-Apr-2004 05:52
by: montyman

Posts: 4,095
Registered: 09/05/03

9

I've only ever booked the Kanchanaburi 3 in 1 tours from kaosan rd for around 250/350 baht inc good lunch and the floating tourist mkt then the museum next to bridge where amongst the misery of the 60,000 who died i misery we are encouraged to see the 20yrs of Miss Thailand Exhibition "Sorry!" i asked "what has Miss Thailand to do with Bridge on river Kwai" young people no know what bridge on Kwai is" he answered "but everyone know Miss Thailand Ha! I dont believe in Evolution but the primeordial swamp that was growing on the shower tiles was about to prove it.
YOU SHOULD ALL PAY EXTRA FOR SUCH EXPERIENCES
mm

montyman St East Asia , montyman2008 on flikr , montyman in Europe, Ukraine, Estonia ,Latvia,Berlin

Posted
01-Apr-2004 17:06
by: roamer

Posts: 22
Registered: 25/05/00

10

If you had to retype all of the KSR travel/ tour warnings posted on this forum you would end up with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. A forest has probably been destroyed to make the paper that carries the warnings in the guide books. Yet still they do it. KSR shop premiums and rentals are higher than Sukhumvit...is it any wonder? Maybe you can't fool all of the people all of the time...but on KSR you stand a better chance than anywhere else on the planet. Used to love watching the airport minibus scam...27 people crammed into a minibus whilst the airport bus passes the end of the road.
As Chanchao said, you get all this "we are travellers not package tourists" crap and then they package themselves. On Samui a couple of years back we got approached by some farangs who asked us to go to the cop shop with them to complain about their luggage being rifled through on a KSR bus. They asked us because they had heard us talking Thai with the GH owners,old friends. I'd actually spent the last hour listening to these world weary travellers complaining about how package tourists had destroyed the island, Turned out these idiots were actually "package tourists" themselves from KSR, even bought the return bus ticket and it was their first time on Samui...or probably anywhere outside Luton.
Agree with #9. Stop pleating and enjoy your misfortune. If your only wise after all the warnings then this is your lot in life. Get used to it. Someone will always piss on you.

Slow down.
Only a horse can run and shit at the same time.

Posted
01-Apr-2004 19:32
by: girllrig

Posts: 2,603
Registered: 08/02/02

11

i took the same tour through C&C and i had a great time... i found the owners to be effusively friendly and the tour guides totally left us alone to do our own thing. i totally recommend them myself.

Posted
01-Apr-2004 19:34
by: girllrig

Posts: 2,603
Registered: 08/02/02

12

by the way i went straight to the guesthouse, and stayed and booked the tour there. the quality of accom was pretty ok... lots of sex tourists there for some reason but it was gorgeous. we didn't go to the river kwai so maybe it was a different trip. anyway like they said above don't book from khao san, but be more open minded about an experience too... for a guided tour i thought it was pretty damn good.

Posted
14-May-2004 23:38
by: oompaloompa

Posts: 1
Registered: 23/04/04

13

I'm sorry for your bad experience-- that's really frustrating to get cheated out of part of your holiday. The time lost is worse than the money.

Accomodations:

"old, uncomfortable mattress on the floor. Dirt and hair from previous guests was on the dirty sheets."

If it's any consolation, when I went to interview for medical school at Johns Hopkins in the U.S., I decided to stay in a guest room in the med student dorm-- convenient location! When I got to my tiny, dingy, dirty, noisy room, the sheets and blanket were covered with long dark hairs from a previous occupant (human? buffalo?). The security guard at the front desk had no key for the linen closet; no other rooms were available. It was 11pm in a pretty bad section of an unfamiliar city, with my interview early the next morning. I was stuck. I ended up stripping the old, uncomfortable, dirty, crunchy plastic mattress and covering it with the dry cleaning bag that was protecting my interview suit, with my bathrobe as a blanket. It wasn't a good night! I didn't get into the school, but in the end it was for the best...

I had backpacked in China, but hadn't stayed in a place as bad as that.

(sorry-- maybe I should have posted this on the N. America branch instead!)

Posted
23-Aug-2004 10:43
by: CometsComeBack

Posts: 17
Registered: 14/04/02

14

Is it possible to get a day trip from Bangkok that takes in the Bridge and Erawan Falls? I only have one day and would like to see both.

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