Kanchanaburi and the River Kwai

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We have been in Kanchanaburi for 2 days now and my goodness is it hot! I think the sun was hidden from us in Bangkok by all the smog but out here its a killer!

Kanchanaburi is a city with about the same population as Mandurah so its pretty cool, we are staying on a road that is pretty much the tourist district with all the guesthouses on the river. Our bungalow is very cute, on stilts over the water so we have to cross a rickety wooden footbridge to get to the door. Basic but clean and a third of the price of our BKK hotel.

It was a history lesson today as we went through the Thai-Burma Railway Museum. It is a facinating place and I learnt alot about the horror and hardships the Allied POW's were subjected to. It really puts things in to perspective. It was so strange to me that the Japanese soldiers torchured the POW's and starved them and yet there was still a postal service, although slow they still received mail from home, that just doesnt add up to me. Why would they care about the prisoners gettig their mail when clearly they don't care about their lives??? There were some great exhibits of letters and postcards from the prisoners to their families, alot were from Perth with addresses in Nedlands and Wembley.

After learning about the horrendous conditions the prisoners endured we then visited the War Cemetery where alot of Allied Soldiers were re-buried after the war, it is a beautiful place and very well maintained. Then if was off on our bicycles to the bridge itself. Iit was about 3pm by this time so its like 40 degrees and the great idea of renting bikes to ride the 3km is not seeming such a good one, but we made it with only a slight case of heat exhaustion! In reality the bridge is just a bridge and not really remarkable in an architetural sense but of course it is the symbolism that gets you.

Off for dinner now with some girls we met yesterday, I hope I'm not boring you and everyone is well. x

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