OUT AND ABOUT AROUND KANCHANABURI

 7th Jan 2022

Hellfire Pass

A day out in the local area started with a trip to the infamous Hellfire Pass. I had booked a driver courtesy of the excellent Siam Guest House who, as it turned out, was a good driver (ex-fireman he told me, I think) and, I was later informed by my mentor Palle at the Sawistree bar, good value for money. The fact that he spoke little English was no great problem although I was left uncertain of where we were at various points.

Hellfire Pass is 50 miles north-west of Kanchanaburi and is a cutting for the original railway about 200yds long and 70ft deep dug through solid rock. It took 12 weeks to build by POWs, mostly Australian from what I gathered, working under brutal duress throughout day and night. It was called 'Hellfire' due to the flaming torches which lit up the pass at night. POWs were forced to work despite many being very sick and starving and many deaths ensued. 

Left: The Pass, looking down from above.

All the tools used were manual (picks, drill and tap, shovels etc.) together with explosives. It was an 18 hour working day with 10 mins break every hour. Phew!

The visit started at a museum which, at the entry, I was asked to produce an effing Covid vaccination certificate. WTF! These people are paranoid about this bug. I didn't have it but managed to blag my way in anyway. The museum was 'quite' interesting and well laid out with many wall mounted information displays but nothing that I hadn't been aware of previously. Free audio guides were provided, even if difficult to get to work properly. Then down a long outdoor staircase to the trail that follows the original, now disused, rail bed. The audio guide 'posts' were numerous and featured, when I could get the damned thing to work, various anecdotes from (mainly Australian) survivors. 

Right: Along the pass were pinned several national flags and little notes written by visitors. 

The rail bed goes on for about 3 miles, if you wanted to walk that far, via various other smaller cuttings and points of interest, but I didn't.

Left: An original (manual) drill bit left in the wall. No powered tools were used.

Right: A memorial at the Pass to Colonel Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop. He was an Australian doctor who is much revered for the medical service leadership he provided to POW camps during this period.

Left: The Hellfire Pass section ends at a memorial with flags of the POW nations involved. The black memorial plaque paid respect to those who died here between 1942-45. The track went on. I walked back from here.

This mountainous and hilly area contains many caves and waterfalls which are popular with tourists. The next stop on our agenda was the Saiyok Noi waterfall (right), about 10 miles south of Hellfire.

It was hardly on the scale of the Iguazu Falls in Argentina, but quite attractive I suppose.

There were a couple of restaurants and cafés, but none served beer which is what I wanted by now. It is a popular picnic spot for the locals (left) and some quite elaborate picnics were being enjoyed. 

Right: I did manage to get my feet wet. This was the first time my bare knees had been shown in public so far (in Thailand). 

Left: There were several of these signs dotted about the place. I'm not sure what you are meant to do. Do you keep looking up? In which case you are likely to fall off the narrow pathway. If the rocks suddenly decide to fall there is probably not much you can do about it. Maybe it is part of an insurance 'get out' clause in case a tourist is smitten. "You were warned" they would cry.

There is a small railway platform here called Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi. It is the terminus for a single track line which, I believe, still carries a train from somewhere in Bangkok to the falls on Saturdays and Sundays. The line beyond, the one built by the Japs (or rather POWs), is now dismantled. There is another decommissioned wartime Japanese train parked here (right).

Left: Oh woe! Another masked 'violinist'. If I described the one I suffered at The Bridge as bad, this one made him sound a positive virtuoso. What a horrible tuneless screeching noise he made. Again, I gave him 10 Baht to cushion, if not hasten, his retirement. I wonder where they come from? Maybe some falling rocks will get him. Presumably he 'plays' here because he has been banished from playing in populated areas. The masks in these cases serve a useful purpose in allowing them to remain incognito.

On next to a lunchtime stop in a market village somewhere near the river and operational railway. I never did discover where it was, but there were a couple of decent restaurants overlooking the river. A very scenic location (right)  and I enjoyed a beer (at last) and a rather spicy Thai meal. 

