Kanchanaburi is Thailand's fourth largest province. Kanchanaburi covers some 19,486 square kilometres, and borders Myanmar (Burma) to the west .

Kanchanaburi is the site of the world-famous Bridge Over The River Kwai, immortalized in books and movies, and is noted for rugged natural beauty where mountains and river valleys have inspired development of hydroelectric power and where labyrinthine dam reservoirs provide further scenic elements to the province's natural beauty.

Beyond the compact provincial capital, some 130 kilometres, and a comfortable two-hour drive, from Bangkok, where the Kwai Yai and the Kwai Noi rivers unite to form the Mae Klong River, Kanchanaburi unfolds in progressively arresting scenic beauty in a landscape characterized by several waterfalls, caves once inhabited by Neolithic man, national parks and tranquil riverine and reservoir settings.

Opportunities abound for bucolic living aboard rafts on dazzling rivers and reservoirs, and provide the focal point for memorable holidays for nature lovers who delight in natural surroundings and pleasures without sacrificing basic comforts.

The provincial capital is a relatively new town, dating merely from 1831. Major tourism attractions are inextricably connected with the Second World War, and more specifically, the years 1942 through 1945.

Bridge Over The River Kwai

Internationally famous, thanks to several motion pictures and books, the black iron bridge was brought from Java by the Japanese army and reassembled under Japanese supervision by Allied prisoner-of-war laborers as part of the 'Death Railway' linking Thailand with Burma. Still in use today, the bridge was the target of frequent Allied bombing raids during 1945, and was rebuilt after the war ended. The curved spans of the bridge are the original sections. The bridge, which spans the Kwai Yai river some 4 kilometres northwest of the Tourism Authority of Thailand's Kanchanaburi office on Saeng Chuto Road, is the focal point of a riverside area of restaurants, souvenir, handicraft and jewellery shops.

Second World War-vintage steam locomotives, and a peculiar hybrid road/railcar from the same era comprise a small Railway Museum on the bridge's eastern approach.

Japanese War Memorial This occupies a small plot of riverside land just south of the bridge.

Pavilion Rim Kwai Resort