The Bridge on the River Kwai

Map from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:W.wolny

In the course of planning our trip to Thailand, I came across a reference to the Bridge on the River Kwai. I have always been a huge fan of the movie, a 1957 British-American World War II film directed by David Lean and starring Alec Guinness and William Holden, which achieved near-universal critical acclaim, winning seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture). The movie depicts, mostly fictionally, the construction of a bridge over the 'River Kwai', part of the Death Railway. Since the bridge is located in the Thai town of Kanchanaburi, about an hour and a half drive northwest of Bangkok, we planned a day trip to see it. 

In 1942, Japanese forces invaded Burma from Thailand and seized the colony from British control. A railway route between Thailand and Burma had been surveyed by the British government of Burma at the beginning of the 20th century, but the proposed course of the line – through hilly jungle terrain divided by many rivers – was considered too difficult to complete.

But the Japanese army needed a route to support improved communications, and provide supplies and troops for the war effort in Burma – a route less vulnerable to allied attack. As a result, the infamous Death Railway, also known as the Burma-Siam Railway, a Japanese project, was begun in June 1942 and built by Commonwealth, American and Dutch prisoners of war, as well as involuntary Asian labour. Two labour forces, one based in Thailand and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre. 

The River Kwai and a glimpse of the terrain through which the Death Railway was built.

POW's had to cut through rock using primitive tools. The above cut is several kilometres west of the Bridge.

Along the Death Railway, west of Kanchanaburi; similar 

to but much smaller than the Hellfire pass.

Several sections of the railway had to be cut through rock. The most famous was the Hellfire Pass, so called because the sight of emaciated prisoners labouring at night by the light of torches was said to resemble a scene from Hell. This pass was the largest rock cutting on the railway line. It was located in a remote area and prisoners lacked proper construction tools. It took 6 weeks to build the pass. During that time 69 men were beaten to death by Japanese guards and many more died from cholera, dysentery, starvation and exhaustion.






About 180,000 Asian labourers and 60,000 prisoners of war (POWs) worked on the railway. The prisoners lived in squalor with barely a subsistence diet. The men worked from early morning until well after dark and often had to trudge many kilometres from place to place. During its construction, approximately 13,000 POW’s died and were buried along the railway.

Entrance to the cemetery.

 The dead POW’s included: 

 6,318 British soldiers, 

 2,815 Australians, 

 2,490 Dutch, 

 about 356 Americans 

 and a smaller number of Canadians and New Zealanders. 

An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Asian labourers also died during construction, mainly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Thailand and Burma.

The cemetery was meticulously maintained - a beautiful tribute to those 

that lost their lives.

The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery contains the graves of 6,982 personnel:
3,585 members of British units;
1,896 Dutch;
1,362 Australians;
12 members of the Indian Army
two New Zealanders, and one Canadian


There are no Americans: in accordance with the traditions of the US military, the remains of its personnel were repatriated to the United States: 902 died while working on the railway.

After the war the railway was in very poor condition. Over the   years repairs were made and the portion in use today measures about 130 km.

Hollywood made the Bridge on the River Kwai famous. Thousands of tourists thronged to the site, but there was a slight problem. The bridge was built over a stretch of river that was then known as the Mae Khlung.  The author of the original book, Pierre Boulle, had never been to the area. He knew that the Death Railway ran parallel to Thailand’s River Kwae for many miles, and he assumed that the railway crossed the Kwae just north of Kanchanaburi.



                                                                                                                                     



He was wrong, but the quick thinking Thai government, sensing the potential tourist revenues to be had, renamed the river. Since 1960 a portion of the Mae Khlung has been known as Kwae Yai.

The steel bridge was repaired after allied bombing and
is still in use today. 

The steel bridge.

The demolition of the bridge as shown in the film is entirely fictional. Two bridges were, in fact, built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed by Allied bombing. 

                The War Museum from the River. 

There are several Museums in Kanchanaburi that commemorate the war. We went to the Death Railway Museum. It provided an excellent and, at times, moving synopsis of the construction of the Death Railway. I thought this museum acurately described the deplorable conditions endured by the POW's and Asian labourers at the hands of their Japanese task masters.

We toured a portion of the river in a long boat.

View of the bridge from the long boat.

We both enjoyed the tour.

The 'renamed' River Kwai.

Trains still operate on the bridge on the River Kwai.

Thailand Jungle Adventure

The word jungle is derived from the Sanskrit word jangula which means `impenetrable bush'. Most people associate jungle with tropical rain forest. Actually, though, rain forest is not that impenetrable at all. Because of the thick canopy, only two percent of daylight will reach the forest floor, not enough for a lush vegetation to develop. In fact Thailand doesn’t actually have a true “rainforest” due to the fact there is a brief dry period at certain times of the year. 

