There is so much emphasis on the WWII Pacific Theatre; however, I don't feel like we as Americans put as much emphasis on the atrocities that occurred in Asia as we do on the ones that occurred in Europe. Yes, I can agree that you can't visually see the impact of the WWII here like you can in Germany or in the UK. You don't see shell-shocked buildings or remade stain-glassed windows. Pallavi and I have both done different German concentration camps. Now was our chance to head out to Kanchanaburi, the location of the Bridge Over the River Kwai and of Hellfire Pass.
Less than 2 hours outside of Bangkok, it's hard to believe so many POWs and locals slaved under such extreme and horrible conditions to try to build this Thai-Burma railway. We arrived in Kanchanaburi and walked from our place to the Bridge. We had been told this walk was 3 kms. 5 kms later with a sun about to set, we finally made it to the Bridge. During that 5 km walk, all I could think was that I would never have made it as a POW. This walk seemed difficult and it was 6 p.m. at night. How could I have ever cut through solid rock at 2 p.m., in the sun, on minimal food and sleep (see yesterday's post about starving without energy while just sitting on a train)? Just another reason why I would not make a great Survivor contestant. I might be stubborn as, but I'm a bit precious when it comes to my basic needs.
The Bridge Over the River Kwai is not as big as I thought it'd be. It's not as high above the water. The metal skeleton is not as high. However, as I looked at it, against the setting sun, a Bodhisattva statue peaking over the top of it from a temple on the shore behind it, I felt a profound sense of sadness. This place shouldn't be one of Hollywood style tourism, with people selling things on all sides, and a restaurant overlooking the bridge. At least, it didn't feel that way to me. It should be a place for quiet reflection. There are only a few trains per day, so the bridge is open for you to walk on and across. About halfway across the bridge, the tourists dropped off. We had the entire bridge to ourselves. On the other half of the bridge, it's quiet and serene. It probably has not changed since 1945. We sat for about an hour just looking at the bridge in mostly quiet before deciding to leave.
We knew we didn't want to walk the 5 kms back, so we waited for a mini-bus right in front of an ambulance station. We waited for a good 20 minutes before one of the EMTs asked our destination and told us that the mini-bus didn't run at that time of night. She then called out to another EMT about to drive his Rescue vehicle off and he said he'd take us to the bus station. Rescue rescued us!
The next day we went to Hellfire Pass. If you haven't seen the movie The Railway Man I highly recommend it both as a film and to learn more about Hellfire Pass. Long story short, the Japanese used some odd 60K POWs and 200K locals to cut through the mountain basically by hand (with a bit of help from explosives) on 2 bowls of rice per day, working 18-24 hours per day, to help lay the railway line. Hellfire Pass is one of the biggest mountainsides they cut through. It's called Hellfire Pass both because the high death toil (46%) and for how it looked when lit up at night. After the war, the English dug up some odd kms of track at the end of the line to prevent some other not nice thing from happening, including the track that went through Hellfire Pass. The Australian government has built a memorial museum here as they had the largest POW casualty rate here of any Allied country.
Walking through Hellfire Pass feels like walking with ghosts. To channel Derek from Most Haunted, you feel the residual energy of sadness, lost hope, and desperation throughout the pass. It feels like, if you listen, you can still hear the sounds of men working. As you walk, you pass bits of track, railway ties, and other bits of iron poking out of the cliff where its owner had left it. There are mostly Australian flags tucked in little hand holds in the cliff as tributes to the fallen. As much as POWs 'own' the tragedies of Hellfire Pass, in reality, of the 100K people who died here, POWs made up only 10K of them. 90K locals died! It's unbelievable. As we wrapped up and tried to walk up the 100 stairs to the top of the memorial, again we both recognized that we'd never had made it as POWs. We can't even walk up the nicely made stairs to the top at 4:30 p.m., in the shade, with the sun setting.
Tourism is a funny thing as too much can destroy a place; however, I think everybody who is in Thailand should make the journey to come here. It's an incredibly moving reminder of our past.
Less than 2 hours outside of Bangkok, it's hard to believe so many POWs and locals slaved under such extreme and horrible conditions to try to build this Thai-Burma railway. We arrived in Kanchanaburi and walked from our place to the Bridge. We had been told this walk was 3 kms. 5 kms later with a sun about to set, we finally made it to the Bridge. During that 5 km walk, all I could think was that I would never have made it as a POW. This walk seemed difficult and it was 6 p.m. at night. How could I have ever cut through solid rock at 2 p.m., in the sun, on minimal food and sleep (see yesterday's post about starving without energy while just sitting on a train)? Just another reason why I would not make a great Survivor contestant. I might be stubborn as, but I'm a bit precious when it comes to my basic needs.
The Bridge Over the River Kwai is not as big as I thought it'd be. It's not as high above the water. The metal skeleton is not as high. However, as I looked at it, against the setting sun, a Bodhisattva statue peaking over the top of it from a temple on the shore behind it, I felt a profound sense of sadness. This place shouldn't be one of Hollywood style tourism, with people selling things on all sides, and a restaurant overlooking the bridge. At least, it didn't feel that way to me. It should be a place for quiet reflection. There are only a few trains per day, so the bridge is open for you to walk on and across. About halfway across the bridge, the tourists dropped off. We had the entire bridge to ourselves. On the other half of the bridge, it's quiet and serene. It probably has not changed since 1945. We sat for about an hour just looking at the bridge in mostly quiet before deciding to leave.
We knew we didn't want to walk the 5 kms back, so we waited for a mini-bus right in front of an ambulance station. We waited for a good 20 minutes before one of the EMTs asked our destination and told us that the mini-bus didn't run at that time of night. She then called out to another EMT about to drive his Rescue vehicle off and he said he'd take us to the bus station. Rescue rescued us!
The next day we went to Hellfire Pass. If you haven't seen the movie The Railway Man I highly recommend it both as a film and to learn more about Hellfire Pass. Long story short, the Japanese used some odd 60K POWs and 200K locals to cut through the mountain basically by hand (with a bit of help from explosives) on 2 bowls of rice per day, working 18-24 hours per day, to help lay the railway line. Hellfire Pass is one of the biggest mountainsides they cut through. It's called Hellfire Pass both because the high death toil (46%) and for how it looked when lit up at night. After the war, the English dug up some odd kms of track at the end of the line to prevent some other not nice thing from happening, including the track that went through Hellfire Pass. The Australian government has built a memorial museum here as they had the largest POW casualty rate here of any Allied country.
Walking through Hellfire Pass feels like walking with ghosts. To channel Derek from Most Haunted, you feel the residual energy of sadness, lost hope, and desperation throughout the pass. It feels like, if you listen, you can still hear the sounds of men working. As you walk, you pass bits of track, railway ties, and other bits of iron poking out of the cliff where its owner had left it. There are mostly Australian flags tucked in little hand holds in the cliff as tributes to the fallen. As much as POWs 'own' the tragedies of Hellfire Pass, in reality, of the 100K people who died here, POWs made up only 10K of them. 90K locals died! It's unbelievable. As we wrapped up and tried to walk up the 100 stairs to the top of the memorial, again we both recognized that we'd never had made it as POWs. We can't even walk up the nicely made stairs to the top at 4:30 p.m., in the shade, with the sun setting.
Tourism is a funny thing as too much can destroy a place; however, I think everybody who is in Thailand should make the journey to come here. It's an incredibly moving reminder of our past.
No comments:
Post a Comment