Bridge over the River Kwai

Trip Start Nov 25, 2004

169

Trip End Jan 26, 2005

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Flag of Thailand Kanchanaburi, Thailand
Monday, November 29, 2004

Up bright and early, we had to catch the train from Thonburi station to Kanchanaburi (where the Bridge over the River Kwai is!) at 07:45! Hee Hee! We only just made it! It all started nice and calmly, had breakfast and made our way to the river to catch the boat to the station! Beautiful sunrise and paul took some amazing photos! Boat arrives as planned, we relax and enjoy the views - only to find that the boat sails straight past our stop and onto the next one! But that's OK we've still got plenty of time....the next boat doesn't get there until 07:35..starting to get abit panicy and the woman on the platform keeps telling us that the next boat back will be in 10 minutes...every 5 minutes! How does that work!!! Finally get to the right stop and from the map we assume that the station must be just outside so it must have been very amusing to see 2 red and sweaty backpackers wondering aimlessly round trying to find the station!!! Paul spots the tracks so we follow them, wandering through a fish and vegetable market with stinky fish water lapping into our flip flops to see a train chugging past! We're giggling away at this point as are the numerous thai folk we walk past with me looking like a beetroot! Anyway we see the station and I jog up to the ticket desk and by some stroke of genius - the train on the platform is the one we want!!!! We collapse on the train in fits of out-of-breath giggles and sit back and watch miles & miles of beautiful scenery sliding by! This is whats its all about!

One of the main reasons for going to Kanchanaburi was to see the annual sound and light show over the Bridge depicting the history surrounding the building of the bridge with the POW's! They were playing 'Dad's Army' and 'God Save the Queen' - for the BVS obviously!!! The show was abit bizarre really - we'd been to the war cemetary in the afternoon and it hit you when you saw the headstones of people our age and alot younger! The evening was a re-enactment of WWII done with lights, fireworks and sound effects (unfortunately the commentary was in Thai so we struggled to know exactly what was going on all of the time) but certain bits of it were really scary with fireworks ligting up the sky, bangers and sound effects - it makes you realise how scary it must have been and that wasn't even half of it! Bizarrely we went back to a bar afterwards and we ended up watching a film called a 'War to end all wars' telling the whole story!!! Fate eh????

On our last day in Kanchanaburi we journeyed up to Erawan national park so see some beautiful waterfalls! We really started to get a feel for the greenness of the country! Paul went for a dip in a couple of the pools - I was too scared because of the big fish!!

We really liked Kanchanburi, really chilled out and found a cool bar fondly known as 'Our Bar' which showed movies every night - great for relaxing with some good grub and a beer at the end of the day! Ended up staying there for 3 nights in the end due to a 'day of the rest' in the middle for my legs to recover from all the bites! :0(

One of the highlights of Kanchanburi: Paul getting attacked by a cockerel, having a face off with it then telling it to p** off!! Highly amusing!

Lowlights - me getting bitten over 20 times and having allergic reactions to mosquito bites resulting with me looking like someone suffering from elephantitis! Nice!.