I managed to snatch a quick, but poor, long distance photo of a train which passed by. This shows the railway has some very hairy looking elevated stretches running alongside the cliffs. I hope they have good engineers and railway inspectors.

The final stop was at an elephant 'farm', or whatever they called it (right). There were glossy brochures which showed happy tourists washing elephants, cavorting in the river with them and riding them in convoys on treks across the river and beyond. 

The reality was rather different. The lady at  reception explained, when I asked how many elephants they had on station, that they had only one! All the others, and they did have 20, had been sent away on extended leave to somewhere 'up north'. Probably due to lack of tourists, or some covid related precaution I presumed. 

Anyway, instead of riding an elephant which I have done before, in Laos and India, and didn't want to anyway (it is a most uncomfortable experience), I was persuaded to buy a bucketful of about 50 bananas. Her assistant, and I think there were only the two of them there, then wheeled out the sole pachyderm, a rather moth-eaten female elephant called, I think, Plonka, or something similar. I then had to endure feeding it, via its trunk, with banana after banana. It had a rather 'runny' trunk and I ended up getting covered in elephant snot. Perhaps it should have been tested for the virus?

I was told later that most of these elephant 'farms' had gone tits-up because of pressure from the powerful Animal Rights lobby. They regard the use of elephants to amuse tourists as cruel. In fact the elephants in these establishments are looked after and protected rather well in my experience. An unhappy elephant can be seriously dangerous. Left in the wild they can cause serious damage to agricultural land and often get persecuted by irate farmers and locals. Another fact that the Animal Rights mob curiously overlook.

That was it for the day, an amusing outing and quite some mileage covered. Back to Kanchantaburi in time for supper; steak and kidney pie at the Sawistree. 

50 RIDICULOUS RULES

 22nd Jan 2022

As an interruption to my ongoing Thai Travels journal, with which I have rather fallen behind,  I attach the following extract from a recent article written by the redoubtable Allison Pearson in the Daily Telegraph. Some of you may have seen it already but I think it is worth regurgitating. She is a supreme Covid Sceptic and, in my opinion, writes very amusingly and sensibly. I hope she won't mind me copying this. There are probably plenty more ridiculous restrictions, ludicrous laws and asinine advice which have attended this 'panicdemic' (plus useless face-masks of course), but these will do for starters. I suspect in years to come we will look back and be bewildered, indeed horrified, as to how we allowed ourselves to connned into tolerating all these illogical, illiberal and counter-productive restrictions on our lives.

Some of my followers on Twitter offered these. I’m sure you will have your own.

1. “Church yesterday. Wafer but no wine for communion. Service followed by wine and biscuits to mark the vicar’s retirement.”

2. “The one where you could work in a control room with multiple people for 12 hours then be breaking the law if you sat on a bench drinking coffee with one of them.”

3. “Forming a socially distanced queue (and socially distanced seating) at the airport before being sardined into a packed plane with the same people, two hours later.”

4. “Swings in our local park put into quarantine or removed – even though children were barely at risk from Covid as swings were outside.”

5. “No butterfly stroke allowed while swimming.”

6. “Pubs with no volume on the TV.”

7. “Not allowing people to sit on a park bench. My elderly aunt kept fit by walking her dog every day, but she needed to rest. Since that rule, she stopped going out. She went downhill and died last April.”

8. “I got thrown out of a McDonald’s for refusing to stand on a yellow circle. I was the only customer.”

9. “Yellow and black hazard tape across public seats and benches outdoors.”

10. “I’m stuck in the infant in-patient ward with my nine-day-old sick baby, post C-section, unable to look after him. My husband (same household) is not allowed to be here with us. I’m having panic attacks, which is preventing me from producing milk for the baby.”

11. “I was advised by a council worker to keep my dog on a lead because people might stop to pet her and congregate too closely.”

