Day 4 in Bangkok - Bridge of the River Kwai and Tiger Temple

This was probably our best day in Thailand! Note to self... private tours are WAY better than group and don't over book yourself. In any case today we set out to see the Bridge over the River Kwai and the Tiger Temple. Our first stop was the Kanchanaburi War cemetery where 6,982 POWs were buried who died while working on the railroad. About 700 American POWs were forced to work on the railroad and 356 died however they are buried in the US. Our 2nd stop was an open air museum built by a Japanese soldier.

Some history (taken from http://www.kanchanaburi-info.com/en/muang.html)

In 1943 thousands of Allied Prisoners of War (PoW) and Asian labourers worked on the Death Railway under the imperial Japanese army in order to construct part of the 415 km long Burma-Thailand railway. Most of these men were Australians, Dutch and British and they had been working steadily southwards from Thanbyuzayat (Burma) to link with other PoW on the Thai side of the railway. This railway was intended to move men and supplies to the Burmese front where the Japanese were fighting the British. Japanese army engineers selected the route which traversed deep valleys and hills. The railway line originally ran within 50 meters of the Three Pagodas Pass which marks nowadays the border to Burma. The prisoners lived in squalor with a near starvation diet. They were subjected to captor brutality and thus thousands perished. The men worked from dawn until after dark and often had to trudge many kilometres through the jungle to return to base camp where Allied doctors tended the injured and diseased by many died. After the war the dead were collectively reburied in the War Cemeteries and will remain forever witness to a brutal and tragic ordeal.

Next we road in a long boat to see the bridge from the water. The original bridge was destroyed (more than once). It is still used today. As we were leaving this area there was a man promoting the Thai zoo. We got to hold a baby Cheeta. It was so cool!

After that we drove to have lunch at a local Thai restaurant overlooking the river. Here you can see some original parts of the railroad that are built in wood along side the mountain. There is also a Buddhist temple built into a cave where our guide taught Dani and Elle to pay homage to Budha. After this we had some extra time so we stopped by an elephant sanctuary. We got to feed elephants.

Finally we drove to the Tiger Temple. The Theravada temple is located in the Sayiyok district in Thailand's Kanchanburi province near the border with Mayanmar (Burma).

These last 2 shots are Elle working on a photography project with Dani as her subject.