It took some time to escape Bangkok’s traffic but once out of the city we had open roads for the 2h journey to Kanchanburi.

Stop 1 was the Death Railway Museum, which provided an excellent history of the horrors of the building of the Thailand – Burma railroad; made famous in the movie “Bridge Over The River Kwai”. Over 15,000 POW and 100,000 civilians perished during its construction and destruction. One interesting fact is the last bombing raid in June 1945 which brought down the central portion of the steel bridge and 2 sections of the nearby wooden bridge was piloted by a young lad from Vancouver!

Next door was a beautiful and moving cemetery for the remains of 6,800 British & Dutch soldiers on land donated by the Thai government and near to a former POW Base Camp.

Stop 3 was our first visit to the actual railway itself. The central part has been rebuilt after being bombed in the war but the arched portions date back to 1942-43 and we were able to walk its span across and back.

Our 2 little vans then hurtled northwest for an hour past sugar plantations and sharp, jagged hills to our lunch stop before boarding the old train for the 45min trip back (Stop 4 &5).

The train traveled what they call the Death Railway as there’s a sheer cliffface the prisoners had to smooth out, a long trestle to build, and as this was before the dam was built, flooding that came up over the railroad ergo resulting in many deaths.

We disembarked just after the trestle (rebuilt) and were able to walk back over it to a viewpoint. The man 2 in front of me froze in fear at one point and had to be cajoled to slowly continue!

Back in the van for another hour to Stop #6, the dock to catch our longboat to our floating hotel!

We each have our own gorgeous floating bungalow that’s massive including an outdoor shower, private multi-level deck complete with loungers and swing. The river seems to be in full flood so it’s rather noisy as it rushes past and the constant parade of longboats sets us all a-rockin’. Hopefully things will quieten down at night.