A reasonable start for once – our flight isn’t until 12.50 and given we’re 5 minutes from the airport we don’t have to leave until after 11.00. Our flight’s slightly delayed but we’re back in Bangkok at 14.15 or so – this is the fourth time we’ve hit BKK in the last eight weeks, but the first time we’re actually staying here even if it is only for one night! We’ve booked into a cheap ($25) guesthouse and it’s not bad – modern and clean, even if it is a bit quirky (the decor is stark concrete and whitewash – it’s not unlike staying in a prison I imagine!) We have a great view of the fort – marred only by the 24 hour petrol station right in front of it! We were going to get the train to Kanchanaburi tomorrow but we discover that the minibus is quicker and more direct, even if it is more expensive, so we book a 09.00 pick-up (the train would’ve gone at 07.45 so that gives us more sleep time) and head out. We’re only 10 minutes from the Khao San Road, so we head over there for a couple of beers and to people watch.
We’re picked up fairly promptly the next morning, and are soon heading off, though we’re confused by the fact that we seem to be the only ones heading to Kanchanaburi – everyone else is off to the airport! A quick u-turn later and we realise why – there were two 09.00 pick-ups from our hotel, one for the airport and the other for Kanchanaburi – the driver didn’t bother to check our receipt, he just saw the luggage and assumed we were airport-bound! Still, we’re dropped of on the Khao San Road and finally get on the right bus, and a couple of hours later we’re in Kanchanaburi. We’ve picked a fairly cheap place to stay here – around $40 per night – and we’re both really pleasantly surprised at how nice the place is – it’s very clean and modern, low-rise, and is all based around a garden courtyard with a nice pool. Our room is overlooking the pool with full-width floor-to-ceiling windows/doors at the front – OK, so no privacy without shutting the curtains, but it feels really nice – definitely one of the better places we’ve stayed in.
Kanchanaburi is the nearest town to the ‘death railway’, made famous in David Lean’s epic 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai. We’re actually staying north of the main part of town, and given we’re only about one kilometre from the actual bridge we decide to head out and take a look. It seems Kanchanaburi is a pretty laid back place – there’s barely any traffic on the road we’re staying on, and everyone seems friendly. The bridge itself is surrounded by the usual tourist tat – market stalls, shops, food stalls, hawkers, even a rep from the local zoo who’s brought along a fully-grown tiger and a leopard cub to try and encourage visitors to the zoo, which is very depressing. As seems to be the case with these things, the bridge is a fairly unimpressive structure, but it’s the symbolism that’s important – this was a vital crossing on the river for the railway. (Fact fans may be amused by the fact that the bridge isn’t actually ON the river Kwai – well it WASN’T anyway, it actually crossed a different river that merged with the Kwai nearby, but after Lean’s film was released to critical acclaim and the tourists stared to flock to the area, the Thai government renamed this part of the river as the Kwai!) It was actually bombed by the allies during WW2 and taken out of service but has subsequently been repaired and still operates commercially as a railway bridge (though there are only 3-4 trains each way per day across it, if you discount the noddy train that transports tourists across for 20 baht!) Returning back to the hotel then heading out, we also discover that we’re now back in the cheaper part of Thailand again – we eat at a local restaurant next door and enjoy three large bottles of beer between us and a huge plate of fried rice each and the bill comes to less than 200 baht – that’s more like it!
We’re only in town for a couple of days, so given the relative inaccessibility of some of the sites outside of Kanchanaburi, we opt for an organised tour the next day. This starts out by heading north west to Erewan national park, home to an amazing set of waterfalls – seven in total. It’s a bit of a trek to get there – we’re pretty close to Burma now – but it’s well worth it. Due to Linda’s knee we only make it up to fall number four (though we’d really have only had time to make one more anyway given the tight schedule we were on) so we head back down to fall three which has a large pool underneath it, and more amusingly is also populated by a large number of fish that appear to be one of the ‘cleaner’ species – we dip our feet in and are treated to a free fish foot spa for 45 minutes or so (and it had me giggling like a girl!) After lunch we head to Hellfire Pass, a notorious stretch of the death railway that is now home to a museum and memorial site dedicated to those that died here. The railway lines have now been removed from most of the route to Burma, but the rail bed still exists. If you want the details about what happened then Google ‘death railway’ or check Wikipedia, but in summary: the Japanese needed a secure supply route during WW2 and decided to use allied POWs (some 60,000) as well as local labour (250,000-300,000) to build a railway line between Bangkok and northern Burma; the brutality of the Japanese engineers and their Korean guards combined with the lack of food, medicine and the harsh working conditions and extremely long hours resulted in the death of some 100,000 of those involved. All work was purely mechanical – there were no machines used here. Hellfire pass is so named due to the image that was presented to those outside it – emaciated workers with hammers, chisels and manual drills – working long into the night lit only by the burning fires of bamboo lanterns. Dante springs to mind. We walk the pass. It seems so serene now, but you can see how much work was involved – the rocks tower some 15-20m above us, so this would have all had to be removed by hand – you can still see the tool marks on the rock. This section is around 75m long, and was dug out completely in just 12 days – an astonishing amount of work. It’s easy to see why there were so many deaths attributed to it. Just the day before we’d commented on the fact there were Japanese tourists on the bridge – it’s notable that there are none here today. We look around – this would have been a very different place 70 years ago.
We end the tour with a trip on the section of the railway line that is still being used today – complete with rickety wooden bridges! The line from Nan Tok to Bangkok still runs commercially (if we’d have travelled in by train then we’d have come in along this line) – we’re on the train for half an hour or so. It’s a weird feeling, the whole line wouldn’t exist but for the efforts and lives of so many people – allied POWs plus Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Malay, Javan and other locals. The savage cheapness of human lives once again. We knock the tour on the head at this point and head back home.
This is pretty much the end of the adventure for us. We’ve still got a couple more weeks out here but this will be quality time spent with family, catching up and chilling out. My mum and auntie Sue are heading out next week (assuming the weather out there gets slightly better!) which will be a lot of fun, we’re both looking forward to it. We’re off back to see Wayne and Nok tomorrow, just in time for Christmas. Expect future updates to be minimal – maybe a couple more, we’ll have to see!
Here’s wishing you all a very happy Christmas – lots of love from the both of us.
