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In 1942, The Empire of Japan invaded Burma from neighbouring Thailand, which they already occupied, and seized control of the country from the British. In order to maintain control of Burma they needed to deliver troops and supplies to the country and the only existing way to do that was by sea, along the coast of Thailand and up the west coast of Malaysia to Burma. The route was long and very exposed to attack by the allies and a new method of transport was needed. The British government, when in charge of Burma, had considered building a railway linking Burma and Thailand but had decided that the course of the route, through hilly jungle and over several rivers, was too difficult. They estimated that construction would take five years and shelved the project.
In June 1942, under Japanese rule, construction started in Burma and Thailand using forced labour from captured allied soldiers and imprisoned Asian locals. Conditions were appalling with prisoners forced to work 16 hours a day in the scorching heat with only two meals a day and no medical assistance. Torture and beatings were often issued by the Japanese captors for little or no reason and the
project soon became known as the "Death Railway". During the course of the construction 90,000 of the 180,000 Asian workers and 16,000 of the 60,000 allied prisoners lost their lives. In August 1943, only 14 months later, the two construction camps met at Nieke in Thailand and the 415km stretch of railway was completed. It was opened for use shortly afterwards on October 25th 1943.
The most famous part of the railway is Bridge 277 which spans the River Kwai and was a critical point for the transport of supplies to Burma. The bridge is the subject of the multi award winning film "Bridge Over the River Kwai" but, according to various reviews I have read (I've shamefully not seen it yet!) the conditions depicted in the film don't even get close to those actually experienced by the labourers. The allies made several attempts to destroy the bridge during the war, damaging it on several raids before finally destroying it on April 2nd 1945. It was rebuilt after the war and still stands today.
After escaping from the wat in Chiang Mai, we got a coach down to Bangkok with fellow meditators Hayley and Lauren and had a
couple of nights in Bangkok with them including a few drinks at a bar created from an old petrol station forecourt. Disappointingly, petrol is not considered as an ingredient for the cocktails. The girls then went down to the islands in the south of Thailand and we booked ourselves on a tour to Kanchanaburi, the town in central Thailand that contains the bridge.
First we were taken to the largest cemetery of allied prisoners that worked on the bridge, a beautiful area in the centre of Kanchanaburi that is the resting place of 6,982 POWs. Of these, most are British, Australian and Dutch with a smaller number of Canadians and New Zealanders and also over 300 unknowns. We wandered through the headstones in the very scenic cemetery and read some of the inscriptions and monuments. After half an hour we were then driven to the JEATH musuem which stands for Japan, England, Australia, Thailand and Holland. The musuem is well intentioned but poorly maintained and we only walked around for a few minutes before leaving and walking the short distance to the bridge.
The bridge is actually more attractive than we had expected and stretches across a picturesque
part of the river. We walked over it and sat on the bank for a while watching all of the other tourists doing the same before meeting up with our tour driver again.
The driver then took us for lunch at a restaurant about an hour away, near our next sightseeing spot, Sai Yok Noi waterfall. After lunch we drove the few minutes to Sai Yok Noi and were greeted by a gorgeous waterfall that is popular with locals and tourists alike. However, as we arrived at around 1pm we seemed to coincide with peak visiting hour. The grounds were packed which distracted from the stunning waterfall a little but we were still glad we went.
After the waterfall we were driven to the starting point of what remains of the Thai section of the Death Railway at Nam Tok and boarded the old fashioned, windowless train. The journey was beautiful and wound through the hills of rural Thailand on its way back to Kanchanaburi with the River Kwai running alongside for much of the way. At various points the tracks were elevated high above the rocks to avoid various obstacles and it was fascinating to see where
the thousands of prisoners worked on the railway. After an hour on the train we pulled into a station where we were met by our driver who took us back to Bangkok which is where we are now.
Tonight we are catching an overnight coach out of Thailand and into Laos and its capital, Vientiane. Laos promises to be an interesting place to visit and we are looking forward to seeing a new country. Laos is one of the poorest nations in the world, as well as having one of the few remaining official communist governments. The infrastructure does not appear to be particularly developed with no railways, a basic road structure and limited internal and external communications so if our blogs become a little infrequent, don't worry, we're probably just having problems finding an internet connection! It has apparantely retained much of the colonial French influence so you can hopefully expect to read about all of the delicious French-Asian food that we will be sampling.
Hope to be in contact soon!
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Steve(Dad)
non-member comment
Congratulations
Hello you two, Thanks for the phone call Amy, sorry I was out at that moment. Biggest hugs for you both, really pleased with your news. I've been bursting since the Christmas Ball!!!!! Love to both. Steve