A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Kanchanaburi, Thailand

The physical setting of Kanchanaburi is lovely and serene, with winding rivers, thriving rice, sugar cane, tapioca and banana farms, and several impressive national parks nearby featuring the usual combination of waterfalls, caves, and mountains. For the lucky visitor, there are also views of animals including macaques (saw them), porcupines, slow loris (whatever that is), wild elephants, barking deer, hog-nosed miniature bats (also unfortunately saw them) and, according to our guide, tigers.

In rather frightening contrast to all this natural beauty are the numerous historical sites in the area which graphically illustrate man's inhumanity to man. More specifically in this case, the Japanese military's inhumanity to Allied POW's and impressed Asian laborers. Kanchanaburi is the site of the Bridge on the River Kwai, which was a small part of the huge Burma-Thai Railway project executed by forced laborers and their brutal captors between 1942 and 1944. For tragically obvious reasons, this project is commonly known as the "Death Railway" today.

A little background is probably in order at this point. In 1942 the Japanese, currently having already plowed through Malaya, Singapore, and in control of Thailand, conceived a plan to build a railway from Bampong in Thailand to Thanbyuzayat in Burma. The sea-lanes between Singapore and Rangoon were patrolled by allied warships, and a more secure supply was required in order to gain full control of Burma and ultimately India as well. The Japanese didn't give a hoot about pesky international agreements precluding countries from allowing POW's to provide direct assistance to the enemy, or indeed be housed next to military targets.

An early Japanese surveyor estimated that construction of the railway, which stretched some 260 miles through extraordinarily inhospitable jungle, mountains, and solid rock, would take about five years. Using primitive tools, suffering from malaria, dysentery, beri beri, cholera, ulcerated limbs, malnutrition and torture by guards, the 60,000 POW's and 200,000 civilian Asians completed the project in 16 months. During those 16 months over 16,000 POW's and nearly 190,000 civilian laborers died.

The WWII tour of Kanchanaburi province basically consists of a visit to the Bridge on the River Kwai, a train trip along part of the remaining 82 miles of the Death Railway itself, and a trek to an area (and associated museum) dubbed "Hellfire Pass" by POW's.

Apart from the Allied War Cemetary, which holds the remains of over 6000 English, Dutch and Austrailian soldiers, Hellfire Pass was perhaps the most moving site, as it was all too easy to envision the horrific circumstances surrounding the construction there. In the section of rail known as the "Konyu Cutting" to the Japanese, workers with little more than shovels, picks and metal taps with sledge hammers creating holes for explosives, cut through a stretch of solid stone 110 meters long and 10 meters high. Workers were criminally underfed, often shoeless and wearing only a loincloth, and suffered from a wide variety of injuries and illnesses. They worked 16-18 hour shifts at Konyu Cutting for 12 weeks, carrying away all the debris in baskets and working while being beaten with bamboo sticks. This misery combined with the look of the huge trench lit by torches during the many hours of darkness made "Hellfire Pass" an appropriate name. By the end of the 12 weeks, 70% of the 1000-man POW crew working there had been buried at Konyu cemetary. The Japanese military have a lot to answer for.

As a visitor to Hellfire Pass, the scene is quite serene 60 years later. The jungle is dense in these mountains, and hte periodic views of the valley as you walk along the abandoned rail line are lovely. But signs of the efforts of 1943 are everywhere. A few remaining railroad ties remain, fashioned by prisoners out of teak logged from the surrounding forest. All along the rock face of the mountainside you can see the marks of the hand tools and explosives used to remove part of the mountain and create a level path for the military trains. The Hellfire Pass Museum nearby features horrifying photographs and contemporary drawings of the prisoners at work and getting what inadequate medical care was available. One particularly awful bit of film featured showless, loinclothed and emaciated POW's strutting in front of the camera in some sort of drill. It gave the sense of a very twisted fashion show.

Not far from Hellfire Pass we caught the train itself. Now admittedly it is a bit unsettling to board something called the "Death Railway", particularly since it looked like the train had been around a mighty long time, clanking and screeching and rattling over some of the elaborate wooden trestles still remaining from the WWII construction. Presumably, however, Thai engineers have checked to make sure it's all safe. Since we came directly from an exhibit about ways the POW's would suruptitiously sabotage the railway (using weak logs, filling holes with leaves, planting termite nests under bridges), a little reassurance would not have been unwelcome. After 2 hours of fairly pedestrian train travel (on superlatively uncomfortable wooden seats) with nice views and a load of schoolchildren taking their daily ride home, we de-trained at the Bridge on the River Kwai itself.

The bridge looks ordinary, your standard black iron bridge on huge concrete footings. As I haven't seen the film, I hear from dad that the bridge in the movie may have been made of wood. It seems there were actually two Bridges on the River Kwai, just a few meters from each other, both built by POW's in early 1943. In February 1943 a wooden bridge was completed over the Kwai Yai, then just two months later the iron version went up, shipped in pieces from Java. The bridge was used for only 20 months before Allied bombing began in 1945. The middle section of the bridge was destroyed, but most of the original construction (iron version) remains and despite the fact that I've never seen the movie I found myself involuntarily whistling its famous theme song as I walked across. Now 4 days later I still can't get the tune out of my head. Damn, it's catchy.


Copyright 2003 Katy Warren






posted by Katy at 7:52 PM