We rented bicycles to ride around Sukhotai Historical Park which is now a World Heritage Site. The city of Sukhothai (meaning Dawn of Happiness) was the original capital of Thailand's first kingdom and is believed by many to represent the golden age of Thai civilization. Then we had a home-cooked picnic before our 6 hour road trip to Kanchanaburi.
Dec. 31 - Kanchanaburi (golden city) is most infamous for the death railway that was constructed during WWII using prisoners of war and Asian labor.
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| trishaw |
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| Kanchanaburi War Cementery |
We took trishaws to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetry and walked through that before going to the Death Railway Museum (Thailand-Burma Railway Center) to learn more about what happened in this area during WWII. Unfortunately Hellfire Pass Memorial was closed.
Basically, the story goes that the British were the first to survey the track lines but decided it would be too difficult to build. During WWII, the Japanese wanted to establish a supply route to Myanmar and India; as the route along the river was covered by thick forest, the Japanese thought it would be better protected. The allies only bombed the railway in two places. The track is 415 km long with about 263 km in Thailand. Around 100,000 Asian laborers and 16, 000 POW died during the construction.
We then waited 2.5 hours for our 2 hour train ride along the historic tracks through the area and over the 2 famous bridges over the Kwai River. After a late lunch, we had the opportunity to walk over the metal bridge.
Since it was New Years Eve, we bought some booze and just hung out together having a great time. We went down to the river (where we could see the bridge we had walked over) and some other people had some small fireworks and had the Chinese lanterns which we set off another for the new year!
It was a great way to end 2011 and begin 2012!
We rented bicycles to ride around Sukhotai Historical Park which is now a World Heritage Site. The city of Sukhothai (meaning Dawn of Happiness) was the original capital of Thailand's first kingdom and is believed by many to represent the golden age of Thai civilization. Then we had a home-cooked picnic before our 6 hour road trip to Kanchanaburi.
Basically, the story goes that the British were the first to survey the track lines but decided it would be too difficult to build. During WWII, the Japanese wanted to establish a supply route to Myanmar and India; as the route along the river was covered by thick forest, the Japanese thought it would be better protected. The allies only bombed the railway in two places. The track is 415 km long with about 263 km in Thailand. Around 100,000 Asian laborers and 16, 000 POW died during the construction.
We then waited 2.5 hours for our 2 hour train ride along the historic tracks through the area and over the 2 famous bridges over the Kwai River. After a late lunch, we had the opportunity to walk over the metal bridge. 
It was a great way to end 2011 and begin 2012!
1 comment:
Hi Jill,
How do you get to Kanchanaburi from Sukothai?
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