12. “My bed-ridden mother-in-law with dementia in a care home where only ‘window visits’ were allowed. Mum was on the first floor. Had to wait for someone to die on the ground floor so she could be moved down there and finally seen by her family. After 12 months.”

13. “Two people allowed to go for a walk on a golf course. If they took clubs and balls, it was a criminal offence.”

14. “The one-way system in my local pub, which meant that to visit the loo you had to make a circular journey through the building, ensuring you passed every table.”

15. “My dad was failing in his care home. We weren’t allowed to visit him until the doctor judged he was end-of-life care because of one positive case in the home. We had 24 hours with him before he passed.”

16. “People falling down the escalator on the Underground because they were frightened of touching the handrails – even though you couldn’t get Covid from surfaces.”

17. “Rule of Six. My wife and I have three children so we could meet either my wife’s mum or her dad, but not both at the same time.”

18. “Nobody solved an airborne virus transmission with a one-way system in Tesco.”

19. “How about not being allowed for several months – by law – to play tennis outdoors with my own wife? We’d have been further apart from each other on court than in our own home.”

20. “On two occasions, I was stopped and questioned while taking flowers to my mother’s grave. One time, a police officer even asked for my mum’s name. No idea what he would have done with that information.”

21. “Birmingham City Council cutting the grass in two-metre strips – so the weeds could social-distance?”

22. “Northampton police checking supermarket baskets for non-essential items.”

23. “All the children at school were asked to bring in a favourite book, but it had to be quarantined for two days before being ‘exposed’ to the rest of the class.”

24. “Dr Hilary on Good Morning Britain advising people to wear masks on the beach – and that it would be a good idea to swim in the sea with one on, too.”

25. “Gyms and exercise classes forced to close, but fast-food outlets remained open.”

26. “They taped off every other urinal in my workplace.”

27. “Sign on the inside of work bathroom door: close toilet lid before flushing to prevent plumes of Covid-19.”

28. “We held our carol service in a local park, but had to send out invitations by word of mouth, rather than email, so we’d have plausible deniability if stopped by police.”

29. “Having to wear a disposable apron and gloves while visiting my mother in a care home, while she was on the other side of a floor-to-ceiling Perspex wall.”

30. “Scotch eggs. You couldn’t drink in a pub unless you also had a ‘substantial’ meal.”

31. “Testing of totally healthy people and making them stop work based on a questionable positive test result, when they have no symptoms, creating NHS staff shortages, cancelled operations. Things that, you know, actually kill people…”

32. “My son works in the NHS on the Covid ward and could go to the local Sainsbury's for his lunch. But when we were ill and isolating at home, he had to isolate as well – for 10 days.”

33. “My eight-year-old granddaughter telling me they weren’t allowed to sing Happy Birthday at school for her friend’s ninth birthday.”

34. “It was illegal to see your parents in their back garden, but legal to meet them in a pub garden with lots of other people.”

35.  “I had to abandon my weekly choir practice – but my husband was allowed to sing as a spectator at a football match.”

36. “They removed all the bins in Regent's Park and Hampstead Heath.”

37. “Having a flask of tea or coffee on a walk meant it was classified as a picnic – and thus verboten.”

38. “Bring your own biro to a dental appointment to fill in a form declaring you do not have Covid.”

39. “My neighbour refused to hang the washing out to dry – they thought the sheets might catch Covid and infect them.”

40. “My 12-year-old had to sit alone at her grandfather’s funeral – her first experience of one – even though we drove there together and hugged outside. There were three officials watching us all to ensure we didn’t break the rules.”

41. “We could only go outdoors once a day for exercise.”

42. “In pubs, wearing a mask to get from the door to the table, and the table to the toilet – but not wearing a mask while sitting down.”

43. “People in a Tier 3 area walking two minutes down the road for a pint in Tier 2.”

