Vajiralongkorn Dam (formerly named Khao Laem Dam) is a hydroelectric dam on the river. In case there was any doubt concerning man's savagery to his fellow kind, then the Thai-Burma railway, all 415 kilometres of it, stands as a horrific testament to human brutality. Constructed under order of the Japanese by prisoners of war and enslaved locals during WWII, the Death Railway's most famous section, 'The Bridge Over the River Kwai', now acts as one of Thailand's major tourist attractions. The bridge is located in the small town of Kanchanaburi where the majority of guesthouses back onto the infamous Kwai River.

The bridge is, well, a bridge. The history behind it however is far from ordinary. As the Japanese extended their invasion of Thailand into the West of Burma, their success was hampered by the difficulty in supplying troops with provisions and so a supply line, the railway, was built. The Japanese, using POWs and civilian conscripts, adopted a brutal and barbaric work regime that saw the completion of the railway in one year rather than the three it was estimated to take. These 'speedo' tactics cost the lives of a staggering three hundred thousand men. Apart from the bridge, Kanchanaburi's sites consist of two war museums and cemeteries.