About kanchanaburi
Best known as the site of the bridge on the river Kwai, this quiet town is also a great hub for exploring the lush jungle scenery that surrounds it.
Despite the incredibly beautiful scenery of Kanchanaburi, foreigners know it best as the site where many thousands of Allied prisoners of war and Asian forced laborers died building the Death Railway for the Japanese Imperial Army in WWII.
The railway, including Hellfire Pass and the River Kwai Bridge, still stand as testimony to those dark times. Details of the conflict are on display at the JEATH Museum.
Graves of the POWs who died on the railway project are well tended in Kanchanaburi and Chung Kai Allied War Cemeteries; the former is not far from the bridge. Remembrance services are conducted here every April 25. The bridge itself is a major tourist attraction; you can walk across it or ride the train that takes sightseers along what remains of the railway. In early December, the town puts on a light and sound show depicting the Allies bombing of the bridge in 1945.
