Death Railway

Travelled by train from Bangkok's Thonburi station to Kanchanaburi, location of the famous bridge over the river Kwai.  Except that it is actually the the Mae Klong river, but was renamed Kwai Yai because of the general expectation that the location of the bridge made famous by the novel was in fact over the Kwai.
On this occasion the journey from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi was on time (unlike my previos experience when it took almost 5 hours for a 2.5 hour journey), and provided a pleasant alternative to traveling by the rather boring road route.
Apart from the scenic countryside, one of the main reasons for visiting Kanchanaburi is to learn more about the building of the Thailand-Burma "Death" railway, and the appalling conditions suffered by allied POWs and native workers on this daunting project.  On day 2 we took a taxi to the Hellfire Pass Museum, which takes its name from the nearby railway cutting constructed by the POWs though the inhospitable jungle.   Prior to this trip I had been reading the novel: The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which graphically describes the horrific experiences of the POWs building this part of the railway.  The Hellfire Pass Museum helped to provide a complementary perspective on these events.
For our return journey to Kanchanaburi we elected to pick up the train at its terminus at Nam Tok and  ride back to base via the scenic route that runs along the Kwai river.