Today was the 11th November which just happened to coincide with Remembrance Day and travelling from Bangkok to the small town of Kanchanaburi where thousands of allied POW's perished under the conditions of the Japanese army. We paused briefly at the Allied War Cemetery before continuing on to the infamous Bridge over the River Kwai.
Despite all the history this place has, the train journey was really scenic and one of the highlights so far on my trip to Thailand. I had a seat in 'second class' and sat next to a bunch of school kids who were pretty inquisitive to us all and our gadgets! The windows are open so it was pretty breezy, natural air con! We crossed the famous bridge as we made our way to Nam Tok which was about 2 hours. The big highlight of the journey was towards the end as the train passes over a rickety looking bridge with the views to the left hand side being pretty spectacular of the river and valley below. The train goes slow at this point so plenty of time for every to get their cameras etc out, of which there were loads! You can see the video clip of the train journey on my Facebook page.
As we got off, there was a short drive to the 'Hellfire Pass' where we started with a museum tour and a short film about the history of the area. This was really interesting but harrowing at the same time. It really did feel like I had just got off the train and travelled back in time reading all the history of what went on here. The Hellfire pass as it's known is where the POW's pretty much dug through the mountain area with little or no tools, riddled with danger and disease. You can still see some of the tracks in the ground and there is a memorial spot on the way down.
Today was definitely a day of two halves for me.
