May 28, 2012 Kanchanaburi

This being Memorial Day it was appropriate that Justin and I came to the site of The Bridge Over the River Kwai. I made him whistle the movie tune with me as we walked along the bridge although this is the steel bridge not the wooden one of the movie fame which used to sit 300 meters downstream. This would have been an amazing enough experience. But as we walked back to the town side of the bridge we were told to stay off the upstream side of the bridge. Safety issues? No. They were filming a movie! And suddenly we end up in a turnout and an older white guy with greying hair is walking towards us on the upstream side of the bridge carrying a shoulder bag and a small old suitcase with dated stickers on it for example the old American Airlines stickers. And then he stops at the turnout opposite us and gazes down at the water (or the bridge). He did this repeatedly. I asked the woman with the walkie talkie next to me who the actor was. She wouldn't tell me. She said to google the movie The Railway Man. I texted a friend in Alaska asking her to google it but of course she wasn't awake since it was two or three in the morning there. Hmmm, I thought, he looks familiar. Is he someone famous? I know, he looks like Colin Firth! But the actor was wearing huge thick glasses. And Colin Firth is supposed to be six feet tall and this guy doesn't look six feet tall. At one point he asked the director a question about the action and I could tell he had an English accent. After several walks to the turnout opposite us giving me a chance to see his face better I realized that yes this had to be Colin Firth. I told Justin that I thought it was Colin Firth. A guy with the crew standing behind Justin gave me a look that said "yes it is Colin Firth!" So we watched him walk to the turnout a few more times and then that scene was done. So we walked off the bridge and saw that the crew was setting up for another scene. We stuck around and watched them film Colin walk through a bunch of extras acting like tourists to the point where he walks out to the turnout on the bridge. When that scene was done we went to the restaurant next to the bridge for dinner and got to watch them film another scene where the camera is at the far side of the bridge and Colin walks the length of the bridge towards the camera.