On Sunday after a short singing and sharing time we were back on the bus to go to the World War II Museum. It was so interesting to learn about the war from this side of the world! If I got my facts straight the Japanese occupied Thailand and then used many POWs and civilians to build a railroad line from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma (415K) long to carry supplies into Burma. Their goal was to have it help them attack India.
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| A "prison" for POWs |
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| "Flat Stanley" joined us on our trip...the bridge over the River Kwai is in the background |
The museum was right next to the Bridge on the River Kwai. You may have seen the 1957 movie about it, but it is not very historically accurate! I learned many things like...
The river wasn't named "Kwai." The river that ran along a lot of the railway was the River Kwae but the bridge never went over it. After the movie made this area famous the Thais decided to rename the river so that people wouldn't be confused. It is now known as River Kwae Yai (big) and the original is River Kwae Noi (small).
The bridge was bombed by the air not on the ground. I could write more, but this isn't a history book, so I shall stop!
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| A friend, a roommate, and a student on the bridge with me. |
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Holding up the bridge :) The round truss spans are original,
but the angular ones are replacements |
After the museum and walking on the bridge we went to the train station to ride some of the rails :) There is only about 130k of working railroad left- so we road on that section- right over the famous bridge!
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| We thought that this might be the train we were going to ride :) |
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| There were some scary parts and you could just stick your head right out... |
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| A few fans but it was a pretty hot ride on hard seats for about 2 hours |
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| People watching as we went by... |
More about my trip soon....
ooh, cool! my dad likes that movie--I'll have to get him to read this post!
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