Bridge Over the River Kwai

From Kanchanaburi

The plan for day one was to look around Kanhanaburi, including of course the famous bridge itself, and the Death Railway Museum, which recounts the construction of the Thai-Burma railway.

I had assumed that the bridge standing today was a new one built some time after the war, but it turns out that most of it is still the original construction apart from the middle section, which was repaired after it was destroyed by allied bombing towards the end of the war (not by daring commandos, as the film would have us believe). It was certainly an unusual experience walking across the bridge while pondering on its history.

The Death Railway Museum is one of three or more exhibitions in Kanchanaburi related to the railway, but probably the most informative one. It provides a well presented history of Japan's objectives in SE Asia, and the planning and construction of the railway, concentrating in particular on the use of PoW labour to undertake this project, and the appalling conditions under which they worked, and in many cases died. This is brought home by the presence of a cemetery adjacent to the museum containing the remains of over six thousand allied PoWs who died in the construction of the Thai-Burma railway.