Death Railway, Thailand

The Death Railway, Thailand - darkometer rating : 3 - The actual railway line in Thailand (and Burma) that Japan infamously had built by forced labourers, including western POW s, during WWII . The stretch from Bangkok to Nam Tok is still in use today and you can ride regular passenger trains all the way, with the Bridge over the River Kwai and especially Wang Pho viaduct forming the highlights. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: the construction of the Death Railway by forced labour is one of the best-known atrocities of WWII in the Far East. Imperial Japan had occupied much of a huge area between the Pacific and India , including Singapore and what today is Indonesia . Here, thousands of western POW s fell into their hands. Japan had not signed up to the Geneva convention which, amongst many other provisions, prohibited using POWs in war-related construction projects. So they made use of those captured Dutch, Australian, British and American POWs. One of the most ambitious construction projects was a new railway, cut through the jungle, to connect existing railway lines in allied Thailand with ones in occupied Burma (today's Myanmar), a supply route for expansions further west (into India ). So from summer 1942 work began on the railway, under increasingly inhumane conditions. Not only was the treatment of the POWs brutal, rations were so low as to be close to starvation rations. Work was hard, sanitation minimal to say the least (esp. in the muddy rainy season). On top of that came tropical diseases. The whole situation was a hell on earth, with ulcer infested prisoners starved to mere walking skeletons having to toil away for 13 or 14 hours a day.