Kanchanaburi is an area in central Thailand a couple of hours west of Bangkok in the foothills of the mountains between Thailand and Myanmar. We visited here for a day trip 2 summers ago when we were here with all the kids to see the Bridge on the River Kwai made famous by the movie of the same name (you can see the original post here). It was our last day here and we just added it on a bit of a whim, but decided that we should go back sometime and spend a few days there to get a better look around.
With the help of some friends back at Iyara Thai in Redmond (thank you Nina, Bee and everyone) we got a lot of good tips and suggestions on things we should try to see when we are here.
Our first day here began with a late start as it was the first day we did not have a fixed agenda and we all just wanted to unwind a little. We got to breakfast not long before it closed, but managed to get in and out before they shut it down. We decided to take a leisurely walk up to the River Kwai Bridge and have a look around as Russ was not with us when we went here 2 summers ago.
We took a nice walk across the bridge and wandered around the market a little and then decided to take a boat on the river to see a few of the sites – this was one of the things on that was mentioned to us from our friends back home, and it did not disappoint!
Our first stop was at Khao Poon Cave and is one of the many caves in the area that has carved itself into a limestone hill. The cave consists of 7 ‘rooms’ that are connected with stairways and passages that wind down into the hill. The cave must be fairly popular with the tourists as it is quite well lit with fluorescent lighting 🙂 Some of the rooms are fairly large, and as we wind our way lower we start to see some bats flying about. It seems a little eerie at first, but it is absolutely true that bats have great sonar for flying about because even with us moving around in the cave and getting fairly close in some places not a single bat hits any of us. Mrs Columbus ever daring as usual crouched down low to enter into one room where there were dozens of bats constantly flying around, but she held her ground and took some time to marvel at the sight.
Our next stop was at one of the war cemeteries that are in the Kanchanaburi area. The cemetery contains about 1700 graves of fallen soldiers that gave their lives during the 2nd World War, mostly POWs that died during the construction of the Thailand-Burma Railway. The place is immaculately manicured, but it is a bit sobering to stand there among those who gave so much so that we could enjoy the freedoms that we enjoy today. It is perhaps a bit fitting that as we arrived the clouds opened up and we got caught is a big downpour – the rain is bit refreshing and it drops the temperature a bit so maybe a fair trade. The storm passes in about 20 mins and we know that in about another 20 we will be mostly dry again so it does little to slow us down and off we go to our next stop.
Our last stop on the boat trip is at the JEATH War Museum, this is a small museum with artifacts, clippings and photos also from the war (JEATH stands for Japan, England, Australia, America, Thailand, Holland) and the museum is laid out to resemble a typical prisoner of war camp – it is hard not to see why some many prisoners died in these camps as the conditions were horrible.
After the somber (but interesting) locations we hop back into our boat and return to the main pier by the bridge. We wander around the market a bit buying some snacks and fresh fruit before waking back to our hotel for dinner and then a massage before bed 🙂 All in all a great first day here.
(BTW, for anyone who has been looking at the photos and thinking ‘can he make them a little bigger for older eyes’ 😉 I have gone back and fixed the links so that clicking on a photo will bring up a full-sized version)