A cool morning, in a sleepy and still awakening Bangkok was the setting for the start of my journey to Kanchanaburi. I was really looking forward to getting there, but i was apprehensive about lugging my bags onto the little train. This anxiety wasn’t help by my morning tiredness having been kept awake by the sounds of some amateur porn stars across the hallway from me last night. Visit the Wang Lang area for food, but don’t stay at the hotel as the walls are paper thin!
Thon Buri train station Bangkok, a step back in time. Check out the old fashioned weighing scales!
Watching people come and go from the madness of the train station was mesmerising. There are only two trains a day, at not very commuter friendly hours of 07:50 and 13:50 but there still seemed to be reams of people lined up to get on the diesel engines chugging out of Thon Buri. It’s the old main station which serves less heavily used routes. As a result it’s a bit neglected but still retails an awful lot of charm.
I settled myself in for the journey, one of only a handful of people on the train so there was
A nice and peaceful Bangkok to Kanchanaburi “express”
lots of space for me and my luggage to spread out. But an ever growing hunger as i didn’t have a chance to eat before i left the hotel. Not to worry, the masterful ladies of Thai railways unofficial walking restaurants were there to help me out. First course was some refreshing mango & chilli salt, followed by fried chicken and then one of the best green curries i have ever had served up in a tidy little pandan leaf bowl and a bottle of water all for the princely sum of 60 pence. I am loving the train snacks today! Breakfast of champions!
Delicious chicken curry from the hawkers on the train
What to do with my rubbish though… Everyone else is just throwing it out the window. But I just can’t do it! The conductor looked at me like a madwoman when i asked him where the bin was. It’s just not in my DNA to be a litterbug.
I was happily engrossed in my book as groups of mainly school children bustled on and off the train. There weren’t many of us on for the long haul, most were hopping on and off at the small stations as we chugged along. Climbing over the tracks to reach the passing train, many of whom must also be coming from the sprawling shanty houses that line the tracks. In the city houses, businesses and garages creep
Trackside life in the outskirts of Bangkok
right up to the very edge of the tracks. Sometimes practically on them, its a wonder that their washing ever gets clean when it hangs as a buffer to the passing ancient loco. I could see men and women frying up batches of chicken and snacks ready for a days hawking as well as “rest’ stations comprising of old sofas edging into the same space.
These creeping communities were replaced by imposing jungle as we got further away from Bangkok. I had to get up and shake myself off every now and then as i would be covered in bits of leaves and twigs from the poor jungle plants that had their edges lopped off when they poked into the open train windows. The whole train to Kanchanaburi is 3rd class, which is fine. It’s a short journey and the windows are all open with the fans on full blast to keep you cool.
It’s the little things that make me smile! Kind hearted train conductor on the Bangkok to Kanchanaburi train
Everyone on the train was very friendly and jovial, the whistling train conductor even had a love heart shaped ticket punch! About half an hour out from Kanchanaburi i was joined by a man in his early 50s (i think, i can never tell!) He started chatting straight away, Thai men seem to always start a conversation with name, where you are from and what English football team you support. The UK teams are big franchises here and they all have a passion for a random team from a city that they know very little about aside from the billboards that strangely line the streets of Bangkok.
We moved on from football (I didn’t have all that much to say on the subject unsurprisingly!) and into a full blown
My impromptu Thai teacher, was a sports coach at the local school
lesson in Thai, he was suddenly teaching me how to count, how to ask questions. How to say my age and generally how to get by in Thai. It was a bit of an onslaught and i am ashamed to say i can’t remember any of it. But he was delightful company and seemed most concerned about how i was going to manage when i got to Kanchanaburi. “I have friends there, it’s OK” is my stock response. He seemed lovely, but you never know. I felt bad when he saw me hop into the back of a taxi van on my own, clearly knowing that i had told a little fib.
