Boxing Day in Bangkok and onwards to The Infamous Bridge on the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi

Asia » Thailand » Western Thailand » Kanchanaburi
December 30th 2012

Published: July 3rd 2013

Edit Blog Post

lifesabeach

The approach to the bridge

First pic of the day before sunrise

So, back to Thailand again, we feel like experts on this place now after so many visits and spending quite a lot of time in its cities, checking out its culture and basking on its glorious beaches, but this visit is a bit different for us as we’ve decided to upgrade from our usual backpacker accommodation to opt for some nicer hotels.

We flew into Thailand on Christmas day, and it was so nice to leave the tinsel and turkey along with the cold weather behind, the fact that we had airplane food for our Christmas lunch didn’t bother us in the slightest; we were just looking forward to our first “yellow curry” washed down with a nice Singha beer!! First port of call as always was Bangkok, but this time we were staying away from our usual haunt of Khao San Road and had booked one night in The Tawana which is close to the Patpong Night Market. The hotel lobby had an enormous sweeping staircase and lots of teak furniture scattered around, it was a little old fashioned but was probably very grand in its heyday. The room was enormous and the staff at the hotel were really

Tourist Free at Dawn

We were the first of a thousand tourists to step foot on the bridge

lovely and very helpful and it cost a mere £61 for the night!!! After a quick change and snooze we headed off to MBK shopping mall for a few bits and bobs and had a wonder around in the vicinity of the hotel to see if we could spy any potential watering holes for later on that evening (It was now Boxing Day so we’d totally missed any Christmas Day celebrations). The malls all had Christmas trees and decorations hanging but thankfully no naff Christmas tunes, although the buffet place that we ate at in MBK seemed to have the same song playing on loop for the whole hour that we were there…….annoying!!!!

Patpong Market was somewhere that we’d never tried and it was quite a fun experience for us, we’d decided that on this trip to Thailand we’d try to do as much different stuff as possible and although this was our 5^th or 6^th time in the country I’d re-read the guide books and planned a whole different Itinerary – apart from Koh Lipe which just cannot be missed!!! Anyway the market is actually no different to any other in the city I suppose, just stall after

Caught in the headlight

Local villager heading into town as the 6.20 train approaches

stall selling the same stuff, mix this up with the “massage girls” trying to get you into their establishments and a large number of western tourists out on the lash and it makes for a great night of people watching. We were tired after our long flight and were moving on out of town the next morning so we hit the sack just after midnight and had a much needed comfy night’s sleep.

Day 2 – we took a meter taxi to Bangkok’s Southern Bus Terminal, an enormous building with literally hundreds of booths touting tickets for destinations all over Thailand and beyond. We eventually found the Kanchanaburi booth and purchased 1^st class tickets, we were told that the bus departed from stand No 10, however what the girl selling the tickets failed to inform us was that there were two No 10 stands…….why is nothing straight forward in this country!! We love taking the public bus in Thailand, far more comfortable than the mini buses that the local travel agencies use – we try to avoid those if possible, we hate being crammed into the tiny spaces with other tourists and being driven from pillar to post dropping

Sunrise

The sun finally makes it's appearance

off and picking up en route whilst having the dysfunctional air con unit dripping on us or being shown a glimpse of the gates of hell by reckless drivers - always take the bus if you can! A couple of hours later and we’ re hitting the tarmac at the main bus stand in Kanchanaburi in search of onward transport for the short journey to our hotel, it didn’t take long, two farang with back packs are hardly difficult to spot. We negotiated a price and were soon on our way to the beautiful U Inchantree Hotel situated on the banks of the River Kwai in view of the famous rail bridge that pulls in tourists from across the globe. The look on the faces of the hotel staff when we jumped from the back of the sangthaew with our now grubby back packs was hilarious. After dumping the back packs in our compact but beautiful room we took a stroll down to the hotels terrace on the riverfront and ate lunch, the views of the river and the surrounding countryside were fantastic, it’s a lovely place to spend a couple of hours in the glorious sunshine watching the wildlife

Sunrise over The Kwai

Watching the sun come come up from our vantage point on the bridge

or the occasional tourist whiz by in a longtail boat on their way up river.

