The Bridge Over The River Qwai

24 Mar KANCHANABURI

Its a hot humid day and they predict rain for later in the day which would be a first for the year and today we will visit the museums and sites associated with the Death Railway constructed by Allied POWs during world war II working in hellish conditions under the Japanese occupation. Some 106,000 POWs and most enslaved Malay workers died during the railway construction.

Our Guide, Dom, in front of portrait of  Jack Chalker.

Dom brought Adrian Chalker, Jack's son, to visit this site anumber of years ago.

We first motor down river from our hotel on a long tailed boat to the wharf, then drive to the resort Home Phutoey to see a recreation of one of the camps for POWs and a private museum for Jack Chalker. We continue to the Hellfire Pass Memorial and Museum which honors two of the more famous Allied POWS, the great Australian national hero of the camps, Colonel Sir Edward ‘Weary’ Dunlop,  who’s bravery and temerity as a medical officer saved countless lives, and the British artist, Jack Bridger Chalker commissioned by Dunlop at the risk of his own life to make a pictorial record of the brutality, appalling conditions and medical techniques employed during their captivity.

Hell Fire Pass

Rail Bed

From the museum we walk down a number of stairs to the rail bed and through Hellfire Pass. It is the most notorious section of the Death Railway, built during the speedo period where the POWs were forced to work very long days and nights that resulted in the heaviest POW casualties of the war.
We have lunch at Wampo Siding in a local restaurant. This where we will board the train on a portion of the original  Death Railway along tracks laid by the Allied prisoners in 1943, and still in use today.

We then depart on a historic train ride at a very slow speed, through lush river-side teak forest and farming towns ending with the infamous crossing over the Bridge over the River Kwai. It was popularized in the 1950s by the movie of the same name. The bridge is actually over the Kwai Yai River, and there were two bridges, one made of bamboo and wood the other of metal, built between 1942 and 1945. The present iron bridge has two central boxy spans to replace three sections destroyed by Allied bombing. 

The Bridge Over The River Qwai

Just as forecasted as we drive back to wharf to go to our hotel its starts raining.  We have a tropical downpour for about 30 minutes it stops when we reach the wharf and its a boat ride back to our hotel in much cooler conditions due to the rain.  Then next day we drive back to Bangkok and after a night of r&r we make the long plane ride home.  We will have a number of posts to follow on some subjects we have thoughts on but this is the end of the day be day postings.