Bridge over the River Kwai

Saturday 17th December

We spent today in the town of Kanchanaburi which although the third largest in Thailand has an air of an enlarged village rather than a town. It consists of two parallel roads running north to south, the busy road is the main highway and our guesthouse is on the quieter village one that leads down to the bridge.

The bridge immortalised in David Lean's film starring Sir Alec Guinness is not the original bridge since the first one was constructed of wood and was built to carry supplies over to the other side of the river whilst the metal one was constructed, it was subsequently destroyed.The current bridge was prefabricated and shipped over from Java.

Our first sight of it had been at dusk on the evening before and there were many more tourists there when we arrived on Saturday morning.There is a sort of town square feeling about it with loads of food and drink sellers offering all sorts of refreshments some of it still seemingly dodgy looking....at least to me..my tummy has been a bit precious since the second night but I am eating rice with stuff so perhaps Allan there's hope for a risotto yet!

We walked across the bridge with Maureen whistling Colonel Bogey as we took our obligatory photos to show that we had been there , all the time keeping an eye out for one of the tree trains a day that still follow the route of the old war time railway as far as Nam Tok....of course they are at set times but you never know do you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83bmsluWHZc&feature=related

There are a couple of unexploded bombs that act as  guardians of the bridge these could well have been dropped by Allied pilots....in fact the largest number of deaths caused at the tail end of the war seem to have been as a result of friendly fire.

On the site of the old POW camp by the side of the river is the new market place where there is one heck of a confusing museum with pictures from all sorts of conflicts from the Boer War to Indo-China war of Independence but in no seeming order or connection .Outside this room was a row of the main characters of the conflict but a lot of them looked suspiciously like each other.Sir Winston Churchill looked very sprightly  indeed rather than the jowelled figure we know. The narrative each one had was quite interesting to read!!

On the other side of the courtyard was a Thai heroine of the 13th century called Madame Mo so that called for a photo opportunity didn't it and in the taking of this picture no dragons were harmed

I don't think I have ever seen museum exhibits with so many cobwebs on them!


We crossed the bridge on something akin to a Thomas the Tank Engine affair that when I asked where it went I was told there and back.......and guess what it did just that....as far as the level crossing on the other river bank and back again, accompanied by' Colonel Bogey' on the outbound and 'You are my sunshine' on the return.