Escape from China post COVID: Kanchanaburi (Bridge over the River Kwai) Summer 2023

As the title says, Kanchanaburi is where the Bridge over the River Kwai is located. It's about a three hour drive from Bangkok and with information about trains being really hard to come by, we opted to just get a grab taxi to the next hotel. It worked wonderfully and the driver was lovely. 

We could find nothing online about the town as it seems everyone goes just for a day trip from Bangkok and doesn't stay. 

Dan found us a lovely hotel by the river. I somehow got a room with direct access to the pool so I was able to walk straight from my room into a small wet room and then into the pool. It was bliss. 

Our first night, we went to see what there is in the town. Very quickly we discovered, basically nothing. Its tiny. A small street of about 20 bars/restaurants and shops and that's about it. 

We had a fantastic meal in an Aussie bar and then a few beers before getting an early night. What we hadn't realized was that as soon as the sun went down, this sleep little town took on a bit of a seedy feel. Suddenly every bar was full of old western guys with young girls on their knee. It was such a shock as it was so different and family friendly in the day. 

Oh well, live and learn. This is a side to Thailand that is completely accepted and expected but always makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Especially when I see some of the age differences involved. One of the nights Dan wasn't feeling well so he and JiaXin had a night in, I went off to do some laundry and was approached by someone asking me "what do you want; men, women, boys, girls? Give me an hour and I can find it" It was quite an eye opening conversation. She then went on to offer me all sorts of drugs. All of this at about 7pm in a launderette. 

Anyway, that aside, we went down to the bridge area and went around the museums. There wasn't actually much in the way of information, it was more a collection of things from the time and that had been used by the prisoners. 

There were however some seriously sobering facts, for example, over 100,000 people including 13,000 POWs died in the construction of the railway. This is why it got the name "Death Railway." Roughly, someone died for every 5 meters of the railway that was completed. 

It's a fascinating place and many people go out of their way to make sure tourists know that the film from 1957 is nearly a complete fiction that is very loosely based on real events. 

The bridge itself is beautiful and the trains were a lot of fun (I like trains) but sadly we were not able to go on the track itself. There were very few running and we couldn't get tickets.