Kanchanaburi, The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Death Railway, Thailand

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Using feature movies as a tool for research is flimsy at best as facts are distorted to allow for poetic licence. Still, ahead of our short trip to Kanchanaburi, which is on the western border of Thailand and a stone's throw away from Myanmar, we watched the movie 'Bridge On The River Kwai' for some inspiration.  Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle, the movie is about allied prisoners of war forced to build a railway bridge over the Khwae Yai River to enable their captors, the Japanese, to transport essential supplies into Burma. 90,000 Asian and 16,000 allied POW's died building the railway and the treatment of the prisoners led to the many war crimes that the Japanese were guilty of. Living conditions were disgusting and many were forced to work when they were suffering from malaria and/or dysentery, or simply from malnutrition and exhaustion. Torture and other extreme punishments were not rare. The bridge, only a small part of the Burma Railway construction but immortalised in the book and film, was completed in June 1943 and stood strong until the RAF bombed it successfully in 1945.


So why go and see it, you ask? Well, for one, it would seem wrong to live in Thailand without paying my respects to all those who lived and died on the railway, and secondly, the bridge is only part of a beautiful area that is Kanchanaburi. We'd heard from our friends that it's a great place to visit over the weekend and it serves as a perfect respite from the smog of Bangkok. And anyway, we hadn't travelled for at least two weeks! ;)

We left on Friday afternoon from the Southern Bus Terminal in Bangkok, which has obviously been designed by a lunatic. On arriving at the terminal there are arrows pointing everywhere.  There were two signs with the words 'Tickets' on them: one pointing east, one west. We decided to just follow those who had used these mad platforms before and found the ticket area. The ticket booths are slap bang in the center of a shopping mall, obviously, on the second floor (I think - I can't remember anymore!). To get to the buses you have to go back downstairs, walk through a car park and then out the other end. You'll need to ask the Thai staff which number your bus is as it's all in Thai. Fair enough, it is Thailand.

Once on the bus, however, it was only a two and a bit hours drive. The entertainment provided was simply the bus driver himself, as his victorious assault of the motorway and every vulnerable vehicle on it, guaranteed that the white knuckle ride passed very quickly indeed. We arrived, alive, at our accommodation for the long weekend, the fantastic Sugar Cane Guesthouse 2. The guest house has rooms on terra firma and a few raft houses on the river itself. 'Houses' isn't technically correct, although they are built to look like a house from the outside, as they are basically wooden rooms built onto a huge raft that is attached to the banks by rope. We couldn't really see much of the outside at night, the river looked like a black expanse from our veranda, so we headed to the main road for a quick bite to eat. Expecting a street stall, we found a surprisingly upmarket outdoor restaurant/bar with low range prices. Perfect! The first thing that hit me, being used to seeing hordes of westerners in every tourist hot spot, is that there were no farang anywhere. OK, there was one guy but that was it. We imagined the continuing troubles in Bangkok must have had something to do with it, but this much? There are a lot of travellers out there who could easily by pass Bangkok on their travels from North to South and vice versa. Maybe it was just one of those places that you're lucky to visit every now and then, so we just enjoyed it. At last, we didn't feel like we were just ticking boxes with the rest of them. Admittedly our travels have been quite leisurely so far but we do plan embrace 'real' travelling soon. We're just working up to it.

Tired and full of Tom Yum Soup, we headed back to the raft and the undulating river rocked us to sleep.


The next morning we woke up and went out to see where this room actually was.

Of course, it was on the river. To the right is the bridge itself, about half a mile away.

Our room.

We didn't realise it at the time but in our sleep we had gotten used to the gentle rocking of waves, so when we walked to breakfast it did feel as if we were drunk. We acclimatised over a hearty breakfast and headed into town to find the nearest motorbike rental shop (sorry mums). There is a main strip of road that heads north to south, with the bridge at the northern end. We turned right from our guest house and just started searching. Thanon Mae Nam Khwae is where you'll find most of the guesthouses and bars but it's by no means heaving with people. The atmosphere in this little town is very chilled out with no one trying to sell you any goods forcefully, as is the norm in some touristy places. It's almost too easy to rent motorbikes here and we rented a little beauty for 200 Baht a day (about four quid). Here she is:

We headed straight for the Jeath War Museum, which is further south and right next to the river. The museum hits you pretty hard and brings you slap bang down to earth as the museum itself is fashioned into a U-shaped bamboo hut, which was the normal design for the prisoner's living quarters.


