Thailand (Lonely Planet, 13th Edition) - China Williams [164]
WWII Museum
One of the most bizarre sites around, this museum (admission 40B; 8am-6.30pm) has to be admired simply for squeezing so many randomly connected things into one place.
The museum is divided into two buildings. Along the front of the smaller building are life-size sculptures of figures connected with WWII, including Churchill, Hitler, Hirohito and Einstein. Inside is a display of Japanese wagons used to transport prisoners, old photographs and unconvincing waxwork models of POWs. Notes about the area’s history are painted on the walls, but the translations sometimes go badly awry, with unfortunate and unintentionally comic results. One sign about the victims of an Allied bombing raid reads: ‘the bodies lay higgledy-piggledy beneath the bridge’. Another says simply: ‘England was pushed into the sea by Dunkirk’.
The larger building resembles a Chinese temple and is far more opulent, or garish, depending on your viewpoint. Inside there are displays of ancient Thai weaponry and colourful portraits of each Thai king.
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WHY BRIDGE THE RIVER KHWAE?
The construction of what is known today as the ’Death Railway’ was an astonishing feat of engineering. However, the prisoners and conscripted workers who toiled day and night to build it paid a terrible price. More than 100,000 labourers died due to the extreme conditions and the brutality of their captors.
The railway was built during the Japanese occupation of Thailand (1942–43) in WWII. Its strategic objective was to link 415km of rugged terrain between Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) in order to secure an alternative supply route for the Japanese conquest of other west Asian countries. Some considered the project impossible but the track was completed despite a lack of equipment and appalling conditions.
Construction of the railway began on 16 September 1942 at existing stations at Thanbyuzayat in Myanmar and Nong Pladuk (Ban Pong) in Thailand. Japanese engineers estimated it would take five years to link Thailand and Burma by rail. In reality, the Japanese army forced the POWs to complete the 1m-gauge railway in just 16 months. Much of the work was done by hand with simple tools used to build bridges and carve cuttings into the sides of the mountains. Most bridges were made from timber, which allowed some POWs to attempt sabotage by placing termite nests nearby.
As the Japanese demand for faster construction grew, so conditions worsened. The meagre rice supplies were often laced with kerosene, a by-product of Allied bombing raids over rice stocks. Cholera, malaria and dysentery were rife, and Japanese guards employed barbaric punishments for anyone who stepped out of line.
The rails were finally joined 37km south of Three Pagodas Pass; a Japanese brothel train inaugurated the line.
The bridge that spans Mae Nam Khwae Yai near Kanchanaburi was in use for a mere 20 months before the Allies bombed it in 1945. Rather than a supply line, the route quickly became an escape for Japanese troops. After the war the British took control of the railway on the Burmese side of the border and ripped up 4km of the tracks leading to Three Pagodas Pass for fear of the route being used by Karen separatists.
On the Thai side, the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) assumed control and continues to operate trains on 130km of the original track between Nong Pladuk, south of Kanchanaburi, to Nam Tok. Click here for information about riding this historic route.
Approximately 40km of the railway is now submerged under the Khao Laem Dam, while the remaining track on either side of the dam was dismantled. Hellfire Pass (Konyu Cutting), one of the most demanding construction points, can be seen today at the Hellfire Pass Memorial (Click here).
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The museum is south of the Death Railway Bridge.
JEATH WAR MUSEUM
This simple but poignant museum (Th Wisuttharangsi; admission 30B; 8.30am-6pm) resembles the basic, cramped bamboo-atap huts in which POWs were kept. Newspaper cuttings and sketches offer