Introduction
A simple, black iron bridge that spans the River Kwai at Kanchanaburi has become one of Thailand's most visited locations, an evocative symbol of wartime brutality and remembrance.
Many thousands of prisoners of war died at the hands of the Japanese during their enforced labours building the notorious Thailand-Burma railway - sometimes known as the ‘death railway' - of which the bridge was a focal section.
The story has been recounted in several books, as well as the Oscar-winning film The Bridge on the River Kwai, and a number of museums and memorials can be visited in and around Kanchanaburi.
