1/14 – Bridge over River Kwai and the Death Railway museum

We’re onto the main events – at least in our minds – the River Kwai and Railway stories. First we visit Death Railway museum which has truly fascinating exhibits about the Japanese occupation during the war and their quest to build a secure supply railway line between their positions and Burma. If you’ve ever watched the movie, The Bridge over the River Kwai, which we have of course (just recently actually), you’ll know the basic (if not fictionally embellished) story: The Japanese used prisoners of war to build the railway line, forcing them to work to their deaths in horrid conditions. there is a lot more detail than that (increased deadlines for finishing, entire camps dying and disappearing, all sorts of horrors), but those are the basics. This museum just adds to all the facts we already knew with placards explaining the massive numbers of deaths, artifacts found over the years from the rail line itself and from the prisoner of war camps along with a fabulous diorama of the line and Hellfire pass. A very educational 30 minutes or so for us.

Across the street from the museum is the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery where 5,000 Commonwealth and 1,800 Dutch casualties are buried. It is the largest of three cemeteries on the Burma-Siam Railway, and is located near the site of the former “Kanburi” Prisoner of War base camp, where all prisoners passed before journeying on to their final camp or workcamp destination. It is a very somber reminder of the perils of war, and while we’d love to explore here more, it is hot. Really hot. So hot in fact we go back to the bus early to get into some cooler temperature air!

Finally we are off to the Bridge! As always, there are market stalls complexes all around the place, but once out to the river, it is just the bridge, where you can walk out onto the middle and actually stand there when a train comes by. We aren’t lucky enough to do that, but we can walk down the rails to the middle of the bridge for gorgeous views over the river, then off to the viewing point to see the bridge in its entirety. Odum has told us that the trestles that are rounded in shape are original and the squared, rectangular ones repaired.

This is so great! Even if the movie itself is a fabricated fiction, the whole story is still pretty amazing and pretty wild that we can stand here on the actual bridge that is so important to history here.

On the way back to the bus, we stop for a quick snack of chicken sticks from a local food stall, then negotiate a great deal on flip flops for Ed – 80 baht! That’s $2.25 USD. All is right with the world.

On the way to our final destination of the day, the Home Phutoey Resort, Udom tells us all about this herbal remedy for COVID, even showing us the box so we can all take pictures of it and buy some at the next pharmacy we encounter. Then he makes a stop at what he calls a “mom and pop ” market to stock up on supplies for the resort – because we are there for 2 days and there isn’t anything around it, just wilderness! Love it. So of course we bought beer and fresh Jackfruit- yay! I was so excited.

The resort, which btw, Odum had driven out to last week (over 3 hours each way from Bangkok) to check it out when he knew we were staying here) was beautiful. First of all, we had to leave the bus at the top of the entrance drive and take Songthaews down to the resort, because the road is a mile long, all down hill and dirt. No way the bus could make it! The lobby is all open air, and after we are assigned our rooms and get our keys we go out to search for our rooms. All the rooms are in little adjoined cabins were situated around heavily planted gardens and lotus ponds, with little bridges crossing the water and flagstone paths. And huge covered porches. So great. And the rooms were huge and really well equipped. This will be a wonderful 2 days here.

Tonight, dinner is in the open air restaurant above the river, and served family style for the whole group. Tables are set up in 6 tops, and we take the end of one table near the fan. It might be by the river, but it is till hot. A little kerfluffle ensued when the Russians came down, late of course, and then made a stink because they couldn’t sit together. Sigh. then get here on time! Anyhow, we were alone at our table, so we just moved and sat with two other couples . Fine by us, we had a more enjoyable evening without them – you can be certain of that!

After a very pleasant evening we carefully navigate our way back to our porch, following the handpainted signs and playing with Ed’s new best friends who joined us on the walk and the porch. Then hung out on said porch listening to the tree frogs and having a night cap.