44. “In Wales, supermarkets were allowed to stay open, but the aisles containing children’s clothing and books were taped off. Because buying a baby’s jumper is so much more perilous than picking up a pint of milk.”

45. “The pallbearers all but threw my mother’s coffin in the grave and ran away. They had her down as a Covid death, but she died of cancer.”

46. “The one-way systems around supermarkets that led to people being forced into parts they didn’t want to be in, making them spend more time in the shop – while Covid simply circulated over the top of the shelves.”

47. “Children abandoned by social services and left in the clutches of terrible parents.”

48. “Police breaking into our student house and pinning my girlfriend by the neck up against the wall. I said: ‘This is England – you’re not allowed to do that.’”

49. “Residents of care homes forgetting who they were during the long months when family were not allowed to visit them.”

50. “Dying alone. How many died alone? How many?”

MORE SIGHTS IN KANCHANABURI

 4th - 7th Jan 2022

The entrance to the Commonwealth Graves Commission War Cemetery.

At the southern end of the main touristy area is the Commonwealth Graves WW2 Cemetery. It is immaculatey manicured and maintained and quite a moving spectacle.

Plaques inside the entrance include this one (left) and another devoted to Indian Forces who died on the railway but buried in a cemetery of their own religious persuasion. There was meant to be a Visitors' Book, but that was missing. I think you had to find an 'official' to access it.

Right: There are about 7,000 graves here and a spot where 300 were cremated and their ashes buried. The area is divided into sections; British (3568), Australian (1362) and Dutch (1896) being the main ones along with other Commonwealth countries' graves in seperate plots. The Americans repatriated all their dead. 

It was difficult to find any specific grave because the rows are not numbered.

Each grave is marked by a mounted bronze plaque (as left), many with shrubs or flowers alongside.  Most had very touching epitaphs. They all seemed in pristine condition.

Right and below: Another couple of examples. 

In an adjoining field is the 'Chinese' Cemetery. Again, this is immaculate with very elaborate headstones. It is older than the Commonwealth one. I'm afraid I didn't do any research on this so not sure what the history is. Someone (probably OMPITA, the research, critique and proof-reading department) will let me know.

Left: On an adjacent street is this museum. It is a definite improvement on the one at the Bridge. It contains some well presented dioramas, photographs and wall displays. Plus, they give you a free cup of coffee in the café upstairs (entry fee £1.10p), and sell post-cards with stamps; a rarity in Thailand. I sent some and have gathered, against all the odds, that some have actually arrived in UK!

Right: A poor photo of a statue inside depicting a very sick POW with cholera being dragged to work by two colleagues suffering from malaria.

Left: A diagram of the railway built from just north-west of Bangkok to Rangoon, Burma. The distance was 258 miles and involved over 60,000 Allied POWs along with about 200,000 conscripted local labourers.

Right: A mock-up of a railway 'carriage' that carried POWs to far-flung work areas, when they didn't have to march. There were often about 30 packed into one of these 'cattle trucks' over several days with minimal rations, no windows or fresh air and no 'hygiene' facilities. OK, we complain about expensive British Railways which were (before Covid) similarly packed but at least some passengers got a seat and a fighting chance of finding a loo.

Left: A wall display which gives a fairly interesting account of what was involved in the daily routine of POWs. Click on to enlarge and you might be able to read it.

Right: A diorama of a camp operating theatre. There were no proper 'medical' anaesthetics and only very basic, often home made, surgical instruments. POW doctors did their best in appalling conditions.

Left: A photo of 'Hellfire Pass'. Somewhere I will be visiting later. An interesting section on the railway which involved much grief.

This is, on the whole, a decent museum and well worth visiting. Obviously much more on show than I can manage here. And the free cup of coffee!

