Travel Talk

Bridge Over the River Kwai,World War II & JEATH War Musem, Kanchanaburi, Thailand

The Bridge Over the River Kwai in Kanchanaburi Thailand

Greetings,

Spent the day visiting the famous bridge over the River Kwai but spent the majority of my time in the World War II & JEATH War Museum. What started as a leisurely jaunt to visit the bridge lead to a very interesting experience.

JEATH is the acronym for the nations who had the largest involvement in the building of the railway which is also called the “Death Railway”. It was constructed under the control of the Japanese by many nations, mainly: English, Australian, Thai and Holland. It also had POW’s from countless other countries including but not limited to: Cambodia, Burma, United States etc…

I spent hours there and one section had life like statues of the major players with detailed write-ups. I read them all, they include: Churchill, Stalin, Einstein, Truman, Hitler, Mussolini etc… The original bridge which took 1 year to complete with POW slave labor. It was later bombed and they have the last remains of it, in the museum. In fact I believe the museum was built around it.

original rail bridge over the river kwai  - death railway

The JEATH War Museum costs 40baht and is about a ~1km walk from many of the most popular guest houses in Kanchanaburi. It was a very enriching experience, if you come to Kanchanaburi, don’t just walk the new bridge, spend some time in the museum.

There was also a section dedicated to other wars fought in Thailand over the ages, I did not take any photos inside as I thought it would be poor taste. They have signs on the door asking full courtesy to the souls of the dead. I do have some photos from the outside though.

Kanchanaburi, Thailand War Museum JEATH

Tonight, I will eat an obscene amount of street food and check out a bar called “1 More”, supposedly the owner is a golf fanatic, seems like my kinda place to hang out for an hour or so on a smoldering Saturday night.

This blogs motto holds true “You’ll never know, unless you go”.

Tips hat,

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