Bridge over the River Kwai

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Another history lesson! Back during WWII when Japan occupied most of southeast Asia they decided to build a connecting rail line between Thailand and Burma to provide a better supply route to their troops during the war. Since Japan took over the region they had over 60,000 POWs from Australia, Great Britain, Holland, and the US to use as slave labor to complete this very ambitious project in a rediculously short period of time. They also hired around 200,000 (estimated) Asian laborers (from all over Asia) who were promised good pay and good working conditions, neither of which they got. As a matter of fact, it is estimated that around 90,000 of those asians died in the process, while just over 12,000 of the POWs died, from malnutrition, disease, accidents, and beatings. All these workers were positioned in various camps along the length of the railway, living in really horrible conditions and often working 18 hours a day.

The bridge in the title is in the town of Kanchanaburi, where we are now. It was bombed several times during the last part of the war and eventually destroyed by the US, but they have since built a replica so people have something to take a picture of.

Our first day here we rented bikes to see the sites around town. Mainly this consisted of the railway museum, cemetary, and of course "The Bridge". The museum has a really great presentation of the whole "Death Railway" project, including photographs, recreated scenes of life in the camps, models, artifacts, and a good documentary where they interview a few surviving POWs as well as a couple Japanese that were part of the process. I think we spent 2-3 hours in the museum soaking up information and getting a better understanding of what happened during the building of the railway.

If you want to know more on the subject of the Death Railway, you can watch the movie of the same name as our blog title or there are several good books out there of course.

One of the things we quickly noticed about Kanchanaburi was the ample supply of bars along the main tourist street, mostly empty, but the few customers consisted largely of prostitutues and older western men. We heard that the town had been packed with backpackers just a week earlier but apparently we missed the rush because we only saw a handful of other backpacker types in town. Not that we minded but it was sort of a strange atmosphere. The town itself and the surrounding area is really beautiful with some amazing gardens, flowers, and beautiful lush greenery everywhere.

Today we wanted to get out and explore some of the sites in the surrounding area. The plan was to do it all in one day by renting a motorbike. So we headed out in 115 degree heat on a bike that unfortunately didn't work all that well...it was sluggish and got terrible gas mileage. We went to the Muang Singh Historical Park and saw some old ruins, but not much of them left compared to other places we've been. There was an interesting pre-historic burial site that was discovered there and set up for display. And we got some great views of the River Kwai. Then we headed further north to Hellfire Pass. Hellfire Pass is a section of the death railway where there was a particularly difficult, steep section of rock/mountain to cut through to make way for the railway. When the Japanese suddenly moved up their completion deadline, they forced men to work 18 hour shifts using a hammer and tap method to cut away this big pass. They worked into the night, the area lit up by torches and the shadows of the haggard men against the rockwall with the eerie light led to the name "Hellfire Pass". There is a nice museum there and a walking trail that leads to the pass and further down the railway, although the actual rail has been removed here. The views from the trail are amazing, looking out over forest and to the mountains on the Thai-Burma border, but it's also a very steep, rough area and I can't imagine what these men went through working in the conditions they had. The footage and photos of some of these men was pretty difficult to watch, they looked totally starved with ribs and collarbones sticking out and their heads too big for their bodies, most of them only wearing makeshift loincloths because their clothes had rotted. Really powerful, striking images.

On our ride back, a storm came out of nowhere and we ended up riding (very slowly) in a downpour. We waited out a few minutes of it in a roadside shelter but soon realized we could end up there till dark so we forged on. Suddenly we weren't hot, but covered in goosebumps and shivering (at 80 degrees..)! Luckily it stopped raining a little ways into our journey back so we were able to mostly dry out before reaching town. The only close call was when Trevor was dive-bombed by a very large bug and was almost knocked off the bike, but it all worked out. The whole bike ride was over 190 km and we actually paid more in gas then we did renting the bike, i think it was a little overloaded with power hungry westerners. Next time we're going to rent the big bike like a R7, Harley or something that actually respondes to the throotle movement.

Tomorrow we head out via bus to Lopburi, on our way north to Chiang Mai.

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