We’d visited Kanchanaburi on a previous Thailand trip back in 2003 but had only visited for a day, catching the bus early in the morning and returning to Bangkok after a whistle stop tour of the main sites; this time having two nights gave us the luxury of taking things at a slower pace and also gave us time to recharge the batteries whilst chilling around the wonderfully situated pool area at the hotel. We were literally a three minute stroll by road to the Bridge on the River Kwai which had a starring role in the famous black and white wartime film, and is infamous in reality for the number of lives of our Allied Forces that were lost throughout its construction during the Second World War. The bridge that crosses the river today isn’t the one built during WWII but a replica, the original was bombed by the Allied Forces towards the end of the war. The area around the bridge is like some kind of theme park, not the serene place for reflection that you’d expect given its history. Young tourists

Snapshot

Photographing the beautiful sunrise at Kanchanaburi

gather in the blistering heat to walk the tracks and straddle the missing boards that give a glimpse of the fast flowing river below, presumably unaware of its history and significance.

On day two in Kanchanaburi we were up before sunrise (courtesy of the jet lag) and took the opportunity to view the bridge in all its glory minus the tourists, and what a fantastic experience it proved to be. It was still dark when we set off, the birds were just stirring and the street dogs were still snoozing beneath the swaying coco palms; as we got to the small square that leads to the bridge there were just a couple of locals setting up their market stalls for another hard day of selling overpriced naff souvenirs to the day trippers who probably hadn’t left Bangkok yet. We walked the full length of the bridge almost in darkness, stopping mid-way to take photos and chat to a local villager who was precariously perched on the bridge with his harpoon gun trained steadily on the waters below. On the opposite side we walked down the dry dusty bank until we found a small decrepit wooden jetty which was a

Daybreak

The beauty of nature captured alongside the reminder of mans suffering

great spot to take close up shots of the bridge in the daybreak glow. Eventually the sun materialized and painted the sky in the most glorious pinks and oranges making the black iron bridge emerge from the darkness before us and reflecting it beautifully in the waters of the Kwai. Out of the silence we suddenly heard a familiar tune getting slightly louder and louder, it was one of those famous wartime tunes that make you go all nostalgic and it brought a tear to my eye!! The sound was coming from the first small tour group of the day and was being transmitted by their tour guide on an MP3 player. They came and went but we stayed a while longer just enjoying the peace and making the most of having the bridge all to ourselves. Another local soon joined us; he was swaggering along with empty bags to be filled up at the big market in town. “Train, Train” he repeated to us a couple of times, and pointed to the opposite end of the bridge where the bright headlight of the 6.20 emerged on the tracks in front of us. Those two and a half hours that

Monks collecting alms

Collecting alms from locals in the cool morning air

morning will never be forgotten, just as the lives lost on the construction of the Death Railway during WWII should never be.

The place was now starting to wake up with a slow steady trickle of tourists alongside locals and monks out to do their business in town before the heat of the day took over. The market was in full swing with breakfast on the go at portable roadside cafes and fruit and veg sellers displaying their wares beside the stalls of tacky “I walked the Kwai Bridge” T shirts. For us it was time to retreat back to the hotel for a well-earned breakfast at the outdoor restaurant from where we witnessed the bridge turning, as it does every day, into a theme park.

Longtail boats are noisy things but a fun and fast way to get around some of the sites in Kanchanaburi. We hired one at the little jetty next to the bridge and spent a good few hours after lunch seeing some of the tourist sites on the stretch of river southwest of the bridge. First stop was the JEATH war museum which to be honest has seen better days; most of the

Breakfast time

One of the many stalls at the bridge side market

displays are faded and dusty making it hard to read. The exhibits are housed in bamboo huts similar to the ones that the POW’s lived in during their forced time spent constructing the Death Railway that stretched 258 miles from Bangkok to Rangoon in Burma, harsh conditions and a harsh regime resulted in the deaths of more than 16,000 Asian Labourers and POW’s. Our next stop further east was Wat Tham Kao Poon, getting to the Wat involved a bit of a hike up a steep grassy bank which then crossed a section of disused railway before opening out on to a road where a local entrepreneur was sitting on a motorbike ready to drive you the remainder of the way…….they never miss a trick in Asia! The Wat itself was similar to the hundreds of Wats that we’d visited before but the added attraction at Wat Tham Kao Poon was its cave. The cave was refreshingly cool after our hike to reach it in the midday sun and held some quite interesting Buddha images and artefacts along with the odd young monk rattling around inside. Next on the agenda was the Chung Kai War Cemetery. During WWII Chung Kai

First sale of the day

Something for breakfast perhaps

was a POW camp but today it is the final resting place for almost 2,000 Commonwealth and Dutch soldiers. It’s a beautifully kept place, very peaceful, very sombre and heart breaking. Reading the epitaphs on each grave certainly makes you realise how thankful we should be for our fallen heroes; so many of them were mere boys when they died but the most touching epitaphs read

“A SOLDIER OF THE 1939-1945 WAR – UNKNOWN UNTO GOD”

Additional photos below

Photos: 26, Displayed: 26