River Kwai

Alarm set for 5:50 and after a quick coffee we were met in reception by Ning and Mr Kim and on the road by 6:30. It was a three hour plus drive to Kanchanaburi. Traffic leaving Bangkok was as heavy as ever.
Approaching Kanchanaburi the scenery started to change and over to our left there were mountains and beyond that was Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).
Our first stop was the Death Railway Museum which chronicles what happened in this area during World War Two. It gave us greater understanding of why the Japanese needed a railway from Bangkok to Burma and the lengths they took to achieve this. After Pearl Harbour the Japanese embarked on a series of invasions of neighbouring countries including Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore. They wanted to continue on to India but found that their shipping was being attacked by the allies. The shipping was to provide food and ammunition to their forces. The alternative was to build a railway, a task that Britain had ruled infeasible fifty years previously. The Japanese were not to be deterred,, they needed a railway and they needed it quickly. The labour for this task was provided by allied PrIsoners of War and forced labour from those invaded countries. The brutality of the Japanese to this workforce and the working conditions was appalling and is so well documented in the museum.
Across from the museum are the war graves, kept immaculately as these places always are.
We left here and went the short distance down to the river and took another trip on a long tailed speedboat up to the famous Bridge on the River Kwai where we got off. Lots of other tourists here walking over and around the bridge and some, like us waiting to catch the train. This train takes us along Death Valley and to begin with we travel through farm land and see rice fields and fields of tapioca growing, which was a new one for us.
We were going along well then stopped at a station and were told due to an obstruction on the line there would be a ten minute delay. This was then revised to an hour at which point Ning decided, as we have a schedule to meet, that she would call Mr Kim to collect us. We had to walk about half a mile alongside the railway line to meet him where we saw the reason for the delay. A truck had had a tyre blow out on the level crossing and toppled over. Fortunately the driver was OK.
We then drove on to a restaurant for lunch which was adjacent to an area where the railway was built into the side of the gorge in just seventeen days with much loss of life. Quite shocking. The train ride along this section was meant to be a highlight.
After lunch we carried on further up the railway route to Hellfire Pass. Here the Australian government have constructed a really splendid visitors centre and restored the gorges that were blasted through for the railway. Many Australians suffered here working 16 hour days with barely any food or medication. They had to use primitive hand tools to make holes in the rock for dynamite to be placed inside and detonated. The locals nicknamed the area Hellfire as that is what it looked and sounded like.
A very moving and interesting day but we were glad to check in to our next hotel at Kanchanaburi, the Oriental Kwai Resort. We are here for two nights and after the exertions of the past few days look forward to resting on Saturday.Read more