Lining the walls are photo's, paintings, newspaper clippings and drawings depicting life as a prisoner here. We weren't allowed to take pictures of these but you can imagine the sights presented here - starving men, torture methods, pictures of the dead.

It only takes about fifteen minutes to walk around the U-shaped hut but that's enough. The hell the prisoners went through is graphically presented here. The storm clouds started to gather and as it was approaching lunch, we headed across the street to a little stall. A family run business, this was no tourist eatery and we were given real Thai food.

The hottest curry in the world, dried crunchy fish (I think anchovies), freshly steamed white rice and some sort of boiled egg marinated in dark sauce.

And it began to rain. Very hard.

The rain came in sideways, so the owner of this stall told us to eat with the family in the kitchen, which we did. Here's the view from the serving area out onto the street. 

Erika and I sat there and breathed in the smell of the rain which was actually a god send - Kanchanaburi feels more humid than Bangkok. I've never sweated so much in my life.

The rain cleared, we thanked our hosts and went to get the bike at Wat Chaichumphon, a sleepy little temple round the corner.

We started to realise what Kanchanaburi had - real charm.


From here we travelled to the Allied War Cemetery but Erika wanted to get some pictures of the larger Chinese cemetery next to it. We're not sure why this is used or even if it's still in use now, as some of the graves are becoming hidden by the overgrowth and the structures looked uncared for. Still, in it's day, it would have been pretty impressive.

Literally next door to the Chinese cemetery is the Allied War Cemetery. 

Only a very small portion of the deaths are honoured here but it's still a stark reminder of the war, especially when you see their ages. A number of these men were just out of school.

Feeling that we had started to understand the magnitude of their suffering, we felt it was time to go and see the bridge where so many had died in building it. This is by far the main attraction of Kanchanaburi but, as tourists, we still didn't feel targeted at all, which is great as it allows you to simply focus on what you came to see in the first place...

...a leopard????

This leopard was asleep on a table, just by the street. It had been brought here by a company offering a 'safari' in Kanchanaburi (note to all who have been on real safari's: this is more of a zoo where you feed animals through your car window). The leopard seemed well looked after and it's fur was healthy. We both stroked her and Erika still can't believe she'd done this. Coming from South Africa where leopards are to be feared, actually stroking one was something else. Thing is, you can never be sure how well these cats are being looked after and we'll talk more on that subject a little bit later. In the meantime, we had forgotten why we'd come here...oh yeah...

...the bridge on the River Khwae!

Our first travel photo as husband and wife!

Yes, the railway is still operational. The original curved arches are still there but the ones with the flat tops were rebuilt after the RAF bombed a section of it in 1945.

Afraid of heights? This is Thailand - there are no barriers or protective fences to stop you falling in if you miss a step. I imagine if this bridge was in England it would be either caged in or you wouldn't be able to walk across it at all. 

We wondered around the streets nearby and saw this chap either delivering some dogs or simply taking them for a ride...

And Erika did what she does best.

We headed down the main street and sampled some of the nightlife, which is great. There's an outdoor reggae bar, a couple pubs, a disco, some real Thai live music and more. Everything is walking distance, which is perfect for a mini-crawl. Everywhere showed the footy, which was great, as I watched Spurs beat Bolton to help us get to the Champion's League (in fact, at the time of writing, we're in it - COYS!!!!).

On arriving back to our raft house, a little friend was waiting for us on the toilet seat.

The next day we chartered a cab to take us to two places. The first, was another bridge that hugs the side of a steep cliff further down stream. The second, was the infamous Tiger Temple. 

