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7/12/09 Kanchunaburi (River Kwai)
We had wanted to travel to Kanchanaburi to see the Death Railway, The River Kwai Bridge and also to see a sound and light show at the Kwai Bridge, a huge reenactment of the bridges history. A taxi collected us at 6.45am for the ride to Bangkoks Southern bus station a 20 minute ride away. When we got there Liz waited with the bags and Phil went to get the tickets. A few people asked Liz if she needed any help as she was stood with loads of bags on her own outside the station. We have found the Thai people to be really helpful and friendly and aren't pushy at all. We went to find the bus stop Phil had been directed to but there was no stop with that number. We saw a bus with Kanchunaburi on it and saw the driver. He pointed us up into the bus but when he checked our tickets saw that we were on the wrong bus. We had to get all our stuff back off the bus and were directed round to the other bus stops in the other side of the station that we hadn't seen. We eventually climbed onto the right bus and waited to depart. The bus didn't move for another hour but when it did we made good time to arrive in Kanchunaburi at about 10.30. We had accomodation booked there very close to the Kwai bridge and were taken there by two cyclos. On the way we drove past the Kanchanaburi War Cemetry. We arrived at Sams house on the River Kwai and checked into our room for the next three days. It was a small bungalow over the water with gangplanks to it. We ate some breakfast there and met Sam the owner. He was a knowledgable Thai man with great English. He suggested we spend the afternoon going on a tour on a longtail to visit one of the war cemetries and the Jeath museum and Kwai river bridge. Then in the evening we could go to the bridge to see the show in the longtail too, we would be on the river with a great view of the show. We went to Sams house jetty and the longtail was waiting to take us down the river see the Jeath museum ( Japan, England, Australia/America, Thailand, Holland). On the way to the museum we passed many floating resturants with their tow boats ready to bring people out or move the boats. We spent about an hour there looking around the exhibits. The museum was started by a Buddhist monk to remember the victims of the Thai Burma railway. It is a small museum but is built in the same way as the prisoners bamboo huts and is filled with photos, paintings and testimonies of POWs so is very moving. There is a photo gallery of veterans on their visits to the museom with some really heartfelt letters too. After seeing the museum the longtail took us along the river to see the Chung Kai War Cemetry. We both spent about half an hour at the cemetery just overwhelmed with the headstones and beautifully tended graves. It was impossible not to be hugely moved by the messages from relatives who would probably never be able to tend the graves. The War Graves Commission of the Commonwealth looks after the graves and they are immaculate with beautiful flowers and shrubs planted between them. A few Thai workers were there removing weeds and tidying up each grave. Ther was a memorial cross and a large white stone entrance. It was a very quiet spot and very peaceful and very moving. After the cemetery we went to see Wat Tham Khao Pun Buddhist cave temple which we explored for a while and took in the lovely views over the river. The cave became notorious after a drug addicted monk living there murdered a British tourist and disposed of her body in a nearby sinkhole !!! During WWII the caves were used to store Japanese weapons. We went up stream to see the iconic bridge over the River Kwai which looks so familiar despite us never seeing it before. The longtail pulled up at the bank and we got out to get a closer look. We walked up to the railway line itself and were able to walk accross the bridge. There were just wooden planks between the sleepers to walk on and it felt really exposed over the river way down below. The whole bridge was decked out with pyrotechnics, model gunposts, wires and various other technical stuff for the show later that evening. We walked all the way across then back to the longtail. The banks of the river were set up with large seating areas for the show which runs for 8 nights every year as a tribute and peace promotion. We then were taken back to Sams house and quickly went to KTC travel shop to book a bus to Bangkok then had a few minutes before going out for the evening show. There were 7 people on the longtail and we went up river for 5 minutes to the floodlit bridge which looked really impressive stopping just infront of it. We were tied onto another longtail and then two more arrived to make a little flotilla. We waited half an hour for the show to start then the bridge went dark. It began with a Thai army marching band crossing the bridge and stopping in the middle of the bridge to play the last post. They carried the flags of the nations who lost men during the building of the railway. It was very dark and still as the last post played and was very moving. There was some commentary in Thai which of course we didn't understand but it was pretty easy to follow. There were reconstructions of the allies being marched to the camp, the camps themselves, work on the bridge and railway, the opening of the railway and the final battles. The show was about an hour and a half long and was just fantastic. The battle at the end was so realistic and we were in the thick of all the explosions on the river. There were lasers, fireworks, explosions, flaming stuntmen diving off the bridge, a burning boat next to us, aircraft noise and all kinds of action all round. The bridge was lit with all colours and flashes and when the final bombs dropped the rails fell into the water below. It was an incredible show and we couldn't believe how professional it had all been. When the show had finished we returned to Sams House in the longtail, had a shower and went for something to eat. When we went to look for something to eat we passed loads of bars with local girls calling us over...we couldn't tell if they were girls or ladyboys !! We ate at a resturant called The Hut then went off to bed.
