Kanchanaburi

The journey to Kanchanaburi, was a long and painful one…for me at least. Initially we had to get to Bangkok, which was easy enough as all the travel agents offer trips. This involved a 3 hour ferry ride to Chumphon on the mainland, and then a punishing 10 hour bus ride to Bangkok. Once we arrived in Bangkok, at 5 AM, it was time to get another bus to make the short 2 hr journey across to Kanchanaburi.

As mentioned in the previous blog, we were travelling on the first day of Thai New Year, also called Songkran - the water festival. It is also a time of year to pay respect to your elders and many people return home to their families in the villages to celebrate Songkran. The tradition of Songkran is rooted in a number of separate Buddhist rituals surrounding the Thai New Year.In Buddhist ceremonies, the pouring of water over something is a blessing of the object, this originally was represented during Songkran by the pouring of water over the hands of people, to wash away bad luck and a blessing for the coming year. The timing of the New Year, which takes place at the hottest part of the year in Thailand and when farmers are planting seeds ready for the rainy season also explains why water is the focus of the celebrations.

Whilst that may have been the original intention of the festival, these days it has turned into a sort of national water fight and giant 4 day carnival. All across the country, people get hoses, buckets, water pistols, anything they can get their hands on to spray each other with water. They also smear each other with a white paste made from water and talcum powder. This stemmed from the small white chalk mark left on the skin when a monk had blessed you. Now everyone just tries to smear as much of the stuff on other people as they can. We caught the start of Songkran in Ko Pha NGan and got a bit wet on the way to breakfast as we came across some kids with water pistols.On the way to the ferry, we could see everyone lined up at the side of the road, with buckets of water and water pistols. As we were in an enclosed mini-bus we didn't notice too much, but found it quite amusing, by the time we left Kanchanaburi, we would see what exactly Songkran was all about. Each morning we would set off wherever we planned to go that day, and the roads would be quiet…by the time we would get back, the road to our guesthouse would be packed with parties on each side of the road. The cars slowly inching there way along the road and anyone in an open backed taxi (like us) was fair game. The only thing you could do, was smile and go along with it. As you can see from our pictures, the locals will use just about everything to spray water around and we got very, very wet! Whilst it was reasonably enjoyable and a lot of fun….4 days of it certainly felt long enough and by the last day, we simply sat by the pool and relaxed away from it all.

Meanwhile, the real reason we went to Kanchanaburi is that it is the site of the famous Bridge over the River Kwai, part of the Thailand-Burma railway built by the Japanese during the 2nd World War.The railway was supposed to allow them to send supplies to and from their occupied territories in Burma.Once the allies cut off the sea based supply route around Singapore, the Japanese needed to come up with a new plan. The idea for a railway along this route had actually been raised by the British about 50 years before and dismissed as unworkable due to the uneven terrain, mountainous countryside and steep gradients. However the Japanese believed that they could do it despite all this, and they just happened to have a few thousand POW's to help build it. The treatment of the workers on the railway was nothing short of scandalous, and from the first hand accounts listed in the museum, you can begin to see how hard it must have been for the men working there.

There are 2 main museums in Kanchanaburi which deal with the railway. The Thailand-Burma Railway museum is very good and details the full history of the line, the reasons for its construction as well as the treatment of the POWs and conscripted workers. It contains a lot of memorabilia as well as items collected over the years from around the railway. It is also directly opposite the largest of the 2 war grave sites in Kanchanaburi. Over 7'000 men who died during the construction of the railway are buried here, having been relocated from various points in the jungle where the Japanese had originally buried them.At the museum, they can direct you to the site of graves which carry your name, this allows people to locate relations. We simply located a few Mason graves and left flowers that you can buy at the museum at these.These 2 sites make for a very sobering and interesting few hours. In total, the number of confirmed deaths was 16'000 and this does not include those conscripted asian workers from India, Thailand and Burma who's deaths are believed to number20'000 or more

The railway was completed in 1943 but was only running for 3 years.After Japan surrendered, the railway was run for a few years by the British before being handed over to the respective Thai and Burmese governments. Unfortunately, due to ongoing issues between Burma and Thailand, the Thai government tore up the track a few miles north of Kanchanaburi. You can still ride the "Death Railway" for a large section of it and this is how we got to the 2nd museum, located about 1.5 hours from Kanchanaburi at Hellfire Pass.

Hellfire Pass is one of the most notorious of a number of camps along the route. The workers had to cut through solid rock, 26m deep and 300m long using only manual tools. This museum was built by Australian survivors as there were a lot of Australian troops who worked, and died, on this section. Whilst the actual museum retreads some of what we had already seen, the walk that you take through the actual Hellfire Pass onto a re-laid section of railway is amazingly moving. The audio guides use recordings from survivors detailing the work and their lives while they were working there. And once you get into the pass itself, the sheer scale of the work is hard to believe. Considering that we were sweating and gasping just getting into the pass, it must have been awful to work in it.I would definitely recommend it to anyone with any interest in history who is coming or passing through Thailand.

We left Kanchanaburi after 5 interesting and wet days, and headed to Bangkok and the last stop on our trip around Thailand.