Kanchanaburi

Drive 3 hours from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi. In 1942 Kanchanaburi was under Japanese control. It was here that Asian forced laborers and Allied POWs, building the infamous Burma Railway, constructed a bridge, an event fictionalized in the films The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Return from the River Kwai (1989) and The Railway Man (2013). Almost half of the prisoners working on the project died from disease, maltreatment, or accidents. There were four POW camps in or near the city, including Tamarkan which was used as a work camp to construct the bridge. After the completion of the railway line, most prisoners were concentrated in the Kanchanaburi area and often sent on to Japan or French Indo-China.

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

Drive 3 hours from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi and the first stop The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery (known locally as the Don-Rak War Cemetery is the main prisoner of war (POW) cemetery for victims of Japanese imprisonment while building the Burma Railway. It is on the main road, Saeng Chuto Road, through the town of Kanchanaburi, Thailand, adjacent to an older Chinese cemetery. The cemetery contains 6,982 graves of British, Australian, and Dutch prisoners of war of which 6,858 have been identified.