The Bridge on the "Kwai...." Mae Khlung

There is a small technical problem with the Bridge on the River Kwai:  It crosses a river all right, but not the River Kwai!  Pierre Boulle, who wrote the original book, had never been there.  He knew that the 'death railway' ran parallel to the River Kwae for many miles, and assumed that it was the Kwae which it crossed just North of Kanchanaburi.  He was wrong - It actually crosses the Mae Khlung.  When David Lean's blockbuster came out, the Thais faced something of a problem.  Thousands of tourists flocked to see the bridge over the River Kwae, and they hadn't got one, all they had was a bridge over the Mae Khlung.  So, with admirable lateral thinking, they renamed the river.  The Mae Khlung is now the Kwae Yai ('Big Kwae') for several miles north of the confluence with the Kwae Noi ('Little Kwae'), including the bit under the bridge.

The Bridge is about 5 km from the centre of Kanchanaburi.  By all means wait for one of the three daily passenger trains, all of which call at the River Kwae Bridge station, but it's best to take a cycle rickshaw.  The Bridge is now surrounded on the Kanchanaburi side by a museum, cafes, shops and a couple of steam locomotives on static display.  You're free to walk across the bridge on the wooden planks, but remember to stand aside for the passenger trains when one comes along.  If this sounds foolhardy, remember that there is a 10 km/h speed restriction for trains across the bridge, and they all hoot like mad!

There were actually two bridges here, both built by prisoners of war - The first (wooden) bridge was completed in February 1943, superseded a few months later by the steel bridge which you see today.  The curved steel bridge spans are original, and were brought from Java by the Japanese.  However, the two straight-sided spans come from Japan, and were installed after the war to replace spans destroyed by allied bombing in 1945.