Having watched the film “Bridge over the River Kwai” which tells of the hardship endured by Allied soldiers interned in a POW camp by the Japanese at Kanchananburi, we were keen to go there to learn more. In 1942, 60,000 Allied POWs were shipped here to construct a new Thailand-Burma Railway. Appalling conditions and Japanese brutality resulted in the death of 16,000 POWs and 100,000 Asian labourers earning the line the nickname, Death Railway. It is said that one man died for every sleeper laid on the track. Today the area around the bridge is inundated with shops and restaurants and it feels wrong that the POW experience is exploited in this way. The bridge itself is much less imposing than we imagined from the film. We walked along the length of it, stepping in as
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