8/12/09 Kanchanabari
We were planning to catch the 6.00am train along the Death Railway to Namtok near to where the Death Railway and museum are, but we overslept so ended up getting a tuk tuk to the bus station to get a bus instead. The bus journey was a real nightmare as the driver didn't want to go above 20 kmph and he stopped every ten yards to pick up ofr drop off people. It took ages but eventually we were dropped at the gates of the Hellfire Pass museum at 9.45am. We walked through a Thai army base through to the museum. It is a modern museum financed by Australia to remember the POWs who worked and perished there. The museum is built not far from the railway and the famous Hellfire Cutting and a walk along the railway is an integral part of the visit. The free museum with a headset, for commentary at various points, was excellent. We watched a short film about the railway and its history then walked through the exhibits. On the headphones Auistralian veteran survivors gave accounts of their experiences, some of which were really upsetting and moving. We told the staff we wanted to walk the 4km stretch of the railway that is an official trail and were given a walkie-talkie for safety !!! We set off to walk the railway and the first bit we walked through was the notorious Hellfire Pass, so called because of the numerous fires lit for the POWs to work by into the early hours. The cutting is through a huge rock hill and was all done without any mechanical equipment. The men worked in pairs, one with a screw and one with a hammer. Once the screw had bored a meter down into the rock, explosives were used. The men then cleared that rock and started again and were made to work while being beaten by their guards for 18 hours a day for three months. There were many cuttings and embankments to construct over a 1000m stretch and at the end of construction 70% of the POWs had died and are buried in the nearby Konyu cemetery. At the end of the Kunyu Cutting (Hellfire Pass) is an Anzac memorial in a clearing . Each Anzac day there is a service with veterans walking through the pass with a lone piper playing from the top. It must be really moving to see that as there is definately a tangible atmosphere in the cutting. In the walls onf the cutting there are bits of old drills and screws still stuck in the solid rock left as a memorial. The conditions described on the headset were horrific with disease, starvation, lack of clothes and terrible monsoon rains to make conditions really hard. We kept on walking for about two hours until we reached Compressor Cutting near the Burmese boarder, where we turned round at the end of the trail. We had passed through Hammer and Tap Cutting and into the deep wide expanses where the trestle bridges would have been. One trestle bridge was called "pack of cards" by the POWs, as it fell down three times during its construction. The 8km walk was quite hot and sticky for us at a nice stroll and it was difficult to imagine just how bad it must have been for the men when it was pouring with mud and water and they were starving and near naked. We both found the walk emotional as we were listening to the survivors terrible tales of cruelty and human suffering whilst being in the place where it had all happened. We also learned the huge numbers of Thai, Burmese and Malaysian people who lost their lives suffering worse cruelties than the POWs on the promise of work and good pay that never came. It is really incredible to see just what these men managed to achieve under such difficult circumstances. We walked back to the museum with just enough time to spend a few minutes at a memorial there. It was made by a veteran and was a pottery dish with floating candles and petals on a platform overlooking the railway.............We were catching the train from nearby Nam Tok station back to the River Kwai station along the Death Railway, so we went to the road to wait for a bus. We had waited for about ten minuted when a women stopped in her truck and offered us a lift to the station (for a small fee). We jumped in and were taken right to the train station where we had a twenty minute wait. There were a couple of drunken Thai men there who tried to make Phil pay for a two second "massage" one of them had tried to give him. Funnily enough Phil didn't pay up for the small leg rub !!! We boarded the train and took our seats on the hard wooden chairs. There were only a few people aboard so we had a good view from the windows....at least until the next stop where we picked up two bus tours!!!!! The tour stayed on the train for two stops through the most picturesque section over the Wong Po trestle bridge and with lovely views across the river Kwai. We were relieved when the all got off at the next stop and peace returned. The train kept going until we reached the station just before the Kwai bridge. The engine detached itself from the carriages and moved to the next track along. Noone told us anything but another passenger discovered that it had run out of diesel so we had to wait for another engine to get us. Unfortunately we had hoped to cross the Bridge over the River Kwai during daylight but by the time thwe new engine arrived it was dark. The bridge was all lit up though for the final show of the bridge festival so it was still pretty memorable. We pulled into Kwai station and walked to get some tickets and a headset for the commentrary to see the show again. We walked through the markets se up all around the area and tried some delicious barbecued chicke on bamboo skewers. We sat in great seats alongside the river and bridge and watched again. The commentary added some more information to the proceedings but the overall effect had been better from the river where were in the thick of things. After the show we spent a bit of time looking at an exhibition and then walked back towards Sam's place. We stopped at a really trendy local bar full of young Thai people dressed up to the nines. We were in our scruffs and generally quite stinky from a days trekking in the heat so fitted in really well !!!! We had a couple of lovely puddings there with a cold beer then went back to bed.
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