Chanthaburi

Chanthaburi is a province in the south-east of Thailand, bordering Cambodia. The province is best known for the gemstone mining and tropical fruits. I visited the province and Chanthaburi town during December 2006 to attend a friends wedding. I spent a night at the Caribou Highland Hotel, which is one of the main hotels in the town. It is a standard 3-star hotel, quite large but I think the only guests were the few foreigners people attending the wedding, so very quiet. I didn't have much time to spend in the town itself, but my feeling it is rather quiet as well. I would be interested in seeing some of the tourist attractions, including the gemstones, fruit and some hiking in mountain ranges. I also spent two nights in the Chanchaolao Beach Resort, which gets two thumbs up from me. It's about 30km from town (easy to get a taxi/songtaew for several hundred baht, or organise the resort staff to pick you up) at Chanchaolao beach. The resort itself was excellent: reasonably new, good rooms (e.g. semi-open-air showers, nice furnishings, small outdoors private pools with some rooms), a nice beach with plenty of hammocks and deck chairs, and great service. Its actually owned and run by four women who are very laid back and always ready to help. There is a restaurant that served great Thai food at the resort, but not many other facilities around (a few small local shops within 1km). You pretty much have the area to yourself. The rooms may be a little bit expensive (1500 to 2500 Baht for most rooms), but if you want to relax on the beach away from hundreds/thousands of other tourists (e.g. Pattaya/Jomtien, Phuket, Hua Hin), this is well worth it. You can borrow a bicycle or rent a motorbike to get around. Apparently there are some good hiking tracks nearby, and of course not far to see and experience some of the Chanthaburi gemstones and fruit it is renowned for. There are other places around the beach that you can stay at as well, but I don't know their names! A bus from Ekamai bus Station in Bangkok to Chanthaburi takes about 4 to 5 hours (depending on whether it makes regular stops) and costs about 150 Baht.

Created on Wed, 03 Jan 2007, 1:53am

Last changed on Sun, 19 Sep 2010, 9:02pm