Tiffany has had a strong desire to ride a train on our world tour. The other 4 Adventurers talked her out of the 2 week Trans- Siberian trip across Russia and out of the 1 week trip across Canada. But they relented today with a ride on the so-called Death Railway. We visited a War Cemetary and the Bridge over the river Khwae on Monday so today we took a ride north from the Kanchanaburi station to Namtok on the famous Railway which claimed so many lives during its construction. Our departure station was small and accustomed to tourists so we got lots of help buying our tickets. We don’t think the sleeping dog next to the tracks got on the train, but you never know.
We saw the Bridge on the River Kwai again, this time from inside the train.
We allowed the kids to enjoy the scenery but we did take some time during the 2 hour trip to discuss history and some things about Thai agriculture.
The train trip was lovely. We climbed up into the low mountains and were treated to some spectacular river valley views from hillsides and bridges.
We used the school day to discuss the various crops being grown along the route. For example, this plant is the cassava plant whose roots create tapioca.
Thailand accounts for 60% of worldwide cassava exports so we saw lots of this plant on our train trip. A cassava crop can be grown and harvested in as quickly as 2 months so we saw each stage of planting, growth, and harvesting along the 77 km route to Namtok.
We expect at some point to find ourselves on another train on another continent – perhaps as part of a travel day – but it was quite nice not having to consider luggage on this day trip.
5 Adventures Together 