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My First Visit to Kanchanaburi


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Done the Kwai trip 3 times and thoroughly enjoyed it both times were overnight stays up there and then down to do the Temples in Bangkok for the last night. Hell fire pass is a good walk and informative gets its name from the 24 hrs a day labour on it, at night the men striking the steel bars to cut through the rock caused sparks like fire. I would really love to have a nice big comfortable super scooter to travel through Thailand seeing such sites.

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Thanks for your comments.

As a cautionary note, a place I would avoid is the Tiger Temple. Besides allegations of cruelty, a tourist was attacked just a few months ago.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2407513/Student-19-mauled-400lb-tiger-Thailand-popular-tourist-attraction.html

I can't believe they allow this place to remain open, but if anyone chooses to go I suggest after feeding time.

Edited by RhinoTusk
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I have been there and saw no problem but I did hear of that attack on the woman although I thought it was an English student who was a volunteer at the monastery. There was a tv documentary done about the place also. Yes I agree as with any wild animal there are dangers but the papers as usual done the super horror story! Other than selling the news papers I cant see the reason why as I don't suppose compensation is in the Asian dictionary! I actually took my turn with others leading the tiger back to its compound at the end of the day on a chain with a monk from a quarry type place where it had been lying. There were lots of domestic animals roaming about with no apparent desire from the tigers to help themselves to a free meal.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I believe the hotel owns the soapy massage next door, so as far as I know there is no joiner. My room had double beds, which were Thai size (barely large enough for me) and the mattress was as hard as any I've slept on. But the room was large and good value for 1100. My room was in the back of the hotel, otherwise I would have had difficulty sleeping because of the band in the Niteclub. For my next visit, I want to be more adventurous and try a room over the river.

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I've visited war cemetries in Belgium, France and Crete but this one in Thailand had the most profound affect on me because unlike the other cemetries in Europe those boys who lie beneath the gravestones were not killed in combat. As prisoners of war they were worked to death, denied basic medicines, health treatment and enough food and in some cases simply shot or beaten to death. They were allowed to die or murdered. The oppressive heat was also a factor that could be related to, it was bad enough for us to cope with on holiday let alone having to perform hard manual labour in such temperatures.

 

I grew up after WW2 and us kids idolised our elders who'd fought in the 2 World Wars and remember ex soldiers saying that while those that had fought the Germans they did not hate them like did the ones did that fought the Japanese. I had a few old chums who'd been POWs in Germany and both said they had been treated reasonably and the vast majority of the POWs of the Germans got to survive the war and return home. Just over half of those in the Jap camps had the same good fortune, the two I knew would not even talk about their experiences and we soon learned not to ask any questions of them. The Asian prisoners of the Japs fared even worse.

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I have spent the past 10 years visiting Kanchan., and have attended ANZAC Day Dawn Service at Hellfire Pass each year, followed by the main service in the main Cemetery. If you want great accommodation, but at a sensible price, stay at the Pong Phen Guesthouse (Google it). I always stay there, and it is right in the middle of the night action. First time I visited Kanchan I stayed at the River Kwai Hotel but then discovered Pong Phen.

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