The original spans
Surviving from the war.
Ninini — Public domain · PumpkinSky — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vincent Teeuwen — CC BY 2.0 · PumpkinSky — CC BY-SA 4.0 · spotter_nl — CC BY 2.0
Kanchanaburi's most famous sight, the bridge immortalised by the celebrated 1957 Hollywood film. It is part of the Death Railway: Between 1942 and 1943 the Japanese army forced some sixty thousand Allied prisoners of war and hundreds of thousands of Asian labourers to build a railway about 415 kilometres long between Thailand and Burma; tens of thousands died of starvation, disease and exhaustion, and it became known as the «Death Railway». The present iron bridge was bombed by Allied aircraft in 1945; its curved spans are the originals surviving from the war, while the straight central sections were added after the war to replace what was destroyed. Visitors walk across from bank to bank, watching for the train that crosses several times a day, with side platforms to step onto as it passes. Walking the bridge is free and always possible. Around it are a small railway station, floating restaurants on the river and souvenir shops, and in late November and early December an annual festival stages a light-and-sound show telling the bridge's story. Come early in the morning before the tour coaches, or just before sunset when the light is loveliest. To understand the full story, visit the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre and the war cemetery in town first.
Surviving from the war.
From bank to bank.
A light show in late November.
North of Kanchanaburi town, on the Khwae Yai River
It is the real bridge that inspired the story, but the film was shot in Sri Lanka with a wooden bridge built for filming, and its plot differs from real history.