The bridge on the river Kwai

I thought I slept pretty well on the train but I’ve been tired all day, so maybe not that well! Although it left Surat Thani about 45 minutes late, the train arrived a few minutes early in Nakhon Pathom at 7am. That wasn’t my destination, I just needed to change trains there. I bought a ticket to Kanchanaburi and found a seat to wait and to eat breakfast. I popped out of the station to look for a shop selling water and found a lively street market doing a roaring trade in breakfast snacks. There was also a large temple directly down the road facing the station. I didn’t go to check it out as it would have meant carrying my pack and I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get there and back.

The train arrived just after 9am and was 3rd class only so that mean a great breeze coming in the open window but uncomfortable seats. It wasn’t busy and the journey went quickly. I arrived by in Kanchanburi around 10.45am. In the afternoon I walked the 2km to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

It’s not the actual bridge that was in the film – the film was shot in Sri Lanka. The film also doesn’t reflect the history of what happened during the construction of this bridge by allied POWs and forced labourers from across Asia during WW2. (The prisoners were treated worse than portrayed in the film and they tried to sabotage the bridge, not to collaborate with the Japanese to build it.) And the river wasn’t called the river Kwai. The river Kwai runs alongside the railway for a long way, but this river is a tributary and had a different name. The Thais renamed it when people started coming to see the bridge after the film came out!


The curved spans are the originals from WW2, the straight sections in the middle are post-war replacements for parts that were destroyed by allied bombing. Now it’s a thriving tourist scene – especially at the weekend. There were lots of tourists walking across the bridge and taking selfies. It’s still used by trains so, periodically, tourists have to get out of the way when a train crosses. The extra is the view from the quiet side of the bridge looking back towards the town – you can just see the umbrellas of all the stalls selling souvenirs at the other end.