Uttamanusorn Bridge ( th, สะพานอุตตมานุสรณ์; ) or commonly known as Mon Bridge (; mnw, ဒဒန်ဆု) and Wooden Mon Bridge () is a
wooden
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin tha ...
footbridge
A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a ...
in
Tambon
''Tambon'' ( th, ตำบล, ) is a local governmental unit in Thailand. Below district (''amphoe'') and province (''changwat''), they form the third administrative subdivision level. there were 7,255 tambons, not including the 180 ''khwaeng'' ...
Nong Lu,
Sangkhla Buri District, northwest of
Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. It spans the
Songaria River.
Uttamanusorn Bridge is the longest wooden bridge in Thailand and is the second longest in the world after the
Mandalay
Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census).
Mandalay was fo ...
's
U Bein Bridge
U Bein Bridge ( my, ဦးပိန် တံတား) is a crossing that spans the Taungthaman Lake near Amarapura in Myanmar. The bridge was built around 1850 and is believed to be the oldest and (once) longest teakwood bridge in the world. ...
in
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
. Its total length is .
It is named in honor of
Luangpho Uttama, a
Mon monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...
who was an abbot of
Wat Wang Wiwekaram. He initiated the construction of this bridge in 1986 with local Mon workers. The bridge was completed the following year.
Uttamanusorn Bridge is considered a landmark and is one of the notable attractions of Kanchanaburi, as well as River Kwai Bridge and
Death Railway
The Burma Railway, also known as the Siam–Burma Railway, Thai–Burma Railway and similar names, or as the Death Railway, is a railway between Ban Pong, Thailand and Thanbyuzayat, Burma (now called Myanmar). It was built from 1940 to 1943 ...
,
Sai Yok Noi Waterfall, and
Three Pagodas Pass
Three Pagodas Pass ( Phlone ; my, ဘုရားသုံးဆူ တောင်ကြားလမ်း, ''Paya Thon Zu Taung Za Lang'', ; th, ด่านเจดีย์สามองค์, , ) is a pass in the Tenasserim Hills on the ...
.
Locals walk across the bridge to make merit by giving food to monks, a daily routine.
In mid-2013, the bridge was destroyed by heavy rains and
flash flooding
A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions. It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe thunderstorm, hurricane, or tropical storm, or by meltwater from ice or snow flowing o ...
flowing from
Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary
The Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary ( th, เขตรักษาพันธุ์สัตว์ป่าทุ่งใหญ่นเรศวร, ) is a protected area in Thailand in the northern part of Kanchanaburi Province and the ...
. It was restored in 2014.
References
External links
*
{{commonscat, Mon Bridge, Sangkhlaburi
category:Bridges completed in 1987
category:Bridges in Thailand
1987 establishments in Thailand
Tourist attractions in Kanchanaburi province
category:Wooden bridges