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Published: September 29th 2005
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Or as I prefer to call it, Bridge over the River Kowaii... (if you don't speak Japanese 'kowaii' means scary). Not that the bridge itself was scary mind you, just walking over it was. When our tour van pulled up to the bridge and the JEATH War Museum, the whole area was crawling with tourists. Every one posing and snapping pictures. I had to crawl over people, literally, to get to the bridge. Unfortunately it wasn't anything like I had imagined it would be. The movie had leads you to believe the bridge was made of mostly of wood. Not so. The actual bridge was constructed of heavy steal pylons and concrete. I looked around a bit and joined the masses walking. The whole length of the bridge was clogged with people clutching their bags and cameras with a death grip and concentrating on their footing. One wrong step and you could easily fall down into the river.
The whole time I was there I was really trying to get a feel for what it was like during WWII for all the men in the POW camps there and working day to day building the bridge. But with so many people
Death Railway
Crossing the wooden cliff bridge around and all the urban development it was next to impossible. Not to mention the lack of information posted about it. There were a few signs posted saying that the US had successfully bombed the bridge a few times but it was difficult to tell what parts were original.
The tour I took did less "touring" that I would have liked. At every stop the guides just let us off the van and pointed us in the direction of the museum or monument. We had a few minutes at the Veterans War Cemetery and an overcrowded waterfall.
My favorite stop by far was the little detour I specifically arranged to Hellfire Pass. I only had 40 minutes to tour a museum and preserved park that was designed for half a day. But I managed to scratch the surface of the area and saw the pass in exactly 43! Running, of course, I leaped over stones and flew up and down stairs to reach the pass. Hellfire pass is the portion of the Burma Thailand Death Railway where the prisoners of war had the most difficult time cutting out. More than 80,000 people died building the rail. Using sledgehammers and picks,
Hellfire Pass
Me with in the pass with my self-guided tour recording and rudimentary digging instruments prisoners worked 18 hours a day in order to break through the 100 meter long, 17 meter deep pass. When lit up by fire at night, the prisoners though it looked like the fires from hell, hence the name. It was incredible to walk though. (Or run though, as I did). You could still see some of the drill bits and sleepers from the railroad. The whole time I raced through the pass I was cursing the tour company for not giving me more time.
As it ended up, there weren't any travelers on my overnight potion of the tour. So, I spent a lonely evening the only guest at a river hotel in Kanchanaburi. Actually, I wasn't too lonely as I spent the night with a mouse in the wall and in the shower. I could hear the little thing scratching at the walls and crawling on the tin roof all night. Around 3 AM I awoke to a commotion near the foot of the bed. Whatever it was had knocked over the trash bin and was long gone. I "slept" the rest of the night deep under the covers with all the lights on.
Riding the Rails
On the death railway going from Hellfire pass back to the city The second day of the tour was a bust, as well. Apparently I had done everything on the itinerary on day one. So, the guide brought me along to some of the places I didn't particularly want to go to. And I even got put on the train trip again for a second day. No problem...it was nice being away from the big city for a while. I met a nice older Turkish couple on the train. They were doctors in town for an international conference. It was nice talking to them about their home town over shared fruits and Turkish chewing gum.
On the bus back to Bangkok I met a single British traveler, my age who had backpacked through the Southern US on her own the previous year. I was wondering how one goes about "backpacking" in the states. She simply hopped on a plane to Dallas and rented a car at the airport. A fellow Dolly Parton lover, she drove straight to Dollywood in Tennessee staying at gritty, cheap motels along the way and stopping off at rodeos and truck stops. I found this all very enlightening. I suppose I never really thought too much before about
international travelers touring my part of the US on a whim. Oh, the things I am learning here!
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