Sunday, March 18, 2012

Eastern and Oriental Express Part 1 - Thailand

The next part of our holiday was a train ride from Bangkok to Singapore aboard the Eastern & Oriental Express train.  It was totally amazing and I highly encourage anyone who likes train travel to do it.

01 Train

We left from Hualampong Railway Station around 5pm, and settled into our lovely cabin.

 (that's not me - I borrowed this image from the E&O website)

We had dinner late that night, around 9.15pm, but after consuming some snacks and a bottle of champagne in our cabin we really didn't care.  By the way, the dress code for dinner was formal - men were expected to wear a jacket and tie at least.  I had an assortment of dresses with me so that didn't matter.

The next morning we were woken up by our lovely cabin steward at quarter to dawn so we could see the train cross over the trestle viaduct along the River Kwae.  We arrived in the Observation car when it was still dark and consumed some coffee to wake up.

04 Train Viaduct

07 Train Viaduct

Here's the sun rising:
08 Train Sunrise

Our next stop was the Bridge over the River Kwai itself. Our train stopped on the bridge and we all got off:
11 Train on Bridge River Kwai

And then we went on a raft ride down the river, passing under the bridge:
12 Train River Kwai

And down to the museum in Kanchanaburi (sorry, no photos allowed). It was quite fascinating and I had no idea so many people - both prisoners of war and asian workers - died to help the Japanese build this bridge and the Thai-Burma Railway.

We continued our train journey after this stop and crossed over the border into Malaysia early the next morning.

1 comment:

The Army of Four said...

The photo of your train crossing over the trestle made me nervous! All the people leaning out to take a picture -- I'd worry about the train tipping over. LOL!
How historic to cross the Bridge over the River Kwai! I wonder why no photos at the museum?
KZK