24 May 2008 - The Death Railway

20th May

The bus came to pick us up at 8am, we were lucky as there was only 4 of us on the tour, Dan, myself and two other English girls.

Our first stop was a small waterfall, which was nice but not overly special...we have seen quite a few now so they have to be pretty impressive to beat the ones we have already seen!!

Next stop was the hot springs, although i think boiling is nearer to the truth!! It was a nice experience although you couldn't spend too long in there especially as the temperature outside the pools was at least mid thirties!! We had about an hour here and luckily there was a cold stream running next to the pool so we were able to cool off!! As we left they presented us with a plate sporting a picture of ourselves stuck in the middle. I have to say i looked hideous and they couldn't understand why i didn't want to buy it when it was only 100 baht!! A concept that they don't grasp over here is that it doesn't matter how cheap something is if your not interested in buying it in the first place!!

Lunch was provided next which wasn't bad, then we headed over to hellfire pass and the museum. Hellfire pass is part of the Thai-Burmese railway which was built during the second world war. The Japanese used prisoners of war and Asian slaves to build it...its over 400km and only took 20 months to build. I think they estimated over 100,000 men and women died making the railway and so it is know as death railway. It is the same railway that runs over the world famous river kwai bridge.

Needless to say this was interesting and informative but also pretty grim. After we had been in the museum we were led down to a part of the railway called hellfire pass...named that by the POW's as that is what it resembled as they worked during the night. As we got down to it the rain came...and lots of it!! Luckily we had been given umbrellas so we didn't get to wet!

Next we got to ride on the death railway, they still have some of the track which is used today. It was a beautiful place where we got onto it, the view was awesome with the mountains all around and the river running alongside the track some of which was suspended in the air on wooden bridges.

Last stop was the bridge over the river kwai, we had a great day and were pretty tired by the end of it. This was the busiest day we had had in a long time!!