Kanchanaburi, Bridge Over the River Kwai

Early the next morning it was time to leave for our overnight stay on the River Kwai and Kanchanaburi. The first stop was one of the Allied cemetaries in Kanchanaburi. Always a moving event. This one contains mostly British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers.

Most tour busses stop at what I call the "fake" museum next to the bridge, mostly for convenience and probably a kickback from admissions. It is a private museum and has the name Jeath in the title which tries to make you think it is the real Jeath which is actually much further downtown. It has a mixed bag of relics. The buildings themselves are actually better than the contents.

A museum visitor.

Old cyclos.

Dioramas of the prisoners who worked on the bridge.

You can easily view the bridge from the museum patio.

A confiscated American jeep used by the Japanese.

Then it was time to go to the Waterfall up the road for a swim.

A nice clump of bamboo.

An old train on the grounds.

You can see my son in law Michael airborne leaping into the water. Barbara is just ahead.

Snacks in town across the road.

And orchids for sale.

Then it was time for a ride on the "Death Train" You can see more photos of this and the pool and museum on last September's blogs.

Approaching the famous trestle.

We stayed overnight and had all our meals at a floating hotel on the river. I had expected the rooms to be rather grungy but they were actually quite ok and the food was fairly good.

The bridge between some of the floating buildings. Each one had a porch with chairs where you could sit and enjoy the river.

My bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet. You flushed the toilet from a big barrel of water provided.

And there was an extra dining area attached to the main buildings.