The Bridge Over The River Kwai

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After almost four hours on the train we finally arrived in Kanchanaburi, the home of the Bridge Over The River Kwai, which became infamous as part of the ‘Death Railway’ given its name by allied prisoners of war, who the Japanese had made to build during world war two as they pushed on their conquest of SE Asia. So many POWs died building this railway, which started in Thailand and crossed over into Burma to the Indian border, that the prisoners themselves (mainly British and Australian) gave the name The Death Railway. There’s still a section of the railway which you can ride the train on, right up to Nam Tok from Bangkok, and this is how we had decided to get to Kanchanaburi. You can get a minibus which gets you there in half the time as the train but you can’t really go and see the railway and not get the actual train there right?

We had found ourselves a nice little hostel just 10 minutes down the road from the bridge itself so we ended up being right in the middle of everything…..well what there is of the town anyway, there’s not a massive amount there and we gather that most of the places there have only appeared over the years since the bridge has become famous and tourists flock to the area. There are plenty of cheap places to eat and drink though so it wasn’t all that bad! (Some of the cheapest places we’ve seen so far!).

The first day that we arrived, we got there quite early on in the day so decided to explore some of the town. We ended up going to the JEATH War Museum which was right down the other end of town so a little bit of a walk. This is one of the more well-known museums in Kanchanaburi, but to be honest it wasn’t all that great, but then it cost barely anything to gain entry so you couldn’t expect too much anyway I suppose. This place is next to the River Kwai and it’s built to be an old replica of a bamboo hut, similar to what the POWs would have lived in when they were in camps and then there are old pictures along the walls of the prisoners and the bridge. It’s nice to see the pictures but it’s not the place to come to if you want to learn about the history of the area itself.

As we were making our way back to our hostel later that afternoon we happened to walk past another museum which was literally just around the corner from us so we had passed it earlier that day and this actually turned out to be a really good museum, so well put together and definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area. At first we wasn’t expecting much but the guy who had set it up has been researching the Death Railway and the prisoners for more than ten years and has really put a lot into this place, if you don’t know much about this part of the war this is definitely worth coming to first as you get a really good idea of the conditions the men were under when they built the railway so it just makes the whole thing look even more amazing at what they had acheived! The Thai – Burma Railway Centre (as the museum is called) is directly across the road from one of the biggest Allied war cemeteries in Thailand with over 6000 British and other Allied soldiers, and the place is so well kept (it’s immaculate!) so on one of the days we were there we had a walk around and Jade laid some flowers on one of the graves of a British soldier who had the same surname so that was a cool thing to see.

And of course no trip here can be done without going to see the famous bridge over the River Kwai! With it only being just down the road from us it was easy enough for us to get to, there’s not many trains that come down this part of the track so you do get to walk across the bridge, but if you do go it’s probably best to get there early as the trains and coach loads of tourists descend on the area pretty quickly from around lunch time.

While in Kanchanaburi we decided to rent mopeds out again as the roads were empty and we were pretty much the only ones using them at the time (That and it was a lot easier to get around) which ended up being a bad idea for Jade (Jades had the worst luck so far since we’ve been away, mostly in Thailand to be fair, so not even the monks blessing from in Bangkok seemed to help) On about our second day we managed to get split up and Jade somehow managed to get heading back to Bangkok! (Which was basically the complete oposit direction from the way we were heading) So there was no way I could find her for a good few hours until she finally managed to get back to the hostel with a damaged knee. Anyway Jades fine, she even had a Thai lady and her mum take really good care of her, they took her into their pharmacy and cleaned her up pretty good.

It isn't all war stuff in Kanchanaburi though if that isn't your thing, a little bit further out of town theres a few temples and caves you can explore which we found after we had visited a smaller British cemetary, which is good to go to if you want to be away from the tourists, it was a bit further on from there but theres some really good caves to visit. They're quite small in places and you feal like you're caveing at times but it's deffinately an experience......we were literally the only ones down in these caves for about 20 minutes as neither of us felt like hanging around with the dim lighting around the place, and Jade was addament they were haunted aswel.

We stayed in the main town of Kanchanaburi for 3 nights before we decided to get on the old train up as far as The Death Railway would take us to Nam Tok, which was an experience in itself! The scenery of the Thai countryside is stunning and sometimes you would forget what you were on. As the train slowly wound its way up towards the Burma – Thai border we started to get closer to the mountains and soon came to where a section of the railway was built along the cliffs, known as Krasae Bridge after the caves which it runs in front of. The views from this were amazing, but not the kind of thing if you’re a bit afraid of heights as it was pretty high up. In all it took us about 2 ½ hours to make it to Nam Tok where we then made our way back to Wang Pho just along from where Krasae Caves were, and where our next home was to be for the next 2 nights.

Sai yok River House was an ok place to stay, kind of a bit out of the way so you need to come here with a car really, or like us you’ll end up getting taxis everywhere! The only thing with staying at this place was that it was a family run place and we were just seen as two people to constantly try to rip off…..with everything having inflated prices just for us, there wasn’t a lot we could do some of the time as we were a bit out of the way so had no other choice. The prices were never too expensive for us, but it was just the fact that to some people here we are just seen as money, so a taxi ride from the station which would cost us next to nothing one day would all of a sudden have quadrupled by the following day.

The main reason for coming and staying up here was to visit Hellfire Pass, a museum and memorial which was set up for the Allied POWs by the Australian Government, Hellfire Pass was the name given to one of a series of cuttings through the mountains which the prisoners had to dig through rock with just hand tools, and this is where most of them either died from over work and malnutrition or from beatings from the Japanese guards. Again here the scenery is amazing as you walk along where the tracks used to be, you can walk a total of 4 kms, and it’s a pretty tough walk once you have passed Hellfire Pass, but the pass itself is worth seeing just on its own. It costs nothing and they just ask you for a donation at the museum. It’s amazing to see what the POWs actually managed to do especially after hearing some of the stories of the soldiers who were there at the time.

Later that same day we took a walk to the nearby station at where the tracks run alongside the cliffs beside Krasae Cave where the soldiers once used as a place to stay while building the railway in this area, and the brave can walk along the long tracked bridge with cliff on one side and a very steep drop on the other, overlooking the River Kwai and the mountains in the distance. (we went late in the afternoon once the trains had stopped and there were barely any other people around so it made the experience even better…..as you didn’t have to worry about running in the opposite direction when a train was nearing!)

After a day here at Hellfire Pass and Krasae Caves and the bridge, we headed back to the station once more and waited for the train to take us back along the Death Railway and into Bangkok where we would then attempt to get a train to the North of Thailand!

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Photos

The caves we visited just past Chungkai War Cemetary

One of the small passages in the caves we visited in Kanchanaburi

The caves we visited just past Chungkai War Cemetary

The caves we visited just past Chungkai War Cemetary

The train slowly making its way over Krasae Bridge