The Bridge on the River Kwai

That after noon we went to The Bridge on the River Kwai. During WWII the Japanese occupied most of South East Asia and to expedite getting supplies to troops they built a railway. In order to get it done faster they used allied POWs and Asian slave laborers to build it. The results were devastating as 16,000 POWs and 100,000 civilians lost their lives due to malnutrition, exhaustion and mistreatment. The railway was eventually nicknamed "The Railway of Death". This is one of the trains that was used on the "Death Railway" between Burma (now Myanmar) and Siam (now Thailand).

This cemetery is a memorial for the thousands of people that lost their lives building the "Death Railway".

The bridge in the background is the famous "Bridge on the River Kwai". There were actually two bridges that allied POWs built and this is one of them. Both were continuously bombed to stop the Japanese movements but also caused additional friendly casualties due to fratricide.

This is a picture of us prior to walking across the famous bridge. There is a very popular 1957 movie detailing this time in history that won tons of awards. If you have the time I highly recommend picking up a copy.

And what to our wondering eyes did we see...but a momma and baby elephant on the other side of the river. As you can see, with Ana's hands over her ears she wasn't too happy about getting that close to feed them.

And here we are on our way back across. It was quite surreal being on this bridge with all of it's history. Yet another checkmark in the 1,000 places to see before you die.