After a day of touring the floating market and Bridge on the River Kwai; we made a turn off the main roads and really got into the countryside.
Rough unpaved roads with locals farming sugar cane, lots of interesting vegetable varieties and bananas.
After heading down a very steep hill we came to a parking area near the banks of the River Kwai – We’d done a little research so we had an idea about the journey ahead. Most of our travel partners did not.
The only way to get to our hotel was via a longboat. They sat about 15 of us and several of them brought us to our resort along with our luggage. This would be the route into the resort, getting in/out the next day for sightseeing and then our departure.
Nothing could prepare us for what awaited us when we arrived – even in the rain.
At the top of the walkway, you are greeted by the main resort complex – a nice sized pool in front of the main building. Lounge area on the ground floor, restaurant, and bar on the second level and a Thai massage spa in the upper level.
The restaurant was open-air with large fans, it had both a la carte and buffet options with a buffet breakfast included in our package.
The food was very good, offering both Thai and Western options – we both really stuck to Thai foods (when in Rome) aside from maybe an omelet at breakfast.
We did an a la carte dinner one night and really enjoyed the food; a more authentic version of some of the buffet food which seemed to be mellowed for western tastes.
The resort property was beautiful with amazing views from down by the dock, especially in the early morning with the fog clearing.
Probably the best part was our room… or more specifically hut! The resort is made up of about 50 individual huts, mostly wood and stucco with thatched roofs… but they all had A/C units, cable TV (with a few English channels) and full baths with HUGE showers.
While wifi is technically only available in the main building, we had wifi in our hut as did most of our friends. A/C in the huts is key card controlled, so we found ourselves disconnecting the key from the fob to keep the A/C running.
The resort was very relaxing and the only downside to is was that we left to do a local tour and didn’t have time to really enjoy the property; like exploring the lava cave.
We did take time to schedule a Thai massage when we returned from our off-site tour. We each booked the big package at the spa – 1 1/2 hour foot massage, traditional Thai (pressure point massage) and an herbal compress. The cost was 800 Thai Baht each or about $22.85 US – how could you NOT do this?
