Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
JEATH WAR MUSEUM
(Th Wisuttharangsi; admission 30B; 8am-5pm)
The simple Jeath War Museum operates in the
grounds of a local temple and is housed in a re-creation of the long bamboo huts used by
the POWs as shelter. Inside are various photographs, drawings, maps, weapons, paintings
by POWs and other war memorabilia. The acronym Jeath represents the ill-fated meeting
of Japan, England, Australia/America, Thailand and Holland at Kanchanaburi during
WWII.
MUSEUM
CHUNG KAI ALLIED WAR CEMETERY
( 7am-6pm)
F
This less-visited cemetery, where about 1700 graves are kept, is a short
and scenic bike ride from central Kanchanaburi. Take the bridge across the river through
picturesque corn and sugarcane fields until you reach the cemetery on your left.
HISTORICAL SITE
THE DEATH RAILWAY
Kanchanaburi's history includes a brutal cameo (later promoted to starring) role in WWII. The town was home to
a Japanese-run prisoner of war camp, from which Allied soldiers and many others were used to build the notori-
ous Death Railway, linking Bangkok with Burma (now Myanmar). Carving a rail bed out of the 415km stretch of
rugged terrain was a brutally ambitious plan by the Japanese, intended to meet an equally remarkable goal of
providing an alternative supply route for the Japanese conquest of Burma and other countries to the west. Japan-
ese engineers estimated that the task would take five years to complete. But the railway was completed in a mere
14 months, entirely by forced labour that had little access to either machines or nutrition. A Japanese brothel train
inaugurated the line.
Close to 100,000 labourers died as a result of the hard labour, torture or starvation; 13,000 of them were
POWs, mainly from Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the US, while the rest were Asians re-
cruited largely from Burma, Thailand and Malaysia. The POWs' story was chronicled in Pierre Boulle's novel
The Bridge on the River Kwai
and later popularised by the movie of the same name. Many visitors come here
specifically to pay their respects to the fallen POWs at the Allied cemeteries.
The original bridge was used by the Japanese for 20 months before it was bombed by Allied planes in 1945. As
for the railway itself, only the 130km stretch from Bangkok to Nam Tok remains. The rest was either carted off
by Karen and Mon tribespeople for use in the construction of local buildings and bridges, recycled by Thai Rail-
ways or reclaimed by the jungle.
Around Kanchanaburi
HELLFIRE PASS MEMORIAL
(Rte 323; museum admission by donation; grounds 9am-4.30pm, museum to 4pm)
Viewing the bridge and
war museums doesn't quite communicate the immense task of bending the landscape with
MUSEUM
