Bridge in the River Kwai
 

Some trivia regarding this famous bridge:

Did you know that there was no bridge over the river Kwai? Yes that's right the bridges ( and yes there were 2 a wooden one and a steel one) that the allied prisoners built actually traversed a different river. The author that wrote the book assumed it crossed the river Kwai as the railway ran along the river and thus he assumed it crossed the river Kwai.
It actually crossed a different river. After many tourists first came to the area looking for that bridge (only the steel one survived the war) and finding that it crossed a different river the Thais- being the very imaginative people that they are- simply renamed the river that the bridge did cross - The Kwai River!

Actually, the middle span of the bridge was destroyed by allied bombing. It was replaced after the war by the Japanese as part of reparations.

Yes the curved sections were brought in from Java and the square sections from Japan as you indicate.

I was luckily not there to witness the building of the bridges, but there are actually 2 rivers at Kanchanaburi that bear almost the same name.

Mae Nam Kwae Noi and Mae Nam Kwae Yai ..... and that is where all the confusing started.

Chang Noi

The Kwae Yai didn't exist until after the movie came out. A section of the Mae Klong river was changed to Kwae Yai so movie fans would have a bridge to see.

I thought they re-named it Kwai Noi - the little Kwai. Anyhow it seems that it is pronounced more like"Kway" as "way" than Kwy as in "Why" - a French mispronunciation?

The author Pierre Boulle was a Frenchman in intelligence during the war and was a POW - I believe he escaped. I don't think the original book was based on a particular location so much as accumulated experience. He spent most of the war in S.E. Asia.

He was a awarded an Oscar for the screenplay and reportedly gave the shortest acceptance speech in Academy history..."Merci" probably because he didn't actually write the screenplay.

Although undoubtedly a great novel and based on his experiences and that of others (he endured 2 years hard labour) it has left in its wake a plethora of misconceptions about the bridge and the behaviour of the Allied officers...as it has been taken a fact rather than the fictitious account it really is.

He also wrote the short sic-fi novel "Planet des Singes" -"Monkey Planet" which became "Planet of the Apes".

Visiting the bridge - and I doubt if any of it is actually the one built by POWs. Ask any local about it and it becomes quickly apparent that they neither know nor care nor give a tinkers cuss about its history.......or possibly some just don't like talking about an unpleasant episode in Thailand's past. - in particular the role of K.Phibun PM and military officer, an open admirer of "ism" - Fascism, nationalism militarism and authoritarianism.

It is rather disconcerting to find the bridge full of families of Japanese tourists admiring the engineering, posing for snapshots and grinning inanely whilst in the background drunken western expats slink around listlessly in much the same way as the POWs expect much fatter.