There are two main types of forest in Thailand, the evergreen forest and the deciduous forest. The evergreen forest is subdivided into the tropical evergreen forest, the pine forest, the mangrove forest and the beach forest. About 28.4 percent of Thailand is covered by forest - a significant decrease since 1945 when just over 60% of the country was forested.  Like most countries of the world, the main cause of deforestation in Thailand is the rapid increase in population.

 There is a gibbon just visible in the centre of this photo.

A cream coloured gibbon swings through the canopy.

 The Government of Thailand is aware of the problem and has encouraged reforestation programs and since 1989, has banned all commercial logging. The government has invested the equivalent of millions in reforestation and preservation activities around the country. The government has recognized that well-planned forest-based activities have the potential for alleviating poverty in rural areas. This concept is usually referred to as community (or social) forestry.






Community forestry centres on the idea of people's participation -- getting local populations to plan and execute their own projects on a self-help basis. One such project, community ecotourism, was initiated in the mountain village of Mae Kampong, about an hour east of Chiang Mai, in 1999. It was developed with assistance from external organizations, in response to the decline of demand for fermented tea production and as an alternative source of income for local villagers.  The ecotourism activities included village sightseeing, cultural shows and homestays.

The tour operators stressed safety.

Due to its terrain, Mae Kampong is surrounded by mainly hill evergreen forest, a sub-group of the tropical evergreen forest. With this type of forest, the area has a high diversity of tree species, plants (like wild orchids) and wild animals, like gibbons. It was near this village that our jungle adventure, the Flight of the Gibbon™, took place.

The national flower of Thailand is orchid. This flower is predominant in all regions of Thailand, and gives a special meaning to the scenery that a traveler encounters in Thailand. There are almost thirty thousand types of orchid in Thailand.

Walking to the starting platform.

We were drawn to the Flight of the Gibbon™ tour because of their stated commitment to minimizing the impact of bringing tourists to the jungle and to encourage the establishment of a stable, healthy, functioning ecosystem. 

The guides were very experienced and made
us feel safe.

There are 2 sky bridges. Crossing these was harder 

than the zip-lining. I felt like I was in Raiders of

the Lost Ark.

 Beginning July, 2008 the ‘Gibbon’ organization contributed to the village’s ‘community ecotourism’ project by working with the local villagers and the forest service to plant trees in a deforested and overused area near the tour site. They created a nursery so they are in a position to sustain and increase the reforestation efforts year after year.

Paul zips to the next platform.  The lines varied in length from under a hundred metres to over a hundred, for a total or over 5 kilometres of zip lines.

I try it. I think I was holding on a little more tightly than most of the

others in our group!

The organization has invested profit and volunteer resources in working with local tribes, the Thai forest service, the APSARA Authority, and Chiang Mai University for forest restoration and rehabilitation.

Paul landing - sometimes a tricky business. Luckily the 'Skyrangers' were there to catch us. There are 33 landing platforms on the course.

There are 2 abseil descents (the controlled descent down using a rope) on the course, like the picture on the left.

It was a long way down.

Gibbons are rare, small, slender, long-armed apes who are arboreal, i.e., they spend most of their lives in trees. They differ from other apes like chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, in their small size and that they do not make nests. They more closely resemble monkeys and also display pair-bonding, unlike most of the great apes.

Gibbons have senses very similar to humans, including hearing, sight,

smell, taste, and touch.

Gibbons are omnivores (eating plants and meat). They forage for food in the forests during the day, eating fruit (which constitutes about 75% of their diet), leaves, flowers, seeds, tree bark, and tender plant shoots. They also eat insects, spiders, bird eggs, and small birds

They drink water, often by dipping a furry hand into the water or rubbing a hand on wet leaves, and then slurping up the water from their fur often while dangling above the water from a thin tree branch.


Gibbons cannot swim and avoid the water. When on the ground (which is rare), they walk on two legs.

Flight of the Gibbon and the Thai government recently cooperated to start the Gibbon Rehabilitation and Release program. Flight of the Gibbon is committed to re-establishing the Gibbon population in its natural habitat. 

They are very nimble while moving in the trees, so almost no predators can catch them,
but they are an endangered species because of the rapid deforestation of their habitats.

The Mae Kampong falls are divided into seven levels. An access trail has been developed to reach all levels of the waterfall.

This time, it was a long way up! Well worth it though - beautiful.