Kanchanaburi

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A tuk tuk and a sky train took us to our meeting place with Shirley - though because I still wasn’t feeling 100% I couldn’t remember if I’d got my lefts and rights the right way around so spent a little while wandering up and down the road to find her. A stop off for errands and an hour later we got back to Shirley’s house much to the delight of her two dogs Sadie and Daisy!! We spent the night there before going out to Kanchanaburi. We arrived in good time and checked into the guesthouse right on the river Kwai (which Eddy was a little apprehensive about!). After a well needed cup of tea we went out to the Bridge and walked across it. After lunch we took a long tail boat down to the JEATH museum which is a museum based in the wooden huts that the POW’s were housed in. It shows photos, newspaper articles, drawings and artefacts from the time of the Death Railway. It has been set up by monks so you get an unbiased view of the happenings of the time. A lovely evening was had sitting in a nearby restaurant with a few beers and cheap food before returning to the guesthouse about midnight!

A thunderstorm over night meant the river had risen in the morning but nothing too bad - however the situation elsewhere in Thailand was looking a little concerning. Flooding in the Eastern part of Thailand had caused concern over our ability to do a visa run into Cambodia so we changed plans and heading back to Bangkok a day early, as there were flood warnings in parts of Bangkok as well. However, before returning to Bangkok we went out to Hellfire pass which is where the POWs dug through the rock by hand. It is a hot, humid jungle half way up the mountain that has solid rock. It is an immense cavern and track that you can never truly appreciate the conditions they worked in. Barely anything moved down in the pass including wildlife - there was one bee that followed us in but no birds, insects or even mosquitoes were around until we were walking back over the top of the pass. The one inscription that stood out most for me was

‘ one life for every sleeper.’

We had walked on many a sleeper on the bridge over the river and many more walking through Hellfire pass, for everyone we stood on a life had been lost.


In stark contrast to this we stopped at Saiyok Nok Waterfall on the way back to Bangkok which is only a few kilometres from Hellfire Pass. It is a stunning waterfall where Thai families and foreigners come to enjoy the water. It has been made into a kind of water park with parts of the waterfall aided into a pool by manmade structures but it was beautiful. We had a quick walk through the waterfall and lunch overlooking it before heading back to Shirley’s.

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