17th Feb, Arrived in Kanchanaburi after a long, long
train ride from Chiang Mai. Although we had a short
stop in Bangkok while we waited for the train, we'd
travelled for about 20 hours in total. We managed to
find accomodation down on the Kwai itself at 'Sam's
House', the rooms were basic and a little run down,
but the outlook along the river was spectacular,
especially as the sun was setting. We'd tried to get
in the Apple House which is reknowned for it's good
food amongst travellers (Thanks for the tip Pat & Kristie!). Both
shattered, we had a quiet night on the river and got a
good nights sleep.
18 Feb, Headed up to The Apple to get a room after
being kept awake most of the night by the floating
Disco's which get towed up and down the river - what a
laugh, these things are full of Asian's 'pogo'ing up
and down to cheesy pop, great sight! We walked to the
other end of town to see the Jeath War Museum, which
was basically a poor collection of newspaper cuttings
and paintings of the construction of the Thai Burma
railway. It also had a few artefacts from the war on
display, however most exhibits were clearly post World
War II. From there we moved on to the Allied cemetary
at Kanchanburi after visiting the newer, Western
maintained 'Railway Museum'. This museum was superb,
it clearly displayed the appalling conditions the
POW's had to endure and the brutality they were
subjected too. The cemetary itself was incredibly
moving. We were both amazed at how immaculate and
peaceful the cemetary was. We continued to the
infamous 'Bridge over the River the Kwai', a pretty
plain looking bridge in it's own right but an awesome
peice of history to see never the less. The only
thing to spoil it were the hoardes of Asian
snap-happy tourists who arrive by coach from Bangkok, screeching and laughing. They are either
unaware of it's history, or simply don't care - it's
pretty annoying all the same. Just when we thought it
couldn't get any worse we visited the World War II
Museum next to the bridge, what a complete disgrace. There were very few
actual World War II items on display, and what they
did have was nothing short of insulting. Mock up
scenes of emaciated POW's lying around with fountains
of blood spouting out of every orrifice - is there any need for this?
Unsurprisingly there was no mention of
brutality anywhere, the whole focus seemed to be on
the night Americans bombed the bridge and also bombed
the nearby POW camp. The display quoted 'after the
bombs had landed the POW's lay higgledy piggledy all
over the place' - errr...HELLO?? It was getting late
so we headed back to the Apple.
19 Feb, Hired a moped and headed off over the river to
Chung Kai cemetary, a much more peaceful place out of
town on the banks of the Kwai Noi. We spent an hour
there then headed back to the Apple after checking out
the local bus times to Hellfire pass and the train
times to Nam Tok. We ate at the guest house in the
evening, they do the best river fish i've ever tasted,
in a sweet and sour sauce with chilli - just the
business.
20 Feb, We headed to Hellfire Pass the following day,
For all you history buffs this was one of the most
difficult stretches of the 'Death Railway' to
construct, apparently 70 percent of the POW teams who
worked there perished, over 65 men also perished
directly as a result of beatings inflicted by the
Japanese and Korean guards. We were the only two at
the cutting and it was strangely peaceful, we walked
about 1.5km along the route of the old railway, but it
was so hot in the jungle we eventually headed back to
the Museum at the trailhead. The Australians have
built the museum there and they really want
congratulating on what they've done, it's a fitting
memorial. We got back around 4.30 to the Apple.
21 Feb, We caught the train at 11.20 from Kanchanaburi
which took us over the Bridge and then North West
along the Kwai Noi. In the distance you could see
Burma once we cleared Chung Kai cutting. We'd caught
the train as we wanted to travel the Tham Krasae
section of the railway which passes over the original
World War II timber elevated sections, built by POW's.
The view along the way is amazing and when you hit
Krasae cutting it just gets better as you pass along
the river. The elevated sections themselves cling to
the rock face and are just incredible peices of
engineering. We got chatting to the Thai guide on the
train, Rattana, he gave us loads of info about the
journey and it's history, he ended up inviting us to
his house to watch the Mancester United v Bolton Game
in the evening - really nice guy.
Heading back into Bangkok tommorow to store some of
our gear before the onward journey to Vietnam. Train
leaves at 7.20am.
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