The Bridge on the River Kwai

I'm in Kanchanaburi for two days. It is a depressing and sad place if you ignore all the tourist activities and the british and australian bars around here and concentrate on the history. Here at the border to Myanmar you can explore the historical places, museums and war cemeteries dedicated to the estimated 100.000 people that died as Prisoners of War while accomplishing the Japanese project building up a railway connection between Thailand and Burma through the jungle during World War II. The bridge over the River Kwai, that is part of the so called Death Railway, looks totally different than in the movie. But after visiting the Thailand Burma railway centre I can say that the story of the movie is pretty near to reality. It is possible to walk on the bridge and I walked on the tracks beyond the bridge into the jungle and tried to imagine the pain and the effort of the prisoners building the railway by remembering scenes from the movie that automatically come to your mind when you are here. The bridge is still used today, so when a train wants to cross it blows its horn coming close so all the pedestrians on the bridge have to step into the safeboxes at the side of the bridge and the train passes by just centimetres before you. The train behind me on the pic is actually moving...

Getting up here was an interesting trip. I got up in Hua Hin with the knowledge that I still needed a room in Kanchanaburi. So I got up early and went for a coffee to call some places with my old Nokia that is really doing its job here. I ended up booking a very nice place again instead of an easy traveller place, because they always make me such good prices travelling alone and not in the main season. But when the woman laughed at my answer that I would come by train from Hua Hin I got a bit uncertain about my plan. She told me trains ought to be very late here, so she didn't think I would make it until 7 PM. Well, it was 9 AM in the morning for an estimated 3 hours trip, early enough don't you think?

So I packed my stuff to walk to the railway station. And as assumed everything worked out fine and as planned! The 6 AM morning train heading north had a delay of 4 hours!!!, so I could take that one at 10 AM. Perfect timing! My tourist guide said I should change in Ratchaburi, but the friendly employee of the State Railway of Thailand told me to change in a small town called Ban Pong. So I bought a ticket to Ban Pong. Only Thais and me on that train and I inhaled the atmosphere with open windows and the countryside passing by getting greener and greener and the weather colder and rainier. Everyone was so nice and helped me with my luggage and with a seat and I was really nosy having a closer look at all the baskets the food sellers carried around selling food on the train. New ones boarding at every railway station.

Arriving at Ban Pong I found out that I landed in the middle of nowhere. Nobody speaking english around me, all the signs only in Thai. Even the railway personnel couldn't help. Here I was in a situation I always wanted on this trip...After trying to ask some people and earning plenty of smiles back from the locals I just started walking and trying to read the Thai signs on the road. The lady at the train station in Hua Hin told me the bus was leaving right from Ban Pong railway station to Kanchanaburi, I would say a very wide definition of railway station... I finally found a guitar store and because every guitar player must like american rock music someone there had to speak a bit english. And yes, it was enough to understand "bus, Kanchanaburi" and after asking some other people with hands and feet and after walking some few blocks lucky me ran right into a blue sign "bus station" and the bus even had AC. The ticket seller was on the street and took good care of me until the bus arrived.

Landing in Kanchanaburi I took a TukTuk to my place and rented a "vehicle", because everything to see is spread widely over the city. I didn't want to drive a motorcycle in this crazy traffic. So you can guess from the picture which vehicle is mine...It is a bit safer, but you have to cope with the strayning dogs who are not used to bicycle drivers and some are pretty aggressive and there are lots of dogs here. But I handled monkeys so I can definitely handle dogs...

I biked around the city and had a great dinner at Apple and Nois place right at the river. It was amazing! Noi, one of the owners who also runs a Thai cooking school talked me through the menu and recommended things. I had a very spicy prawn salad with lemon grass, mint and other herbs as appetizer, the best masaman curry I can think of and which they are famous for. And for dessert a warm coconut cream with sweat potato. It really was delicious and I wish I would have stayed at their guesthouse to enjoy their food all the time while I'm here. They are pretty famous around here and recommended in every tourist guide for their food. Now I know why!

Feeling that the climate and the weather is quite different up here, many mosquitos, rainy as it should be in rain season and colder. Need more mosquito protection and will use my longsleeves and long pants more often. Especially the next days when I will go trekking in Kao Yai National Park northeast of Bangkok. Called a lodge there a couple of days ago. They have guides and do tours. Looking forward to that, minibus to Bangkok tomorrow morning and then bus to Pak Chong, where they will pick me up.