A Bridge To History (And a Funny Museum)

The ticket to Kanchanaburi cost 62 baht, and that was with Air-Condition and VDO, which I didn't find out until I got on the bus. I always tried to get the cheapest bus, without luxuries like that, but it was fun to travel "bus-iness class" for once. There even was an uhm... trip attendant, a woman in a nice uniform walking around in the bus, providing the passengers with small bottles of water, wet, minted napkins and a tiny piece of chocolate. We also were treated to a video screening of "Savage" dubbed in Thai, but with all the sex and violence of the original. The Thai mothers had a tough job keeping their childrens' heads turned away from the screen.

I arrived in Kanchanaburi late in the evening, and started looking for a place to stay. There were several huts for rent, standing on poles in the middle of the river Kwai. It sounds very nice, and it kinda is too, apart from the rats that keep swimming around and making noises just below your feet. Actually, that's easier to get used to than the party boat. Thanks to a steady flow of tourists who want to see the famous bridge over the river Kwai from WWII, it is possible for some clever business person to run a floating dance floor, complete with a bandstand, loud speakers and a bar, in Kanchanaburi. This boat floats up and down the river, picking up and letting off tourists here and there. It's kinda fascinating for a few minutes, but not really appreciated by those who try to get some sleep. Anyway, I found a hut where, the owner claimed, the party boat wouldn't come anywhere close to, and paid 100 baht per night there. Cozy.

There are a few important things to remember when one is to go see the Bridge. Most important: Go really, really early, somewhere between 6am and 7am is the best, as the tourists buses don't roll into the parking lot until about 7:30am. The Bridge area is actually kinda nice in this single morning hour, really quiet, with the locals setting up their souvenir shops, some children bathing in the river lazily floating by. But then! All of a sudden the place is transformed into a crowded place, groups of tourists walking up to the Bridge, scratching their heads and wondering why they're really here, before their guide tells them they have to get into the bus again to go on to the next place, or maybe they even get to have a meal in one of the restaurants with a view to the river before they leave. Most of the tourists coming here are not Western, but Asians, which means you can get a good, healthy, cheap meal here.

The Bridge itself isn't very stunning. The only part left from the original WWII bridge is the middle segment. It is possible to walk over to the other side, which is much more quiet than the eastern bank. There's also a train crossing the bridge twice a day, supposedly. The remarkable thing about the Bridge is its history. It was built and rebuilt several times throughout the WWII, and became the symbol of about 400km of railway important to the military campaign in the country. Some 120.000 men died while participating in the building of the railway, of these 16.000 were prisoners of war.

You can learn all about this incredible part of history by visiting the nearby museums, if you've got a developed critical sense. The museums are not very good, you see. But DEFINITELY worth a visit. While certainly telling a sad story, they also can be quite an hilarious experience. There are some real-life-sized dolls depicting the prisoners of war in there, and they look really, really starved and desperate. Now, if you're there all alone, and noone can see you, try taking a look under the loinclothes of these dummies. Now THAT's what I call impressive equipment. But the fun is not over yet!

On a wall, all the major men from both the good and the bad guys' side are represented with a portrait and a comment summing up the roles they played in the War. Here's some of what they have to say about Albert Einstein: "The first atomic bomb weighing only 1400 kilograms was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in WWII on August 7 1945. Almost the entire town was destroyed in a Jiffy!... ... The second atomic domd was dropped on Nagasaki on the following day. This city had the population of almost 80.000 inhabitants, all of whom were dead." And about Adolf Hitler: "In 1933 Hitler came into power as a Dictator in Germany, and laid down a program to exterminate the jews by expelling them from Germany, because he considered that the jews are the economic bloodsuckers of Germany." Not quite historically correct, and certainly not correct English. Oh well.

On the second floor of the very same museum portraits of all Miss Thailands since the early 30's can be found. There's also a tiny collection of rocks and gems there. That is, the only signs of the gems are the signs saying their names. I'm not sure how they disappeared from behind two layers of thick glass. Who cares, anyway? It's an interesting museum experience for those who think they've seen all kinds of museums twice already. If you're going to Kanchanaburi to get an impression of the total meaninglessness of war, try the War Cemetary. It really wiped off my grins originating from the museum, and I spent a long time there, walking from stone to stone, reading the inscriptions on the (mainly) Australian, Kiwi, British and Dutch graves there.

So, having seen the sights, I started figuring out how to get out of Kanchanaburi. I was planning on going south, ideally by train. Hence, I went to the train station. They had never heard about any trains going south. "All train go Bangkok!" Oh well, I thought, and went to the bus station. Surprisingly, all buses seemed to go to Bangkok as well. Besides, the south was flooded, so there was no point in going there. Anyway, once again I had to go to Bangkok to get anywhere, hopefully for the last time for a while. I just spent a day watching my clothes dry after wash before heading south.