Kanchanaburi War Cemetery (Don Rak)

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery - Don Rak - lies on the main road through the town and is the principal Allied cemetery of the Burma Railway. It holds close to seven thousand graves, most of them prisoners of war who died building the line in 1943, and it is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

The layout is the standard Commonwealth form, and that is the source of its effect: flat bronze plaques set in mown grass, laid in long straight rows under frangipani trees, each recording a name, an age and a date. The ages are what most visitors notice. A stone of remembrance stands on the central axis.

A second and much smaller cemetery, Chungkai, sits across the river a few kilometres west and is quieter still. The two are distinct, which matters when navigating - a search for the war cemetery will as readily return Chungkai, or the separate Chinese memorial nearby.