Dear readers, we, as supposedly responsible tourists, have made a mistake in visiting the latter. We knew that there were murmurings of the tigers being drugged, mistreated, etc but didn't really do our research ahead of the visit and decided to see for ourselves. Once we were there, all the tigers did look perfectly fine (albeit slightly overweight) and well looked after. I did, however, see one of the workers flicking dust into a fully grown tiger's eye, in what looked like an act of boredom. Hmm. We even went and fed some tiger cubs, which in itself was an incredible experience. However, on returning back to Bangkok a couple days later, I simply Googled 'Tiger Temple' and was barraged with accusations of mistreatment and interbreeding of the tigers. Some of this mistreatment allegedly resulted in deaths. Originally, in 1999, the Tiger Temple started off as a sanctuary for cubs found in the wild but according to Care For The Wild, who had done an investigation into the park in 2008, the temple allegedly buys the cats from a breeding centre in Laos. Also, the park hires western volunteers to work there, mostly travellers, who have shared their experiences on the net. Unfortunately, they're mostly bad. You can click on some of the links below to see for yourself and we ask you to avoid the Tiger Temple until it has been cleared by a respectable wildlife agency. Don't make the same mistake as we did, as we're animal lovers and really regret funding this place. Yes, it is good that an endangered species are breeding but it is wholly wrong to exploit this process for the financial benefit of the owners (unfortunately, monks), especially when cubs are taken away from their mothers only two weeks after their birth in order to tame them for human interaction. 

http://www.tigertempletruths.org/

http://www.careforthewild.com/files/TigerTemplereport08_final_v11.pdf

http://www.tigertemple.co.uk/

We'll leave that there and will make sure we travel responsibly in the future.

Right, onto the first place we visited...we hopped into our 'taxi' and headed to Tham Kra Sae, a working train station where you can walk across the bridge and look at the handiwork of the prisoners all those years ago. 

We started to realise how beautiful this part of Thailand is. 

Trust me, you can't see it from this photo, but if you don't like heights and suffer from vertigo, you may want to carefully consider crossing this bridge. The wooden panels are loose and you can see straight down. 

Massive respect to my wife who gets vertigo simply by the act of standing up.

After visiting the Tiger Temple (please see paragraph above) we headed back to town for some lunch and to visit the World War II museum. 

This was the first thing we saw on entering the grounds, although we're not sure if it's owned by a car enthusiast or if it's part of the display!

And, this being Thailand, a country where you should learn to expect the unexpected, was the second thing we saw. A five foot monitor lizard. To give you an idea, his head is about the size of a man's fist. 

The WWII museum was in a shabby state, to be fair and is also filled with the relics of past Thai wars on various floors of this temple, dating from the Ayutthaya period onwards. When you reach the actual section for WWII you will find models of men working on the railway, the methods of transportation that the Japanese used (for themselves and POWS alike) and surreal sculptures of various political figures. We're not sure what we're meant to see here but we love its dusty floors and the apparent disregard for anything logical. 

One of the many inscriptions on the ceiling.

We found the rooftop.

That night we ate seafood at the floating restaurant which is a large wooden affair just next to the bridge. Big recommendation. You have the breeze, the view of the river and fresh, fresh fish.

On our last day, after being woken up at 7am by some idiot next door listening to the BBC World Service on his wireless (who travels with a bloody wireless anymore??!!), we went to Wat Tham Sua and Wat Tham Khao Noi on our trusty motorbike (yes, mums, we were wearing helmets. Yes, I know it's the other drivers we need to look out for. No, I drove slowly). Well, what can I say - I think this was the highlight of my time here. Driving along winding roads, with lakes on one side and the gentle hills on the other, we absolutely loved the freedom this scooter afforded us after being lugged about in cabs. Just off the main road you will find yourself the only vehicle on the route to the temples. On the way, we passed a huge Thai cemetery and this photo will give you an idea of the surrounding landscape.

The temples are hilltop monasteries and Wat Tham Khao Noi is an incredibly tall temple that seems to be visited mostly by Chinese Buddhists, if the writing and style of the place was anything to go by. The pagoda is a nod to Chinese architecture and you can climb its seven or so floors to reach the top. Keep in mind that by the time you arrive at the pagoda, you've already climbed a hundred or so stairs, therefore the view from the top is incredibly stunning.

Almost every wall is adorned with tiled art depicting the ideal spiritual life in China.

We imagine this must be where monks attend their lessons on Buddhism.

We start our ascent to the heavens.

The view from the top. We could have sat here for hours watching the wind blow shapes across the rice fields and listening to the temple's resounding bells.

The day was incredibly hot as we've now entered the 'hot season' in Thailand, where temperatures of 35 degrees and above are the norm. We decided to head back to the raft house, where we would meet the mini bus driver to take us back to Bangkok. 

We're definitely coming here again and would recommend it to anyone. Next time we'll try and visit the national parks surrounding the area, something we are yet to do.

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