After last night's antics and falling asleep on a very lumpy pillow, I woke up with a bit of a headache and so slept for a while longer while Matt took a walk to the bridge over the river Kwai and visited a rubbishy museum whihc he said was, 'full of random rubbishy exhibits with no information and photocopied photographs with badly translated hand-written descriptions'.
After lunch, we visited the Thailand-Burma Railway Research Centre down the road. It's curated by an English guy who's spent the last 18 years reasearching and is excellent. We spent a good few hours reading the information and looking at the scales and models. Particularly touching were the few belongings that had been donated by POWs or their families.
Afterwards we took a slow walk around the cemetery which is just outside. It was beautifully maintained with flowers between every stone. It was very emotional to read the few short inscriptions and see the young ages of the soldiers. Most of the soldiers commemmorated at this particular site were British and Dutch and only in their early 20's. The few that were over thirty seemed ancient in comparison. We could have spent longer there but it was already 5pm and so we were politely waved away so they could lock up.
After the gravity of the afternoon, it seems insensitive to mention that we then discovered the best chicken ever, but, having come half way around the world, it's important to note such things when they occur. We also bought a giant grapefruit-shaped thing called a pomelo which was a pain to get into but actually quite nice. The pith was that thick that each segment was like a little individual package of fruit.
We hooked up with Dave in the evening but were very tired after last night and so could barely finish our fruit shake before clearing off to bed for an early night in preparation for an early start
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