On our final morning in Kanchanaburi the children and I had breakfast and then walked to the famous railway bridge to find it bustling with people. Admittedly this weekend is an official Thai holiday so that would increase the number of tourists but even given that life was out and about in force. Stalls were packed with souvenir hats, t-shirts and patterned trousers, there were plenty of portions of barbecued chicken and sticky rice to be had along with fruit smoothie sellers aplenty. Tourists, mostly Thai, swarmed around the bridge enjoying walking back and forth as well as taking copious photos on the tracks, in front of a waiting train and of, whenever possible, three little Lawrences.
Simply because it was fun to do so the children dashed over the bridge again running after the slow moving train, but not before, this time Rupert, had sat on my shoulders and given out as many high-fives to passengers on the train as possible. Thank goodness Edwin didn't want to sit on my shoulders.
On the walk back across the bridge we stopped and listened to a violin busker whose enthusiasm was probably greater than his talent, but he greeted us like long lost friends and took time to cheerfully point out shrapnel, bullet and small armaments damage to the mighty bridge.
Before heading back to our hotel and booked minivan to Bangkok we sat under the bridge and ate barbecued chicken and sticky rice for lunch, a favourite. And on leaving the bridge I was struck by this thought: there are clearly still many relationships between Thai people and the Japanese that need to be healed and rebuilt and this may take another generation but despite the thousands of deaths that took place in its construction there is a very real sense of life, and dare I say, renewal, around The Bridge that can only bode well for the future.