Advertisement
Published: January 16th 2006
Edit Blog Post
What a refreshing change of scenery! Leafy Kanchanaburi is nested beside craggy limestone mountains and the Mae Nam Khwae (Kwai River). The town is small, peaceful and exudes an unmistakeable khwaam pen thai (thai-ness). Check out our increasing grasp of the thai language - we will be fluent within 3 weeks!
The primary reason to visit here for us was that our brains having been fried down south needed an injection of culture and history. Kanchanaburi is a town with a tragic past as the site of a World War II Prisoner of war camp where we have come to pay our respects to the allied soldiers who died here.
Before the heavy stuff started we took a trip out to Tiger Temple. Although the Lonely Planet advises against it (what do they know), after our successful moped hiring we felt we should push ourselves and visit wild tigers who live in a monestry raised by monks. I think the photos will say it all. We stroked live MASSIVE tigers, played with tiger cubs and thats about it! How cool are we. It has definitely gone on the highlight list for the trip so far. We did not get
eaten, although on the advice of our tour guide andrew changed his out of his orange t-shirt as this is a colour which they may react to (tiger handler speak for make em wanna eat you). Lara was concerend about her flip flops and boxers (which lara style inevitably poke out her shorts because none of her clothes evr fot properly - especially now!) which were orange but as soon as we arrived she was more concerned about not being eaten to even remember her own name. It is not as dangerous as LP suggests and we do not agree that the animals are drugged. It is no zoo though and even though you are led by hand and you cannot drop the tiger handlers hand it is still pretty intimidating when as you are stroking one, the one behind you is pacing and roaring. Put it this way - there is no way it would be allowed back home!
Ok, now for the science bit, concentrate...well history anyway. When the Japanese joined WWII they invaded European colonies in SE Asia and quickly overan the whole area, capturing thousands of Allied POW's. In order to fuel the Japanese war
machine and facilitate the invasion of India it was decided that they would construct a railway linking Bangkok to Burma. This required crossing the mountainous terrain on the Burmese/Thai border. Hundreds and Thousands of POWs and Ramuchees (local men and women and children forcibly recruited) were made to work to build the 415km railway in 20 months BY HAND under horrendous torturous conditions. 12000 allied pows died and over 90000 locals.
We visited Hellfire Pass the longest and deepest cutting of the route. They had a fantastic museum there and we learnt loads. It was really really interesting and humbling. The pows worked day and night to cut through the mountain by hand. We took of our own flip flops and walked along the cutting in the midday heat and the ground was searing hot - impossible. It is amazing that so many people survived. It was really really incredible. Maybe it is the way we have been brought up, or maybe just because we are interested in history but having visited here I would love to have some time with some of the veterans from this aspect of the war. We really do not respect our war heroes
and do not realise exactly what they went through. Having read diaries in this museum and seen pictures of the torture they endured every one of them deserves a lot more respect.
Next we took a ride on Death Railway as its named and travelled along a section of the remaining tracks in a locomotive. It was like the railway children. The trains are archaeic but are used by locals on an everyday basis. The scenery was fantastic and the views accross the valley into the Burmese border were amazing. Finally we visited the bridge on the River Kwai. This in reality is not as impressive as you think and it just a bridge over a muddy river but the whole ambience of the town and what it stands for cannot fail to open your eyes to the atrocities of war and the bravery demonstrated by so many. Kanchanaburi town houses one of the Allied cemeteries. It is immaculately kept and the hoards of visitors make sure that the atrocities of this time will never be forgotten. A really moving day!
We also managed to fit in a visit to a natural hotspring. This was discovered by the
Japs when they took control - not quite sure how you discover a hot spring but it was pretty cool (well hot actually).
Well that pretty much concludes Kanchanaburi, other than a visit to the local hospital to get Lara's chest infection investigated. Much better than back home and some serious drugs later we were off! Time is moving really quickly now. We just dont have enough time to fit in everything which we want to do. We would loved to have stayed longer here - onwards and upwards to Northern Thailand.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0317s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb