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Published: February 1st 2007
Temple
DetailIt seems as though train travel in Thailand has some similarities to that in India, being not the fastest way of getting around but pleasant nonetheless. The ~110km journey to Kanchanaburi took 2.5 hours, representing a leisurely ~45km/h, for ~$3. The only class of travel on this train was 3rd, but with hardly any other passengers and the windows open to let in the breeze, sounds and smells of the Thai countryside, it seemed infinitely preferable to the 2 hour jam-packed minibus journeys offered along Khao San Road. My bum probably won't be voting the hard wooden seats as Most Comfortable 2007 but the alternatives were little better.
Kanchanaburi had never registered on my brain before, but it's the home of the bridge over the river Kwai, as famously depicted in David Lean's film. Though a thriving tourist industry has arisen to exploit that fact, the place also has a laid-back charm, with many rafthouses gently bobbing on the river's sluggish surface.
With no hotel already booked, I'd resigned myself to having to plod around various guesthouses looking for a room, but I was saved the bother by the appearance of a sweet-smelling Thai woman on the last leg
of the train journey, who was touting for custom for a place I dimly remembered reading about on the web. The photos and the price looked good, so it was that we pulled into Kanchanaburi station and then, with me and my rucksack perched on the back of her motorbike, wobbled off to the guesthouse. (I should add that it's not uncommon here to see up to 5 people crammed onto a motorbike.)
My room was on a rafthouse but unfortunately facing the bank side, though the restaurant has views over the river. It's also quiet and peaceful, except for when longtails are roaring along the river every so often during the day, or party (and, worse, karaoke) boats thudding along at night. After my first exit from the room, I sported a bloodied bump on the crown of my head courtesy of a 6'3" Englishman attempting to move through a 6'2" doorway without realising he needed to duck.
The Thai-Burmese Railway Museum gave me some useful background to the railway. I hadn't realised that Thailand had actually entered World War 2 on the side of the Axis powers. The Japanese had needed to create a land link
for supplies betwen Burma and Thailand (actually Singapore), as the sea route had become too dangerous. The eventual route taken by the railway had been considered and rejected by the British 50 years earlier as being too labour-intensive due to the terrain but, with a great need for the land route, and with the vast reserves of labour (both civilians and POWs) available from Japan's conquering of much of Southeast Asia, it was decided to press ahead with construction.
Building the "Death Railway" involved about a quarter of a million workers, of whom roughly 100,000 died in the process. The majority of these deaths were of Burmese and Malay civilians, with British POWs the largest death toll of the Allied forces (~7,000). The diet, hygiene, and medical care provided by the Japanese captors were totally indequate for the work that the men were doing, and as Japanese High Command increased the pressure to complete the railway, the brutality of the guards increased. Diaries and journals were secretly written by the POWs, detailing the horrific conditions of their daily existence - an act punishable by death if discovered - and were often buried with dead POWs, in the knowledge that
i) they could be dug up after the war, and ii) the Japanese would not interfere with graves and so would never discover the documents.
There are two main cemeteries in Kanchanaburi for the dead POWs. The larger one, Don Rak, is opposite the museum. The nearly 7,000 headstones, all the same simple plaque with only the written details differing, lie in neat rows in well-tended grounds. The second, Chungkai lies west of the town and across the river, and is the same layout but smaller. It's strange to see the thousands of English and Dutch names in a cemetery in Southeast Asia, a reminder of the pervasiveness of that global conflict. I squelched around Don Rak after a deluge, the sky leaden and my flip-flops spraying mud over the backs of my legs, noting I was a good 10 years older than most of the deceased had been when their lives ended.
Though the bridge across the river Kwai was an obvious target for Allied bombers hoping to break the supply line, primitive targetting technology meant the bridge was never completely destroyed. The part of the line from Kanchanaburi across the bridge and then on to Nam
Tok is still in use, with 3 trains per day though (as I discovered) 90% of the custom is from tour groups, mainly elderly fat Germans (I'm merely stating the facts). Unfortunately a day trip to Nam Tok on the train required in total about 4 hours of being wedged in with said tour groups, which the views weren't spectacular enough to justify.
The train returned to Kanchanaburi just before sunset, and there were a staggering number of tourists at the bridge taking photos. You can walk across the bridge (which has little alcoves you can scurry in to if a train approaches), but there are no railings in places to prevent you falling off if you lose your balance. It also looks rather different to the film, but I suppose what it stands for is more important than its appearance.
Away from the calm of the guesthouse and river, the town had a very different feel being packed with tourists, both Western and Thai. I was on the receiving end of a monologue from an unemployed English guy who, despite insisting he was trying to find work, was on a 2 month holiday to Thailand. And I
spoke to another English guy who'd been living in Kanchanaburi for 18 years, and his first comments were about various murders of foreigners that had taken place in the town.
Though spending a few more days by the river would have been pleasant, I felt I should really get a bit further on my travels before putting down roots, so I prepared to head north.
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