Thailand and the Bridge on the River Kwai

Like many people, I'd seen the 1957 movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. It's fiction, of course, but based on a real historical event - the use of World War II prisoners to build a bridge on the Burma Railroad during 1942 and 1943.

My image of the story was based solely on the movie. I remembered the inspirational performances by William Holden and Alec Guinness, and the callous treatment of the prisoners at the hands of the Japanese soldiers.

It never occurred to me, however, that I might ever visit the site of the real bridge, which is halfway around the world. That chance came when I went to Bangkok, Thailand as a visiting professor at Ramkhamhaeng University.

The bridge is about four miles from Kanchanaburi, a Thai city about a three-hour drive west-by- northwest of Bangkok. My hotel offered a day-long tour through a local company for 2,200 baht. The young lady at the desk negotiated a lower price of 1,600 baht (about $50).

My van arrived at 6:00 a.m. We spent two hours gathering the tourists together on the same bus before finally making our first stop at nine that morning - the Floating Market, or Damnoen Saduak, about 80 miles from Bangkok.

Most of the market doesn't really float, relying instead on permanent stalls for venders along the local canals. But some still sell from their boats. Others are on the canal banks, and the only way to purchase anything is to reach them by canal boat.

That stop was followed by visits to the Elephant Village (elephant rides, 50 baht) and a stop at the Royal Thai Handicraft Center, where wood carving was the local pride. For me, this part of the tour served mainly to break up the three-hour drive to Kanchanaburi.

We arrived there a little after one, stopping first at the J. R. River Restaurant. The meal was a selection of average, Chinese-style dishes, but it had a great location - on a pier over the river.

Even the locals seem to refer to the river as "Kwai," but its official name is "Khwae Yai." That doesn't matter. It's the real river, and I had an eerie feeling as a scanned the waters and the foliage on the other side.

After lunch, we stopped at the JEATH Museum, built on the site of the POW camp at the center of the bridge's construction. "JEATH" is an acronym for Japan, England, America, Thailand, and Holland - the five countries involved in the story. The open-air, U-shaped museum recounted the horrors of those incarcerated at the camp and their work on the Bridge.

Most of the photos in the exhibits were obviously taken by the Japanese, who didn't seem to appreciate how negatively the shots would make them appear. They were consistently depicted as arrogant captors, dominating starving prisoners.

The displays also included some of the unexploded bombs used to attack the vital transportation route. Other exhibits recounted the construction of the bridge.

Next stop, the Bridge on the River Kwai. There it was - a metal bridge that perfectly fit my idea of what the bridge would be like. And it's close to being the right one.

The wooden original was destroyed by Allied bombs early in World War II. The prisoners' task was to replace that with a steel structure more resistant to Allied bombs. Rather than build it from scratch, the Japanese dismantled a span from another place on the river and had the prisoners rebuild it near the camp.

The current bridge retains much of that original construction, including the major trusses. Other parts were replaced by the Japanese after the war as part of the historical restoration of the bridge.

A walkway alongside the railroad tracks allows tourists to stroll across the bridge. The city also offers a small train where a handful of visitors can ride over the bridge.

I simply took some photos and contemplated what had happened there. The atrocities demonstrated in the movie were bad enough, but the film version was sanitized. The studio didn't feel that movie audiences were ready for the real tortures that the prisoners had to endure.

That point was emphasized when we made our last stop of the day - the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. More than 6,800 Allied soldiers are buried there - 6,000 British, 800 Americans, and a few dozens from Holland and other countries.

All were victims of the conditions and treatment at the hands of their captors. I strolled among the markers, noting that the ages of the victims ranged from the early twenties to the late fifties. These were the real heroes of the film.

By four that afternoon, we loaded up for the return trip to Bangkok. I got back to my hotel room around eight that night.

A long trip? Yes. And for only a few hours of visiting a historic site.

Still, it was worth it. Forget the movie. Go see this place for yourself.