Kanchanaburi

I've had a busy few days, or a lot of traveling at least.  I went to Kanchanaburi for the weekend, one of the cities on the Death Railway, and home to the bridge over the river Kwai.

I found a guy on the street who was selling bus tickets.  I thought the trip was going to be in a minibus the whole way but I ended up switching to a larger bus about halfway there which meant that I got dropped off at the bus station instead of in the area where the guesthouses are.  I think it was fate because on my walk I discovered a great little homestay on a side street which I never would've known about otherwise.  It's run by a really sweet Thai couple who speak very good English.  They seemed quite surprised to see me.  Actually everyone on the block did, apparently they don't get many foreigners.

Kanchanaburi was really interesting.  I went on a walk my first day and discovered a Chinese cemetery and a temple / fitness complex where I found a group playing cricket.

The Death Railway museum was very informative and is attached to a project that is researching all of the soldiers who died.  One of the other women in the museum ran a search for her uncle and was able to find information on where he was working and what he was doing before he died.

The museum and cemetery were moving, especially when I walked through the cemetery reading all of the names and ages of those buried there.  Most were only in their 20's.

I visited the bridge over the river Kwai, although the bridge is actually not the original bridge, as that was destroyed by Allied bombing.  Nor is it the bridge from the movie, that one was built nearby and is now completely gone.  Even more surprising is that Kwai is not even the name of the river.  The river is actually called Mae Klong but this section was name Khwae Yai, to sound more like the movie.  

There are two cemeteries in Kanchanaburi, the main one in town, and then a second one across the river and a few km away.  The hospital used to be right nearby and the cemetery was so large they didn't want to move it.  After the war, bodies were exhumed from the many smaller cemeteries and moved into these two.

On my last day in Kanchanaburi the couple that I was staying with had their son drive me to the bus station, but on the way he took me to see a muay thai camp and beautiful Chinese and Thai temples.