As of yesterday (Thursday). See here. Just a heads up for anyone planning to travel here.
This is the first-ever train service between the two countries. In fact, it’s the first train service anywhere inside Laos. They don’t even have a train of their own! It will be Thai trains making the journey. Fom Nong Khai in our Northeast to Thanaleng, near the Lao capital of Vientiane, only 3-1/2 kilometers.
Laos now joins Malaysia as the only two of Thailand’s four immediate neighbors connected to us by rail.
It’s still there, and trains cross it regulary, but they don’t go into Burma. As a matter of fact the bridge is quite some distance from the border.
As an interesting piece of trivia… the bridge wasn’t built over the Kwai river, the japanese built it across the Mae Klong river. The book and movie got the name mixed up and when tourists started to arrive looking for a bridge along the river Kwai and finding zip, the Thai government pulled a fast one and swaped the names of the rivers to appease the mob. I guess it’s easier than moving the bridge around… :dubious:
Correct. And it’s not even pronounced “kwai,” which is the word for water buffalo. The actual pronunciation is “Khwae,” which is exactly like “Quack” without the “ck.”
The bridge did get blown up toward the end of WWII, but by aerial bombing, not by any Alec Guinness character. And there was no William Holden character; the only person ever to escape successfully from there was a Brit, and he never returned.
To this day, POW survivors of that time gather nearby once a year. They’re awfully wrinkly now. A handful settled in the nearby town, which contains a couple of memorial cemeteries where the men who died in those hellish conditions are buried. It’s quite a pleasant little town, too.
