Advertisement
Published: March 8th 2008
Kanchanaburi War Cemetry
Memorial to over 6,900 lives lost in WWII.Awoken at 6am for the third day running by a shrill, travel alarm clock did not seem like fun at the time, especially after one or two Chang's the night before, but we soon accepted that getting up at this time for a day's sight-seeing on the River Kwai was hardly tough. We each braved a dull headache and the obligatory beer-induced dry-mouth and met up with our mini-bus and guide at 7am, and managed some more shut-eye during the 2 hour bus journey to our first stop in Kanchanaburi - the Kanchanaburi War Cemetry.
This was a pretty huge cemetry - memorial to nearly 7,000 of the 116,000 people that lost their lives working on the bridge on the River Kwai and associated 'Death Railway' during WWII. It was extremely well kept and although sad, seemed a respectful memorial to the soldiers and labourers who perished working on the line.
We followed this up with a look around the nearby War Museum, although I have to say it lacked any real items or memorabilia of any note, and the hand-made dummies used in each display seemed to cheapen what should have been a much more informative and interesting
tour. The real highlight followed soon after, however, when approx. 100 yards from the Museum we wandered across to the site of the still-standing Bridge on the River Kwai. It appeared excatly as in the photos and was pretty impressive. A steel plate central walkway has been added to allow tourists to walk over the bridge and back, although the lack of any handrails and creaky wooden boards on the edges of the deck meant passing fellow visitors from the opposite direction was a pretty hair-raising experience! Viewing platforms along the bridge allowed us to take some pretty good photos of the bridge, though, some we have posted up here.
Although this stretch of line is no longer in service, we caught a train from a nearby station that took us along the original 'death railway' section. It curves and leans, largely through thick jungle, with clearings at surprisingly regular intervals providing amazing views of the nearby mountains. The track crossed the river and it's amazing scenery, and shaved the vertical cliff faces (which were excavated by the POW's) on one side, and gave us more great opportunities to whip out our cameras.
The afternoon was to be
Bridge on the River Kwai
With Thai flag in foreground. a little more 'hands on', as you can see from the tight grip we had on them when told we could ride the Elephants sat not on the seats provided but on their necks! It was brilliant, and although we had already trekked on elephant back in Southern Thailand, sitting directly on the elephant with no seats or cushions was a much more initmate experience, and a little-scary we all admitted, especially on the steep downhills, where it felt we might go A over T at the slightest slip! Although they worked hard (well, harder than we had!), the elephants didn't go unrewarded as we offered them bananas and affection at the mounting platform afterwards (see photos). Any jangling nerves were then relaxed with a gentle meander down the river on a bamboo raft, where it turned out we didn't need the 'Commando Trooper' life-jackets we were given at the start, although one may have helped our guide, who was forced to dive into the river fully-clothed when we nearly floated past our finishing point and off into the jungle!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0482s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Brian Marles
non-member comment
Too much Singha or Chang!!
Hi Chris, good to hear you have not changed was getting a bit worried that you were not keeping up the intake of The Vital Vitamins. You will need a sharp intake of beer now..... Chelsea 6 - Derby 1 but I suppose you know that score! Brian