Kelly and Quang's Global Roam

When I think about World War II, I don't think about Thailand. Maybe I should.

We went on a full-day tour to the town of Kanchanaburi which is two hours northwest of Bangkok. Kanchanaburi is the site of The Bridge Over the River Kwai, a railway bridge ordered by the Japanese in 1942 and constructed by prisoners of war and enslaved locals. The bridge completed a railway that connected Thailand to Burma (now Myanmar). The Japanese planned to use the railway to further their conquest of Asia.

Nearly 16,000 POWs (British, Australian and others) and 10,000 Asian laborors died in the construction of the bridge, which the British then bombed numerous times. Each time the bridge was bombed, the Japanese sent workers to fix it immediately. The story of the bridge inspired first a book, then an Academy Award-winning movie.

Our tour started at 7 a.m. and ended at 8 p.m. It was a VERY LONG DAY which included a stop at a war memorial cemetery, a bizzare and dusty war museum, the bridge itself (which was a bit scary to walk across), an elephant ride, a float down the river on a bamboo raft, a stop at a waterfall and a train ride.

When we climbed in the tour van this morning, we had no idea our day was going to be so action packed. We'd been in a rush when we signed up for the River Kwai tour. We knew we were going to the bridge and Quang had seen a picture of people riding elephants on the flyer, so we knew about that, but everything else was a surprise.

The elephant ride was neat, but fairly unremarkable. We didn't go very far or cover really interesting terrain. The coolest part was watching the driver steer the elephant. He did so by kicking or leaning on the elephant behind the ear - sort of like pulling the reigns on a horse.