Bridge over the River Kwai
Thursday January 31, (yesterday for us) we started our day early, alarm at 4:50 am, on the minivan at exactly 6 am. We were not the broken link on the chain that required today to run smoothly. There’s always someone that shows up late and makes everyone wait. Several minivans were spotted around Bangkok to pick up tourists for the english tour of the Bridge over the River Kwai. All the minivans converged somewhere central to load us on a big tour bus. We were off for the day long tour. Our minivan sat at a hotel waiting for a couple, for at least 10 minutes, the broken link we mentioned. Consequently we were the last ones to get aboard the big tour bus.
We made one stop after a few hours travel for a bathroom break. We arrived at the Death Railway Museum a few minutes after 9 a.m. The Museum and cemetery are side by-by-side. Our tour guide, Mr. Khom told us we had until 10 a.m. to tour both the museum and cemetery. We spent almost all of our one hour time allotment in the museum. We could have spent all day!
The bridge was built over 17 months by POWs from 1941 – 1943. The Japanese wanted a train line to move goods and armaments and also to gain access to oil and mines. The POWs provided the labour. The rail line was 415 km long with 304 km located in Thailand and 111 km in Burma. The POWs were promised many things, none of which were ever fulfilled, instead they endured horrific conditions, malnutrition, disease and forced to do intensive labour while sick and weak. It’s always heartbreaking to see how cruel humanity can be. During the building of the bridge and rail line, 30,000 English, 18,000 Australians, 13,000 Dutch and 700 Americans died. The Japanese had 176 POW camps located on Japanese home islands and 500 more POW camps on Japanese controlled Asia held islands.
We spent as much time as we could in the museum but could have spent hours more! The pilot who was the first in to bomb the bridge was actually a Canadian from Vancouver.
We didn’t have time to wander through the cemetery, just managed to take a few photos. It is beautifully kept and there are a number of maintenance people working there. From the museum it was back on the bus and we drove approximately 15-20 minutes to the river where we caught a boat, enjoying a 20 minute boat ride down the river. It was interesting to see all the floating river restaurants and hotels and some very impressive complexes and homes too. There are huge fields of sugar cane, tapioca and banana trees alongside both the roads and river. Besides tourism, agriculture is huge in this part of Thailand.
We arrived at the Bridge over River Kwai by boat where we docked and climbed the stairs to the area by the train tracks. When we got there a train had just arrived and there were lots of folks getting on and off. We waited for the chaos to clear and once the train left we had approximately 10 -15 minutes allotted to walk down the rails and across the bridge. There were lots of signs saying they aren’t responsible for your safety – so in other words make sure you are off the bridge before a train comes!!
The train is mostly a tourist attraction now and not for cargo or commercial purposes which is really sad considering the sacrifice so many made to build it. The rail line built by the POWs was dismantled after the end of World War 2, in 1947 After hiking across the bridge and talking pictures it was back on the bus. We drove another 20 minutes or so to a local restaurant where we were served a fixed lunch. We started with a soup that had broth, one chunk of chicken and a chunk of fruit or something that looked like pear. There was steamed rice, 2 separate chicken dishes, one quite spicy, the other not. There was an omelette type of dish, which we didn’t try. For dessert there was fresh pineapple, which was sweet and fresh! We bought a large beer to share that was not included in our tour cost. At 120 THB is was our most expensive beer here to date.
The tour was 3800 THB for two people or $160. We got our money’s worth as we didn’t get back until after 7 pm. There was a bit of confusion on the way back as some people had to get off to head to the airport, others to different hotels. One couple got fed up and left to take the Sky Train (BTS) which might have been the smartest thing to do. At that point we were ferried off in another minivan. Once we got back to the hotel we ate supper at our new favourite restaurant and came back to our room and crashed until the people up stairs started banging around at 2 am, for the second night in a row.
Today, Friday February 1, we did some shopping and packed a box of redundant clothing that we brought with us. Some t-shirts are just too heavy, and Gary sent home some shorts and extra sox he didn’t want to haul to the beaches for the next 2 months. We packed in a few souvenirs and some of the brochures from the various sites we’ve visited so far and mailed the box home.
We went for a massage to end the day at “Foot Haven Massage Spa” next door to our hotel Centre Point Pratunam. Both of us got the best massage of the trip at this great place. We were lucky picking this spot as there are about 5 places within a block. Some not so savoury or clean. When you see the gal picking nits out of the co-workers hair it’s a real turn off! We spent 500 TBH each about $21 CAD for a full hour.