Pong Pen Guesthouse and Restaurant

I had a great time at the Pong Pen Guesthouse. They're in the backpacker strip, on the River Kwai and offer both bungalows over the river and balconied rooms on the road. The area of the river here was pretty low and gross-looking at this time of year, so I chose the balconied room. There's less mosquitos further from the water, too.

The room was very big, with a roomy bathroom, a bid double bed, fan, lots of windows and a TV. It was 350 baht for the room or about $12 for a double. There are cheaper options with shared bathrooms and more expensive options with aircon, but the fan and many windows kept the place nice and cool.

The roomy bathroom was the best part, because it's tough to find a shower separated from the toilet in Southeast Asia unless you pay top dollar. That is, the shower is almost always a machine installed in the toilet room, so that you shower on the same floor surface as the toilet. Which is... well... you just better hope they use some damn good bleech if the toilet ever overflows. The bigger the bathroom, the farther you can stand from the toilet, avoiding drenching the toilet with shower water.

The restaurant downstairs is excellent. I had their chilli noodles, maybe the best thing I ate in Thailand. It came with two types of peppers -- hot red chili peppers and strings of green peppercorns. Neither pepper hit immediately, but after 10 seconds, the chilli peppers completely overwhelmed the tongue, and the peppercorns sent warmth throughout the body -- I could feel the heat in my muscles and in the tips of my fingers and toes. Yum!