Bridge over the River Kwai

The theme letter for our ‪‎travel pics this week is T, for Thailand.

For Friday, it’s the Bridge over the River Kwai. But not the only one.

In the famous film of the same name, a structure is destroyed at a place called Tha Ma Kham, five kilometres from the Thai town of Kanchanaburi.

In fact, there were three bridges built – and both were damaged during the war as was a third, wooden, structure  upstream.

The bridge seen (and destroyed) in the film was actually a movie set, in Sri Lanka where the film was shot – and just to complicate matters, the River Kwai wasn’t the River Kwai in World War Two – it was considered to be part of the Mae Klong. It was renamed in the 1960s, to bring it into line with the book (and movie) – a case of life not only imitating art, but being subsumed by it 🙂

But in any case, this is a genuine Bridge over the River Kwai. You will notice that it has two types of trusses – the rounded ones, which are original, and the square ones – built post-war using Japanese war reparations funds.