Day 15 : Kanchanaburi, Saturday 22nd June 2024
Fine, 36°
NZ$1 = THB22
THB1 = NZ$0.04
Up at 7:30am, down to breakfast at 8am ( this morning we had a set menu of eggs,bacon (!) and sausages, toast etc as well as a buffet of cereals, yoghurts etc ) . Back to the room, grabbed our gear and called a Grab at 9am, to take us to the Bridge over the River Kwai ( THB69 ), about 1.5km north of our hotel.
The Bridge over the River Kwai story ( not the one about the building of the bridge and the deathcamps, but the one about the tourist attraction that is the Bridge over the River Kwai ( BTW some names say “bridge over” some say “bridge on” )) to me sums up the Thai attitude to a lot of things in life. The story goes that the bridge was built during WWII and the book about this was published in 1952 in French and called Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï, and translated to English as Bridge over the River Kwai. There was just a small issue with the name; the bridge was not built over the River Kwai ( or Kwae as it seems to be in Thai ) but built over the Mai Klong River ( the Kwai joins the Mae Klong just south of Kanchanaburi ). But when tourists started to come to Kanchanaburi looking for the Bridge over the River Kwai that they had read about, and getting confused as to where it was, the Thai govenrment decided the best thing to do was to rename the piece of river under the bridge that everyone was looking for as the Kwae Yai ( meaning Big River ) and rename the part that joins downstream as Kwae Noi ( Little River ), and the bit after the junction to remain as the Mai Klong. Simple solution to ensure the tourist found what they were looking for; a bridge over the River Kwai.
We jumped out of the Grab and walked out through the market that is located between the road and the bridge, then onto and over the bridge. Even though it is safe and normal for tourists to walk over the bridge, it is still slightly unnerving to walk over a railway bridge that is still in use, if only twice a day. On the far ( south west ) side of the bridge there is a temple and some other shops but nothing of an any great interest so we walked back across the river. The bridge itself is not anything spectacular, and isn’t even the original bridge, but obviously the story behind it gives it a lot of significance. As we got near the Kanchanaburi side we noticed a train sitting about to cross the bridge ; there are only 2 scheduled trains each way that use the bridge normally ( one was the train we got off yesterday ) but there is also a weekend only excursion train from Bangkok that does a day trip to Kanchanaburi and back, and this is the train that was sitting at the Saphan Kwae Yai Station ( River Kwai Bridge Station ). We waited for the train to cross, after all the passengers had got off and taken their photos, which it does very slowly. There are platforms on the bridge to stand out of the way of the train..
After the train crossed we walked back to the shore, grabbed a drink from the market, looked around the markets, walked up New Zealand Alley ** ( more of a main road ) and then went to the JEATH Museum ( THB100 for 2 ) at 10:45am on the sight of the first wooden bridge built ( a wooden bridge first to get people and cargo across the river to allow the construction of the main railway bridge ) . JEATH stands for Japan, England, Australia, America, Thai and Holland ; thenationalities of the POW’s who built the railway. We walked in and around the museum which was interesting but felt like a very old school style museum with lots of items and information, but scattered around in a variety of buildings.
A lot of the streets at this end of Kanchanaburi are named after countries; America Rd, England Rd, Malaysia Alley etc
Headed across the road to Bellinee Bakery for a drink at 11am, then caught a taxi ( which is a motorbike plus a side car in this part of the world ) to the Train Museum and War Cemetery ( across the road from each other ) for THB100. These are located near the train station, about 1/2 way back to the town of Kanchanaburi.
Went into the train museum ( THB80 each ) which was much more interesting and better laid out than the JEATH museum. It filled in a few gaps in knowledge about the railway and the liberation of this part of Thailand form the Japanese. Left the museum at 12:20pm and walked across to the War Cemetery and had a look around. Always humbling and sad to see these in foreign countries, with so many soldiers buried so far from home. We couldn’t find any NZ graves ( and it was too hot to spend too long out in the open cemetery ), but we believe there are some there.
Left at 12:45pm, taxi to hotel ( THB100/NZ$4.50 ) via the 7Eleven for lunch ( THB183/$8 for drinks, buns and yogurts ). Relaxed for the afternoon in the room, Liz went for a swim.
Lunch Haul: from clockwise from top: Blackcurrent puree(?) THB15/$0.75, Strawberry yoghurt THB15/$0.75, Pocky biscuit sticks THB21/$1, Chocolate drink THB22/$1, Bulgaria yoghurt THB49/$2.20, Hersheys bar THB14/$0.60, Custard filled bun THB8/$0.30, Blueberry crumble cheese cake THB39/$1.90. Total: THB183/$ 8
Left again at 5:50pm, caught a Grab to the riverfront part of town ( THB 79/$3 ) and looked through the street market ( mainly food, but lots of stalls and quite busy ), then bought tickets and went up the Skywalk ( THB80 ). This is a 4 storey high glass walkway over the edge of the river, that runs parallel to the riverbank. It serves no purpose other than giving a view of the surrounding area. We had to put our bags in a locker and put on red overslippers to protect the glass walkway, and then headed up in the lift and walked around on the skywalk.
Down again and looked at the restaurant options in the area, and saw nothing we liked, so got a Grab again back to the hotel ( THB75/$3 ) and went to the restaurant across the road ( Kin Khao Lam Restaurant ) for dinner; 2 dishes ( Khao Soi and Green Curry ) 2 big beers and rice: THB 320/$15. Very tasty food and a nice open eating area with a nice breeze.
Back to the hotel at 8pm.