It was early afternoon when i arrived at the hotel, a most wonderful riverside retreat just on the outskirts of the city called Xanadu 2008. It was nice to be set away from town as there is not a lot there, and it was easy to get a lift into Kanchanaburi with 20 minuntes notice. Aside from the train journey out of town i wasn’t in a hurry so that was OK with me. I freshened up and got a lift to the Death Railway museum & research centre which is very carefully curated and goes into great detail about the conditions that brought about Thai-Burma railway and how the men were treated as it progressed. It makes me
Kanchanaburi war cemetery
feel very uncomfortable to know that it was essentially the folly of British colonialists lording it about remote outposts that they had little experience to manage. This left these areas vastly under protected and vulnerable as result. They thought they were invincible, and their arrogance lead to the downfall of the empire in these regions and extensive loss of life. It was sobering to read the facts in the museum and then the personal account documented in Eric Lomax’s autobiographical account in “The Railway Man” book throughout my stay. These men went through a hellish experience. Of those that did somehow manage to survive, mostly solely as a result of the discipline and comeradery that military life allowed them went on to suffer the after effects physically and mentally for the rest of their lives. Unable to share or offload with anyone else and carrying that burden to their graves.
I knew precious little of the detail of this history before my visit to Kanchanaburi, aside from watching the film The Railway Man and i feel ashamed that the history is not more widely known in the UK. It’s a dark time in the nations story but how do future generations learn from that mistake if it’s not acknowledged and more widely understood?
Just across the road from the museum is one of several war graves that are dotted around the area. Which is the
Commonwealth war graves at Kanchanaburi, very peaceful final resting place but heartbreaking at the same time.
final resting places of over 5,000 prisoners of war of the commonwealth that died building the ill fated railway. Around 100,000 people died building the railway in total, a relatively small portion of these were PoWs. The rest were a combination of forced and tricked labour from various regions nearby. Some were coolies from India and later many were coerced from close neighbours like Burma and Sri Lanka. They were not afforded the protection of international war legislation and many were buried is mass unmarked graves when they perished. Much less is known about their fate, as little was documented. Sadly life was cheap in this endeavour, the conditions for all were appealing against the backdrop of a feat that the British originally rejected some year before due to the logistical challenges.
Strolling over The Bridge over the River Kwai – and those gaps that the Leica nearly escaped down! eeeeeek!
After a very sobering start to the afternoon i took a short trip into town to see the bridge over the River Kwai itself, which now has it’s own station to serve the many tourists that come to visit. There is a short tourist train across it as well as the opportunity to walk across. I did both, on the walk i stopped to have a chat with a
Cake Lady on the Bridge on the River Kwai – i need a new t-shirt!
lovely Canadian lady. We took each others pictures on the bridge and i narrowly avoided dropping my camera through the perfect sized hole into the river Kwai! She quickly moved away after that and wrapped her camera strap around her wrist. Queen klutz cake lady strikes again! My pretty Leica now has a big dent in the side from her acrobatics, it’s a wonder she still works at all these days.
I popped into the Jeath museum which is just on the riverbank by the bridge, it’s not very expensive, only 20 baht. The museum itself has some interesting artefacts related to Thai history and some very badly kept military vehicles, and artefacts from the second world war.
The Jeath & Thai history muesum from the far side of the bridge
(think flat tyres and dust galore) But keep clamouring up the several levels of the building and you eventually come to the roof top where you can get a great shot of the bridge in all it’s glory.
It was an emotional afternoon so i was ready to retreat back to Xanadu for some home cooked food a fragrant and spicy chicken curry followed by ice-cream and shed loads of tonic water in the vain hope that the quinine will stop me from being bitten by mosquitos. Nothing seems to stop the blighters and i have a bad reaction every time, with anti histamines only having a mild affect.
Kanchanaburi was a random addition to my list of places to explore in Thailand, but i am so glad that i did. It was
View of the bridge from the Jeath museum
incredibly enriching, i learnt a lot about the UK as well as the people and landscapes of Thailand and the surrounding countries. Much of it is focused around the storytelling about the events and consequences of second world war and how it has left it’s mark on the area.
A tired and pensive cake lady, signing off for some much needed rest, Ciao! x x x
