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- Apr 6, 2024, 4:20pm
- ☀️ 39 °C
- Altitude: 22 m
- ThailandChangwat KanchanaburiBan Lin ChangMae Nam Khwae Yai14°1’22” N 99°31’56” E
Bridge over the River Kwai
April 6 in Thailand ⋅ ☀️ 39 °C
Kanchanaburi is probably best known as the town closest to the Bridge over the River Kwai. It's a railway bridge which was part of the infamous Death Railway built during World War 2. The Japanese used South East Asian civilians abducted and forced to work by the Japanese and captured Allied soldiers, to supply troops and weapons in the Burma campaign of World War II. More than 90,000 civilian labourers and 12,000 prisoners-of-war died in the the construction of the Death Railway. The bridge and river were made famous to North Americans when David Lean's 1957 film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' came out which centres around one of the line's main engineering feats, the bridge across the Kwae Yai (River Kwai), and tourists starting flocking to Kanchanaburi searching for the bridge. There are memorials, museums, and cemeteries in and around Kanchanaburi related or dedicated to the bridge and the Death Railway.
We took this train from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi but not so much to visit any of the aforementioned "attractions" related to the bridge or the railway but to go to an elephant sanctuary and visit Erawan National Park, famous for its tiered waterfalls, scenic hiking trails, nature viewing & swimming. I posted about the elephant sanctuary last time, this post will be about Kanchanaburi, the next about Erawan National Park.
We just had to stay in one of the floating raft hotels/guest houses on the river we had read about. We found a simple place called the Nita Raft House near the old part of town, so pretty much no foreigners as they all seemed to be staying in the newer part of town. Apart from great views it had a beautiful garden, 3 dogs and a cat. Super chilled.
The main street was nice and even had a few historic buildings. At the end of the street was a Wat with a lovely cafe where all the servers were monks and pretty roosters roamed. On the road to the cafe we saw a rooster high up in a tree...strange.
The sunsets from our funky little place was the best part of staying at Nita though, along with all the bats that came out at dusk looking to feed on whatever they were feeding on. It was our home base for a few days as we went out exploring. We found good food and coffee nearby, a pretty cool skywalk, cheap beers, and a really good night market on the Saturday night that seemed to attract many locals. It had great food stalls and not so great local bands playing. We had a blast!Read more
Traveler Raft hotel cool. Hope your having fun!
Traveler Sounds great, wish I was there!!!