Kanchanaburi into Burma, Dayride.

[Hopho]

Kanchanaburi. A nice place to ramble. Also a nice place to hit places like Sisawat, Sangklaburi, I-Tong, today though we will be visiting an ancient khmer temple ruin, then sneakily, absolutely accidentally wandering down a dirt track and into Burma.

Hate it when that happens.

Plenty of options for a fry up breakfast in Kanchanaburi due to the massive load of tourists that come through the town due to the war memorials and history.

Today though we will be going for local history, and the first stop is at Muang Sing Khymer temple.

Then an adventurous route through some lovely hills, mountains and villages to Bong Ti.

At the small lake the road disappears and becomes a (large) dirt track.

About 3km of this brings you to a friendly Thai border patrol place. The road is blocked officially. But above the road block is their housing, and a constant stream of motosai riding farmers and locals go up the hill, pass through, and down the other side to continue up the dirt track. It is steep, but fun on an offroad bike.

I wouldn't do this on anything but an offroad bike. The locals do of course do it on their 30 yr olds Honda Waves.

About 1.5km after this you need to duck for the barrier.

Welcome to Burma.

My adventurous family wanted a taste of the action after I told them about it, so I took them in my car. We left it at the base of the border control housing and trekked on up, resulting in a very happy, intrepid grandmother.

After this it is nice to ride to Sai Yok, have some lunch on a wooden platform over the water, have a swim, stick yer head in the waterfall’s arse.

Then jump back on for a nice ride back to Kanchanaburi. Tara riverboat is nice.

Some whiskey and food on top, looking along the river and over at the mountains.

Worse ways to spend a day. Always the option to do a long tail speedboat ride the next morning.

Stopping off at a cave to take in the views and enjoy the thundering 9am techno from the Disco Boats reverberating off the mountains.

A nice lazy ride not focused on clocking up the km.

Google Maps

[papa al]

Thanks for the great post.

[Hopho]

Ho ho no problem.

[Rhys]

Over a decade ago, when I worked for a GO.. I was posted on the Burma/Thai border.. The dirt roads, and hills were an adventure in the 4 wheel drives.. some of the hill were the I'll walk up the hill, if you don't mind. The photo brought back the memories...

[apetley]

Nice post :-)

Thirteen years ago I accidentally crossed into Burma. We got to the top of a hill and on top of a flag pole was a flag obviously not Thai. Within a minute a small group of soldiers emerged from out of nowhere scaring wifey and a couple of her friends who were whispering "Burmese, Burmese".

I was quite worried when the senior officer asked me for my passport as I'd given it up as security to the rental company in Kanchanaburi. After a few questions as to how we got to where we were I was then told the guys story of how he was educated and then had some military training in the UK and then asked to leave back down the mountain and into Thailand. It was on the way down that we noticed what looked like an overgrown checkpoint.

That was somewhere in the mountains above Thongpaphum. Never been brave enough to venture past the checkpoint at Bong Ti after that :-)

Edited February 26, 2015 by apetley

[kiniyow]

What an adventure--Fantastic

[Hopho]

What an adventure--Fantastic

Thanks, but it's just a bit of a short ramble.

When riding in Kan, most people will do the Sisawat loop, or head to Sangkhlaburi and the 3 Pagoda Pass, or I-Thong, after doing those 3-4 times though.... this is just a shorter more relaxed option for a day's riding in Kan.

[off road pat]

THX great trip,...I'll try this with my 4x4 as far as possible...

[Rhys]

What an adventure--Fantastic

Thanks, but it's just a bit of a short ramble.

When riding in Kan, most people will do the Sisawat loop, or head to Sangkhlaburi and the 3 Pagoda Pass, or I-Thong, after doing those 3-4 times though.... this is just a shorter more relaxed option for a day's riding in Kan.

I was able to travel on the dirt roads to the Refugee camps, because that is what I rated back in the day.. the road where actually quite beautiful and adventurous. Thus the trails were off road.. YET pretty country in a sad R camp situation.

[Beng]