It was not by design, or part of our original plan but we ended up Rememberence Sunday travelling on the ''Death Railway", part of the Thailand - Burma railway, that was built during World War 2 by allied Prisoners of War. With around 6,000 British troops being amongst the estimated 100,000 people (American, Australian, Dutch, Malay troops and countless 'coolies' from India and China) who died at the hands of the Japanese it is a sobering journey as you travel from Bangkok towards the River Kwae at Kanchanaburi. This is a three hour journey of over 130km and costs just 100 Thai Baht (or £2.00) each way. You can chose to carry on toward Nam Tok, where the railway now terminates, another two hours north if you wish. The railway itself ceased to link Thailand and Burma shortly after the war with part of the line being decommissioned fairly rapidly, parts of the line now also sit under a massive reservoir born out of flooding the Kwae valley

It is actually quite difficult to comprehend the harsh conditions that the PoWs worked in now the land is cultivated with rice paddy fields, banana plantations, dual carriageway roads and supermarkets. Most of the land was hot, humid, tropical jungle and building the railway, entirely by hand, was an arduous task especially given the poor treatment and lack of food given. In Kanchanaburi you can learn more at a number of museums, we only had time to visit the Death Railway Museum which is opposite the war cemetery and also located close to the railway station. The recently released film 'The Railway Man' starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, based on the real life story of Eric Lomax does portray the cruelty endured by the PoWs very graphically and having seen the film on the flight over to Bangkok this visit was rather poignant and timely.

The bridge itself never actually crossed the Kwae river, the railway followed the river valley for many miles, but at Kanchanaburi they had to rename the river tributary it did cross to the 'Little Kwae' as it flowed into what is now called the 'Big Kwae'. This came about after the 1957 film Bridge on the River Kwai was released and contained this small geographical error that was contained within the book the film was based upon and so the Mae Khlung became Kwae Noi or Little Kwae. I also think 'Bridge on the River Mae Khlung' would not have been quite as snappy a title for the film either! The bridge is also open for tourists to walk across - even with trains running - so without any Personal Track Safety certificate, no Look Out protection, Site Briefing or Working at Heights information you can walk from one end of the bridge to the other - which of course we did.

To be honest we did not really have enough time in the area. We could have visited a number of other museums, we could have travelled north to Hellfire Pass, however our one day provided a real insight into the efforts and losses of the Prisoners of War. It still was however an interesting and thought provoking trip and travelling by train made it all the more so.

The journey to and from Kanchanaburi, in third class, was undoubtedly great value however the time keeping of the services left a lot to be desired. The outward journey did leave pretty much on time from Thonburi station in Bangkok but was nearly an hour late arriving into Kanchanaburi and it appears that even more time was lost as the return service was over ninety minutes late having gone to Nam Tok at the end of the line. That did mean a rather bug infested trip back to Bangkok as the open windows and bright lights did attract a critter or two into the carriage as we eventually arrived two hours late back in the Thai capital with the sun having long set - fortunately the insect repellant spray appears to have done its job!