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Published: March 26th 2009
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Hard to find the time to write and don’t want to rub it in but at the moment we are on the edge of the Mekong River having a beer and preparing to head in to Laos.
Thailand hasn’t been as we expected so we weren’t sure what to expect from our trip to Kanchanaburi but it was a great surprise to us all. In truth we probably should have done a little more research and planning for Thailand and I did expect it to be more English speaking than it actually has been. However we are so pleased that we decided to head up to Kanchanaburi. Mitchy had heard of the Bridge On the River Kwai from the 1950’s movie and I thought that I just hadn’t been concentrating when this part of our history was taught at school but now realise that we weren’t taught about this at all. I had heard of the Tiger Temple which is nearby the town as well.
Kanchanaburi is a town of about 65 000, really picturesque, and quiet enough in the daytime for us to take to our bikes again, three to each one, I think Grace has post
traumatic bicycle stress!
We cycled to the Bridge on our first morning, only a couple of km’s from our guest house and Mitchy gave us a crash history class. The bridge is the second one built over the river in the early 1940’s, the wooden one that was originally built has since disappeared. While the iron one (apparently stolen from Java in pieces) was bombed by the Allied Forces in 1945, it was rejoined and the rebuilt portion is obvious as it is very different in design. The bridge remains functioning but in between trains you can walk across. As you can imagine no safety barriers here, a guard with a whistle alerts you to step onto the platforms at intervals across the bridge and a firm hand keep anyone smaller than you from taking a plunge into the river.
The bridge was built by POW’s from Australia, New Zealand, Holland and the British Empire who were held by the Japanese Army as well as Asian men conscripted by the Japanese. Mitchy read that the Japanese were unable to get Asian men to sign up so they put on ‘free movies’ and then took all of the men
who turned up to watch and conscripted them. The bridge was built to connect Thailand (Siam) to Myanmar (Burma) by railway for supply of goods and so that they could make an assault on India. Conditions at the camps were horrendous and of the 61 000 POW’s held to work on the railway 16 000 died, of the 200 000 Asian men around 100 000 also died. Starvation and disease were the major killers and torture was common. Weary Dunlop was one of the surgeons at the camp who did amazing work and saved the lives of many. The medical ingenuity was amazing with broken bottles turned upside down and rubber tubing attached for IV flask and thorns from what I think was a bamboo plant used as cannula and needles.
The setting of the bridge is beautiful and as we have felt before there is a strange sense of tranquility where once there was such horror.
After the Bridge we headed to the Allied War Cemetry which is beautifully kept and has grave stones of many of the Allied Force servicemen.
We also went to the Thailand Burma Railway Centre to get some
of the history and detail on the railway, it is a very new air conditioned place but Finn and Olivia both found this a little overwhelming, we aren’t sure why maybe the dimmed light or the sound of the movie that was playing, but Grace and Mitchy found it pretty interesting while the rest of us sat in the cool foyer.
We also went to the Jeath museum at the other end of town the next morning and this was more informative for the younger kids, it is in a hut built as the accommodation buildings were at the camps, with pictures, news clippings, letters and photos of what life was like in the camps and on the railways. The sign at the front door says ‘forgive but don’t forget’. How easy it would be to forgive for those who were subject to life at the camps I am not sure.
We spent the afternoon at the Tiger Temple after lots of discussion about this excursion. If the aim was to get up close to these amazing animals it definitely was achieved and the debate best left for another time. The Temple was set up by Buddist monks
in 1999 as a refuge centre but is now known for the tigers. Apparently as the tigers (many were pets) are handled by the monks and are nocturnal they are very docile in the afternoons. The kids loved the experience, Mac was off to pat them like a shot. We were also able to see a leopard, water buffalo. boar, camel as well as goats and cows. I think the kids were nearly as excited by smashing pumpkins for the cows as they were about the tigers!
Kanchanaburi has lots of floating restaurants and floating discos which apparently become very busy and loud at the weekends, we had twenty four hours of very loud modern Thai music playing near our guesthouse, why I am not sure, but were a little way away from the town centre so didn’t hear the discos.
We did take a walk at night along the walking street (a heritage street, not quite the same as walking street in Pattaya) which was gorgeous, the architecture is a bit different to what we have seen and there were some beautiful old timber buildings. They have a street market there at night which was great.
In between trying to see as much in two days as we could we swam at the guesthouse and the kids played with the guest house baby frog population which was another of their highlights.
We got to Bangkok the next morning by minivan and then took a bus to Khorat. It was the first day of a festival so we were there for their big street parade and then watched a huge fireworks display from our hotel. We were expecting Khorat not to be that nice from what we had read but were pleasantly surprised and it was a good place for a night stop over before our six hour trip to Nong Khai where we are now.
We are staying at the Mut Mee Guest House which is right on the banks of the river and a very laid back place, the children have been playing with some French Canadian girls who are similar in age to our three oldest and are having a great time.
If crossing into Thailand by land now you can only get a fourteen day visa which makes travel a bit tricky so we have only had the day to
have a bike ride about in the rain and then a dinner cruise on the Mekong and then its into Laos tomorrow. We have heard such good things about Laos from everyone we meet who has been there that we are really looking forward to it. At the moment we plan to go from Vientiane (the capital) to Vang Vieng (tubing) and then to Luang Prabang which apparently people never want to leave, then its over the border to Chang Mai and decisions on where to next…
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The Murchisons
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Tigerland
Having seen the photos of your children with those beautiful tigers, Will was wondering when we can go to Tigerland and was very impressed that there is a whole country named after them!