We got a little earlier start this morning and after a little discussion at breakfast we have decided that we are going to take the train over the Kwai River and up to Nam Tok.  Nam Tok is the last functioning station on the original Thailand-Burma Railway as the rest of the line into Burma was torn up years ago and there is no longer a rail link between the two.

Although slower than traveling by car, the train ride is very scenic and in places follows the path of the river – in some places so close that the track is laid on trestles that hug the cliffside on one side of the train and drop straight down to the river on the other.  The train ride is great and nowhere but here have I seen vendors get on and off the train at each station and and walk up and down the train selling hot food, drinks and souvenirs.  One vendor in particular has a try of doughnuts that look awfully tasty, and so we buy a couple to try – they are soooo good that we anxiously await his next pass of our car to buy some more, but sadly he is sold out by now 🙁  The good news though is that at the next station someone has brought him another fresh tray, so we promptly gobble down 4 more 🙂

The very friendly and helpful staff at out hotel have arranged for a songtheaw driver to meet us at the end of the train ride and take us to a few attractions we have on our list.  The train is late getting in to the station, but our driver is there patiently waiting for us to arrive!

Our first stop takes us a little farther down the road to the Hellfire Pass historical site.  The Hellfire Pass is a ‘cut’ through the rocks where the original railroad line to Burma ran through.  During the war the Japanese were in a hurry to complete the rail line so that they could move war supplies into Burma and increase the pressure on the British colonies in Burma and India.  After conscripting tens of thousands of POWs and and tens of thousands more local laborers the progress was still not going fast enough so they started working the crews 24 hours per day – the cut got it’s name because at night the light of the torches reflecting in the cut made the men feel like the were working in hell.

The cut is one of the biggest on the railway and is close to 100 feet deep in places, and about 2000 feet long and tons of rock had to be hammered and blasted out and then moved by hand – you really need to stand in the cut to fully understand the size of the undertaking.  This is last of our ‘war’ stops so the trip gets a little more upbeat moving forward, but I am very glad that we took the time to see some of this – there is a lot more we could explore here, but time is limited so it is off to our next stop.

On the way back to Kanchanaburi we make a stop at the Sai Yok Noi waterfall.  We were here before with the girls, but Russ did not see it, and it is conveniently close to the main road so we stop in for look around and to dip our feet in the refreshingly cool water.

Our last stop on the way back to the city is the Krasae Cave.  The cave is basically a huge cavern in the side of the rock face that the train ges right past.  The cavern is easily big enough to fit a 4 bedroom house inside and there is a Buddha statue and shrine inside.  You have to walk out on the railway trestle to get inside the cave, and the walk also provides a great view of the river, and the railway trestle clinging to the side of the rocks.  We have come late in the day after the train loads and buses full of tourists have come through, so we mostly have the place to ourselves and get to enjoy some peace and quite while looking around.

The songtheaw driver we have is great and we ask him if he will take us farther into town for dinner.  We make a quick stop back at our hotel to get some instructions about a place we want to go to for dinner.  Bee, one of the ladies at our favorite Thai restaurant back home is originally from this area, and she told me about a place to go for a special noodle soup that is very well know among the locals.  We have the name of the place written in Thai and show it to our driver who smiles and says “yes, noodle!” and off we go.  We are happy we had the name of the place written for us as there is no way we would have found this place on our own 🙂 and it clearly caters to locals.  There is no menu, they make soup period – but it is fantastic! Full of rich flavor and different from any other soup we have had in Thailand – hopefully I can try and find a recipe or something to try and make this at home, but I suspect it will not be nearly as good.

Our driver from earlier in the day told us to just give him a call when we are ready to go back, so we wander around a bit along the waterfront and then give him a call to head back to the hotel for the end of another day.

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)

We got back to Thailand just a couple of days before their national election.  The polling was today (July 3) and the government had forced a ban on all alcohol sales since the night before (not that it has a lot of impact on us but some of the backpackers are grumpy) so that the people are all fresh to get out and vote. More than 90% of the eligible population is expected to vote, which makes me a little sad when I read about the anemic turnout we get in our elections back home.

Thailand is very divided politically and in previous years protests and unrest have popped up in Bangkok depending on who was in power, and who was unhappy at the time.  The Thai people we talk to tell us that no matter who wins 1/2 of the country will be unhappy with the result.

It is expected that no party will win enough seats to form a majority government, so they expect that it will take a couple of weeks of wrangling after the votes have been counted for someone to form a coalition government and then the people will decide if they are satisfied or not.  It is not expected to impact us at all, but it is interesting to watch how the political circus works in other countries – I guess at some level it is pretty much the same 🙂