The Floating Hotel to Stay Away From

We purchased a tour in Bangkok that included staying at a "floating hotel" and excursions to various places in Kanchanaburi. First of, let's talk about the floating hotel definition: it is simply hotel rooms that are built on water. Prior to the trip I did a lot of research, but couldn’t settle on a tour guide and ended up buying a last minute package paying twice as much for something of lesser quality. Nevertheless, the tour was indeed the highlight of our Thailand trip because it included many of the things we wanted to do in Thailand:

1) Maeklong railway market
2) Damnoen Saduak floating market
3) Bridge over the River Kwai
4) Lunch at local Thai restaurant
5) Elephant camp : hand feed elephants then ride elephant 
6) Bamboo rafting 
7) Feed wild monkey 
8) Krasae Cave use to be the Prisoners Of War camp during WW2

- Floating hotel drop-off

9) Take train from Krasae Cave via a wooden viaduct passing through the limited space built along the mountain cliff to Tha Ki Lane station
10) Hin Dad hot springs discovered by the Japanese army during WW2
11) Arrive at Hellfire Pass memorial museum walk through Death Railway cutting mountain
12) Sai Yok Noi waterfall.
13) Lunch at Thai restaurant last existing Death Railway station

14) Erawan Waterfall 

The trip also included some  fun cultural practices that we learned and experienced, some of the things we did that I had already posted were: 1) going to the Phuket night market, 2) riding elephants in Kanchanaburi, 3) learning how to make the Malai Crown flowers, 4) learned how to grow lotus tubers, 5) learned about the beautiful lotus flower, 6) learned how Thailand is the perfect temperature for growing orchids. 

Food at Night Market in Phuket Thailand	Oncidium Orchids Tips How to Grow & Care
Beautiful Purple Lotus Flowers	How to Make Simple Malai Crown Flowers
How to Grow Lotus Flower Tubers in a Pot	Do You Want to Ride an Elephant?

Top Two Requirements When Seeking Guided Tours

Make sure the company is legit and make sure the guides are experts in the areas they take you to. There is nothing more disappointing than paying a lot of money for shitty accommodations.

My LAST Minute Tour

So let me tell you about the tour. First of all, it was a leap of faith. I had no idea whether I was going to be taken to a jungle to be killed for some dollars I had on me or I was going to go to the places they promised. That should give you an idea about how much I trusted the company. I had this vision of staying in the floating hotel and enjoying the soft waters of the ocean, and the blue color surrounding. See my vision of the floating hotel in the image below. 

Right, unfortunately, that wasn't what my experience was.

Floating Hotel Experience

Our experience of the floating hotel was one of the worst in history. We were scared to death. 

• The rooms did not have telephones.
• The lobby was a mile away from where the floating hotel /our rooms were. It was located above these stairs that would have taken a reasonable 15 minutes to cross. 
• The river was muddy, where snakes and crocodiles could very well lived. 
• The security guard was on the other side of the river.
• There were no other guests, other than the five of us on the whole entire floating hotel section. 
• The decorations were dinosaurs – that should tell you how far behind in time these folks were. 

The image above is an exaggeration of our floating hotel nightmare, but not far from the truth. We were frightened enough to ask to me moved closer to the lobby, away from the river that could potentially have snakes and crocodiles crawling up anytime during the night. 

Once they moved us from the floating hotels to the land rooms. The rooms had roaches and fat ass mosquitoes everywhere. There were critters that we didn't even know existed. 

We were up most of the night praying for it to be morning. I kept the cover over my head for fear that some bugs or mice would crawl all over me while I was sleeping. Yeah, not quite the accommodation I was expecting for the price we paid. We couldn't wait to get the hell out of the floating hotel nightmare.

The morning came and we were all relieved. Tired and disappointed, we chalked it up to poor planning. We vowed to never let ourselves do last minute tours. At the least, we would only go with reputable companies. 

The whole time the guide was telling us that "the Company" arranged everything and that he is just the guy who was charged to take us around. I found out later that it was untrue - so untrue. It was, in fact, it was all the tour guide’s choices: where to take us, which merchants and businesses to use for our tours. They were unspoken statements, but I could tell when I talked to him about how disappointed I was in the hotel. He seemed really concerned about it going back to "the Company". The company was the middle man who took the call and took the money from us to disbursed to the tour guide.