In 2016, Add A Trip To New Death Railway Museum To Your Stay In Yangon

Expected to open next April, the new museum is being built at the site of the World War II-era Death Railway in Thanbyuzayat Township in Mawlamyine District. Thanbyuzayat is around 120 km from the Thai border town of Mae Sot in Tak province and 370 km from Yangon.

It’s possible to travel from Yangon to the port of Moulmein, which is 65 km from Thanbyuzayat, by both rail and road. By rail the journey is about 12 hours and by road six to seven hours.

As the main international gateway to Myanmar, Yangon along with longhaul flights is served by regional air links from cities like Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Singapore and Hong Kong. A stay in Yangon is a chance to visit stunning pagodas and temples, museums, bustling markets and picturesque parks and lakes. Accommodation-wise the choice ranges from budget to three star to luxury five star properties, including some of the finest historic hotels in Southeast Asia.

One such grand dame is The Strand Yangon, built in the early 1900s and which is today one of the most iconic five star hotels in Yangon. Truly among the grand colonial hotels in Asia, The Strand Yangon, and indeed other historical Yangon hotels, enjoy a prestigious reputation, exuding as they do the charms of a bygone era with the mod-cons and comforts of today.

Belmond Governor’s Residence is a romantic, colonial-style mansion dating from the 1920s, while The Savoy is among the leading boutique hotels in Yangon, offering guests the feel of staying in a colonial mansion.

Myanmar media reported the Death Railway Museum in Thanbyuzayat will showcase historic photos connected with the railway, paintings and sculptures and 3D images of the daily life of prisoners of war who died during the construction of the infamous railway. Silicon statues of Japanese soldiers and prisoners of war will also be part of the museum displays, as well as a coal-fired C-0522 railway engine which was used on the Death Railway.

At present there is a memorial in town where the railway ended, complete with a stretch of train track and an original locomotive.

During its World War II occupation, the Japanese army forced tens of thousands of prisoners of war from Britain, America, the Netherlands and Australia as well as conscripted Asian labour to construct a railway connecting Thailand’s Kanchanaburi to Thanbyuzayat. Approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died during the construction of the 415 km railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma (Myanmar).

At Thanbyuzayat War Cemetery, there are more than 3,000 Commonwealth and over 600 Dutch burials of World War II. The cemetery is one of three at which are graves of those who died during the railway’s construction and maintenance (except for the Americans, whose remains were repatriated), the other two being Chungkai and Kanchanaburi in Thailand.

The Death Railway Museum in Thanbyuzayat will be similar in design and content to the Death Railway museums in Kanchanaburi which, along with the HellFire Pass section of the railway, a memorial park and the war cemeteries, attract thousands of international visitors every year.