The plan

My plan for today was to take a train ride to Kanchanaburi: a town in west Thailand known for the Death Railway, built during World War II. This town features the Death Railway Bridge (the subject of the film “The Bridge on the River Kwai”), the JEATH War Museum which honors the prisoners of war who died building said bridge, and the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery where thousands of Allied soldiers are buried.

This is not what ended up happening.

The journey out

I made it to Bangkok’s Thonburi train station this morning with plenty of time to buy a ticket and wait to board the 7:50am train toward Kanchanaburi.

While I was waiting for the train, I got to know Mike and Kyle: a Californian recent-retiree and his (maybe 11 year-old?) son. These two became my train companions for the two-and-a-half-hour journey west. They had been backpacking around the world for the last month with two more weeks to go, and were planning to spend the night in Kanchanaburi. Kyle’s backpack was the same size that he was, though he wouldn’t think of complaining about its weight; and Mike bought the three of us tons of mystery foods from the vendors walking up and down the train aisles over the course of the trip. We ate hard-boiled quail eggs that we peeled and then dipped in vinegar; mango dipped in a spicy/salty/sweet mix; noodles; eggs with sticky rice; and rambutan fruit.

When we were approaching Kanchanaburi, we started discussing which stop we planned to get off at. Mike hadn’t done any research and didn’t know that there was more than one stop, but I remembered reading that there was a Kanchanaburi town stop, another before the famous bridge, and one on the other side of the river. Two Australian girls came over during this conversation because they wanted to confer with some English-speaking folk about the train stops. They had read the same thing as I had, so while Mike and Kyle got off of the train before the bridge, the three of us were going to wait to get off on the far side of the river. After all, we had all read that only two trains cross this historic bridge each day, and it would be a shame not to be on board!

…

The train didn’t stop on the other side of the river.

And further west we go

I joined Ashley and Amber (the two Australian ladies on break from uni who were destined to become my travel companions for the next chunk of the day), and we pulled out our phones to look at the train schedule. By consulting the schedule and then confirming what we had read with a very sweet Thai family nearby, we discovered that the next stop that we could get off at and then buy tickets to get back on going the other direction was at Tham Krasae Bridge Station: another hour and fifteen minutes away!

So we decided that we’d sit and enjoy the train ride! Anyway, half the reason for today’s day-trip was to see the countryside by train, so no harm done.

The views out the train window from this point on were simply stunning. We saw herds of cows and oxen, rice fields being worked in, lush forests, endless banana trees, and the silhouettes of mountains in the distance.

Then, as we approached Tham Krasae Bridge, that same Thai family encouraged us to look out the train’s left window, because the river views were supposed to be incredible. And that they were!

Tham Krasae Bridge

When we disembarked from the train around noon, the three of us were quite hungry. Luckily (and much to my surprise), there was a restaurant steps away from the train stop with perfect river and railway views. We sat down at the table with the best view and each ordered the cheapest thing on the menu: chicken or pork pad thai. This was served with lime, salt, and a very hot pepper flake blend, and it turned out to be beyond delicious.

We then asked about getting a taxi to Kanchanaburi, but all the people in the restaurant worked together to communicate to us that the train is the only way to get there.

We had some time to kill before the 1:36pm train (the only train that would be able to get me back to Bangkok today!), and so we decided to investigate why we saw groups of people walking out along the railway tracks that were suspended along the side of the mountain above the river. We followed these people along the tracks until we came to a cave in the side of the mountain, which was filled with smoke and the scent of incense due to it also being the site of an active shrine featuring a golden Buddha. People came to this beautiful site to pray.

I did some quick Googling and discovered that the POWs who built this section of the railway as forced labor in 1943 used this cave as a spot to rest. This section of the Death Railway was apparently one of the most difficult and dangerous to construct, and its construction was somehow squeezed into a single year.

Not only was this area beautiful, but I still saw and learned about the same history that I wanted to discover by going to Kanchanaburi.

Back to Bangkok

Ashley, Amber, and I bought some cold bottles of water and prepared to hop on the train with plenty of time to spare. Those two must have eaten something funny the day before and weren’t feeling their best, so we didn’t want to take any extra risks in terms of the foods and drinks available at the train station.

We hopped aboard the train and enjoyed the scenery together for the first hour of the ride back. It began to rain just as we boarded, so the sights seemed quite different on this leg of the journey.

Ashley and Amber hopped off the train at the River Kwai Station to check out the JEATH Museum before catching a bus to Chiang Mai (where we plan to meet up in a couple of days), and I went on back towards Bangkok.

A Chinatown evening

When I got back to the hostel, a couple staying there whom I had met the previous evening – Sabrina and Justin – saw me and invited me for a couple of drinks and a night out to explore Bangkok’s Chinatown. We ate our way through this neighborhood, stopping at street carts for pork buns, patonggo (again, Michelin starred!), duck, and more!

On the way back to the hostel, Justin was adventurous enough to try a skewer of crocodile from Khao San Road Market.

Then, after a very long day, I was ready for a shower and some sleep!