We took a break from bustling Bangkok to visit the River Kwai (actually, the two rivers Khwae Noi and Khwae Yai) a couple of hundred kilometers west of Bangkok in Kanchanaburi province. We would certainly recommend the elements of the trip, but not necessarily the tour company itself, which we christened ‘Haphazard Tours’.
After seeing many plush tour buses passing the hotel, we had high hopes as we waited in the lobby, so we were a little surprised at the clapped-out old jalopy that collected us, complete with cracked windows, rust patches and exterior panels apparently held together with glue. After finding a non-broken seat, we settled in for a rather bumpy ride to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery and nearby museum, via a few additional collection stops. The museum was well laid out, but obviously a very sombre visit, and the cemetery, with British, Australian and Dutch graves, was deeply moving, and pleasingly well looked after. We found it very ironic that these memorials and sites of such misery, brutality and death have been turned into tourist attractions, but I suppose that the more people are reminded of what happened, the less the chance of such horror happening again. We hope.
From the cemetery, the coach took us to the bridge, famously but highly inaccurately represented in David Lean’s epic film. The bridge, and the rail line as far as the Nam Tok station are still in use, so we watched as a train slowly traversed the rickety structure. Then, it was back in the bus for a drive to overtake the train and board it for an hour’s ride to Nam Tok. The train ride was part of the tour payment, but our guide gave us the hard sell that we should ‘upgrade’ to the “Special Carriage” for a mere 150 Baht each. That would guarantee us a seat, and a free soft drink, as well as a cushion on the wooden bench. That was about the only upgrade, as the air conditioning was still provided by windows open to the diesel engine fumes. Being in the tourist section, we were also subject to the admirably persistent attentions of a lady selling hats, tee-shirts, postcards and the like.
As our guide’s English was a little fractured (though still far better than our non-existent Thai), we were never really sure exactly what was happening or coming next, but we muddled through, and found another bus to take us to the River Kwai Village Hotel for our night’s stay. In the three-ish star hotel, we were given a room with a balcony (nice), separate twin beds (not so nice) and a toilet that had a habit of gurgling, bubbling and occasionally overflowing (quite unpleasant). We were jealous of an Australian couple who had a king-size bed, until we discovered that they were to be woken at 4am by noise from the kitchens!
After settling in and eating lunch, we hopped into a long-tailed boat for a ride downriver to visit some limestone caves. The boats are an impressive combination of traditional canoe-like design, and a large car or truck engine, driving a propeller at the end of a long pole. Probably hideously unsafe, they bowl along the river at an impressive pace.
We spent the evening chatting to some Australian folks (Ross and Deb, Roger and Margaret and Tan and Sophie), then got a decent night’s sleep before heading off for the morning’s tours. The first stop was Hellfire Pass, a railway cutting manually dug through the mountainside over a period of twelve weeks by prisoners of war – an experience nightmarish even by the standards of the ‘Death Railway‘. It was uncomfortable viewing, but again moving, and we were glad to have been able to see it.
After that, we needed a lighter interlude, provided by a visit to an elephant camp, where we boarded our pachyderm steeds, and had an hour’s amble through the jungle. We were initially somewhat alarmed to discover that our mahout was a very small looking ten year old boy, but he and the elephant seemed to know what they were doing, and we had great fun. We’ll admit to being a little worried when the lad volunteered to take our photo, and hopped off the elephant with our camera. After a few snaps, the elephant hoisted him back aboard on his trunk, and we later discovered that he’d taken better photos than we had!
After feeding our trusty mount with 20 Baht’s worth of bananas, and ourselves with a box lunch, we had a drift downriver on a bamboo (and steel pontoon) where the more brave (and probably Typhoid-innoculated) travellers had a swim, then we dashed back to the hotel to find our familiar rusty bus waiting to take us back to the smog of the city.
