Day 343 - Bridge on the River Kwai, and both types of Tiger

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An early start today for the drive out to Kanchanaburi, a town a couple of hours from Bangkok made famous by the nearby railway bridge built by WW2 POWs. First we wandered around a WW2 grave and were mightily impressed by the absolutely immaculate condition in which it is kept. Then we visited a museum describing, with some vivid photos, the harrowing story of the construction of the railway to Burmah - evil Japanese soldiers overseeing an enormous workforce of malnourished Allied POWs living in dreadful conditions. So many died that the name ‘Death Railway’ was quite apt. We walked over the current bridge, a metal one that replaced the famous wooden one that was destroyed by Allied bombs. With huge gaps in the floor of the bridge meaning you really have to concentrate to avoid falling through, this is the kind of thing that you would never be allowed to do in England (where a PE teacher who leads pupils on rock climbing and mountaineering trips has to sign a form to say he can safely climb a ladder).

We then travelled on the Death Railway for about an hour which was very pleasant, or at least it was until your mind goes back to how it actually came to be here. After lunch and a quick visit to a waterfall we managed to change trips to effectively combine the best bits of 2 separate excursions and avoid having to travel all the way out here tomorrow. So next up was a visit to the Tiger Temple, a centre for looking after orphaned tigers, and Gemma got her photo taken stroking several enormous tigers, and very impressive they were too. We walked back to the cages with the tigers and saw a very cute and tiny tiger cub, and the even better, or at least funnier, sight of an American guy getting covered in tiger pee. To round things off the workers started putting loads of turnips all over the road and moments later the whole area turned into a stampede as horses, cows, peacocks and about a million pigs appeared from nowhere and started scoffing. It was just like being in Animal Farm.

Back in Bangkok we continued with the tiger theme with a lot of perhaps our favourite beer from our entire year away, Tiger, which along with Corona (with lime and sunshine) and Argentina’s Quilmes definitely forms our Top Three.

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