The fare gets you to the town. Then it starts.

Getting here

Four routes carry a published price, and they are the least interesting thing on this page.

The same money in either direction

Every one of these runs Kanchanaburi → Bangkok for the figure shown, because the Bangkok end is worked by the same desk.

There is no other fast way in

No airport at Kanchanaburi, and no fast train. The railway from Thonburi is a lovely three hours, runs twice a day, and the last through train back leaves at 14:43. Whatever you arrive in, it is the same 130 km of Highway 4 and 323.

Up the 323

One road runs north-west out of the town and nearly everything is on it. The times below are driving only, there and back, with nothing allowed for the walk, the falls or the museum at the other end — so read them as the floor, not the plan.

• The bridge, the cemeteries, the railway centre in town no drive half a day on foot, and the honest core of a first visit
• Mallika R.E. 124 32 km 1 h return a reconstructed 1905 Siamese town, near Prasat Muang Sing
• Sai Yok Noi 60 km 2 h return free, roadside, no gate — and a wet rock in March and April
• Erawan Falls 65–75 km 2 h 30 return 300 THB adult, gates 08:00–16:30, seven tiers over 1.5 km The climb is concentrated in the top third. Most people turn round at tier four or five, which is the right call and no loss.
• Hellfire Pass 80–85 km 3 h return free, 09:00–16:00, closed about three weeks each May Pairing it with the town sites in one day is about 170 km of driving. Doable, and a long day; we would rather you knew that before you booked it as an afternoon.
• Sai Yok Yai 100 km 4 h return inside Sai Yok National Park, the falls drop into the river Sai Yok Yai and Sai Yok Noi are 38 to 40 km apart and people conflate them constantly. Tell us which one you mean.
• Huay Mae Khamin 110 km 4 h 30 return seven tiers, an easier climb than Erawan, and far emptier The last 45 km are a reservoir road after the Erawan turn-off. Worth it if you have a full day and there is water in the system.
• Hindad hot springs 120–130 km 4 h return roadside pools at Thong Pha Phum, run by the local council Four hours of driving for a set of concrete pools is a lot on its own. It works as a stop on the way to Sangkhlaburi, not as a destination.
• Sangkhlaburi & the Mon Bridge 220 km 7–8 h return all of it on Highway 323, which is the only road

return — driving there and back, nothing else counted km — from Kanchanaburi town, not from Bangkok

Sangkhlaburi is not a day trip

It is listed as one, often. Two hundred and twenty kilometres on a single mountain road, three and a half to four hours each way without stops and nearer five with a meal, and then the same again to come home. That is seven or eight hours in the car for a bridge you will walk across in twenty minutes.

We will drive it as a day if you want it. We would rather set it up as an overnight: up in the afternoon, the bridge at dawn when the Mon community crosses and the mist is on the reservoir, and back down the next day. The road is the same either way; only the amount of it you see in daylight changes.

There is a chapter on Sangkhlaburi in the guide, with what is actually up there, what the road does after Thong Pha Phum, and why the reservoir level decides how the bridge looks. The whole guide is eight chapters and written properly.

What has no printed price

Everything in the two sections above. Said plainly so you can stop looking for a rate card that does not exist.

• Every stop up the 323 Erawan, Hellfire Pass, Sai Yok, Huay Mae Khamin, Sangkhlaburi. We drive all of them. The price turns on how many you want in a day and how long we wait at each, so we quote it by message rather than print a number that would be wrong for most people.
• Park and museum entry Erawan and Sai Yok are 300 THB an adult and that goes to the park, not to us. Hellfire Pass is free. The Thailand–Burma Railway Centre is reported at 160 THB. We do not sell tickets to any of them.
• Raft houses, elephant camps and rafting We can get you to the pier or the gate. What happens after that is between you and the operator, and we would be a worse source on it than they are.
• Automatic flight tracking Give us the flight number and a person here looks it up before the driver sets off, so a late landing moves the pickup. It works, and it is a person rather than a feed — which is why we need the number.