The Death Railway to Thong Pha Phum

Some days on the road are “great days for names“. Today was such a day for me.

First of all, I left the town of Kanchanaburi over the famous bridge on the so-called River Kwai on something called the Death Railway, built during World War II at the cost of the lives of over 100,000 prisoners of war.

At the railway’s end, I took a bus to a town just because I liked the name: Thong Pha Phum (pronounced “tong pa poom”).

I took the Death Railway to Thong Pha Phum. What’s not to like about a phrase like that!?

The “bridge over River Kwai” may be a historically inaccurate tourist site, but the rail line with the ghastly name really was an amazing engineering achievement, linking Thailand and Myanmar as a supply line for the Japanese war effort. It was finished ahead of schedule, but was mostly used as an escape route for fleeing soldiers when the war turned against Japan.

Actually, while the line’s nickname is cool, the journey is a fairly mundane one, through fields and forests and the occasional little town or, jarringly, big fat tourist resort.

The line is so popular that I had to get an assigned seat, unheard of on cheap Thai trains. The car was packed with Western tourists, most of whom got off at a big resort; only us few hardy souls were left.

The Death Railway ended before Myanmar, at a station called Nam Tok. I was surprised to see a big row of giant air-conditioned tourist buses and a strip of tourist stalls there. I walked around, took photos, bought fresh pineapple from a vendor, and finally asked some local guys loitering near a bus about getting to Thong Pha Phum.

Working out the transportation

A girl emerged from the bus to help me, leading me over to one of the noodle stalls whose owner spoke some English. The noodle lady looked at me and said in halting English, “Motorbike… taxi… Thong Pha Phum… 1,200 baht.”

About forty dollars – 20 times what I was looking to pay. Not what I wanted; a motorbike ride might be fun but I’m a budget traveler and I needed something much cheaper!

I smiled patiently and said, “Bus, bus!” and she said, “Oh, bus!” and pointed to a passing sorngtaaow. (Sorngtaaows are pickup trucks with benches on the back offering very cheap rides in Thailand.) “Ten baht to the bus stop,” said a girl on the sorngtaaow. I hopped on and chatted with some other tourists on their way to see a waterfall. (“Nam tok” means waterfall; there is one nearby but I didn’t get to visit.)

The bus finally came, a school bus-looking old thing with loose screws rattling in their sockets, a lack of leg room, local bored-looking riders, and a driver tugging at the horn chain every two seconds. He wasn’t honking at anything specific, he just seemed to like the noise.

Better than Asian pop music, I guess.

At one point the bus stopped at an “Immigration Checkpoint”, a small shack beside the road. An officer got on and made his way slowly up the aisle. I got my passport ready.

He looked at the IDs of two local-looking girls beside me, then glanced at me and sort of shrugged and continued behind me without looking at my papers.

And that was it. I think he was looking for Burmese refugees, whose travel is restricted.

(Incidentally, on the side of the Immigration hut a sign said, in English, “free Wifi”. Why would the Immigration hut have free wifi? I couldn’t imagine someone hopping out of a vehicle to check their email. And why would they promote it in English? Who knows – just one of those mysteries of travel.)

Thong Pha Phum

Finally we reached Thong Pha Phum, a rather small town with just enough stuff to earn a spot in my Lonely Planet. But in all honesty, it probably shouldn’t have. There was no bus station, just a spot on the road, and the usual few shops and restaurants in rows. I liked it, but can’t imagine why anyone else would stop here.

I walked around but didn’t see the “several guesthouses” mentioned in the LP, so I went into a tourist office in a little complex that seemed to double as an elementary school. Here, on a late Sunday afternoon, they were open and the staff gestured down the street to a hotel called Som Jainuk.

I checked in and relaxed: a day on the Death Railway to Thong Pha Phum successfully completed. You know it’s been a good day when you can say a sentence like that!

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