The Bridge Over the River Kwai

The grave of An Australian Soldier

To escape the hustle and bustle of Bangkok, I overnighted in nearby Katchenburi, a town made famous for it's roll in WW2 as the railhead of the infamous Thai-Burma Railway. It was a sad place to visit. In the center of town is a cemetary for Allied Soldiers who died in the terrible conditions working as slave labour on the railway. There are mostly Dutch, British and Australian soldiers buried here, just one of several large war graves in the area. I must admit it is one of the most imaculately well tended park or garden I have seen in all SE Asia, tragic yet beautiful. What is often forgotten however, is that for the 16000 POWs who died in it's construction, 90 000 prisioners from Japan's occupied territiories in SE Asia also died.

The bridge over the river kwai is all I did see of the rail line (something about an accident and an exploding water pipe and the trains are not running) however it was still a nice tangable peice of history, symbolic of the greater construction effort.

The Thai Burma Railway, Bridge Over The River Kwai