I next decided to venture into the south of the town to find the 'JEATH' museum. This is an acronym for 'Japan, England, Australia/America, Thailand, Holland' ie. those countries involved in building the railway. It was mentioned in my Lonely Planet guide book as being worth a visit. It was a long walk, totally unsignposted and took me over a hour and a couple of miles getting lost through the commercial area to find it. I even found a Tourist Office which was closed, but there was a caretaker who hadn't even heard of this museum. It is by the river and looked after by a Wat next door.

Before I got there I wandered, lost, through some 'guarded' establisment. The 'guard' was busy mending a light fitting and couldn't speak any English so he didn't stop me. I don't know what the place was but it had a heavily padlocked gate at the far end (right). There was no fence either side of this gate! I thought this was rather an apt pictorial representation of all these futile anti-Covid measures.

I eventualy found the museum which had a £1 entry fee purchased from an old lady, asleep when I got there, in a scruffy kiosk at the gate (left). I was the only visitor, and probably had been for days which was not

surprising considering the difficulty in finding the place.

Right: It was not the most inspiring display and consisted of a three-sided mock-up of a POWs' bamboo attap living quarters. Everything the POWs had was made from bamboo (apart from their loin cloths). Each of the three sides was abot 30yds long and the same as in the photo. Along the sides were dozens of photographs or prisoners' drawings, most of which were very faded and the captions illegible (or in Thai). You will notice from the pic that 'No photography is allowed'. I cannot think for the life of me why not! There really was bugger all to take photos of anyway. So I did. As said, I was the only person in the place,

I show one of the many pictures (right), and I really couldn't see many that inspired me to record them. This one is painted of a POW suffering from somwhat unpleasant looking  'jungle sores'.

There was a building in the open space between the three-sided attap. I don't know what was in it because it was locked.

I wandered over to the adjacent elaborately decorated Wat, around which were sitting a few rather bored looking monks. I didn't bother to go in. Once you've seen inside one Wat you've seen them all. 

By the time I returned to the gate the whole 'museum' had been locked and chained. I suspect I was their only visitor of the day and they weren't expecting any more. It was a long walk back.

As normal when staying in places I am not familiar with I booked myself (via booking.com) in for one night, on spec, to a hotel called The Bridge in the centre of the tourist area. It was very pleasant, comfortable and reasonable value at £30 (equivalent) for the first night. I have no complaints. Also, as normal, I then do a bit of a recce to see if there is anywhere better and/or cheaper. This town has hundreds of guest houses and hotels. By chance I found a place called 'Siam Guest House' at the southern end of the main street. It was absolutely marvellous. A delightful owner and small staff, including his mother who spent her whole time working in the garden and ironing etc and handing out her delicious home-made toffees!. The place was in a quiet cul-de-sac and had an amusing and eclectic arrangement of garden ornaments plus a small moat with fish. The room was excellent with good wi-fi and all mod cons. A basic breakfast was included. All this for 600 Baht (£12) per night. I mention this merely as a recommendation if anyone reading this waffle happens to be thinking of visiting Kanchanaburi.

I said earlier that there are many ex-pats living here. I found a bar, the Sawistree, at the northern end of the street which is owned and run by a charming Danish guy, Palle, and his Thai wife, Sawistree. Another good find. He was a very hospitable host and a fount of knowledge for ignorant tourists. The clientele were almost exclusively from Europe/Scandinavia. Two Brits had just arrived, rather footsore, having trekked 80 miles down the railway. One guest came from Greenland and waxed lyrical about the country (it's Danish of course). He nearly persuaded me to visit. Icebergs and fish are their speciality. One day, maybe!

Palle hired out motorbikes, scooters, bicycles (including tandems with a buggy on the back) and this (left) a unicycle! I remember many years ago nearly crippling myself trying, unsuccessfully, to ride one of these. I wonder how many takers he gets, even at half price?

The be-masked Thais are paranoid about this Covid bug (except in crowded bars of course). Right: This chemist's shop in town has gone to ridiculous extremes. You have to stand on the pavement, douse youself with 'sanitiser' and any cash and goods transactions are carried out from behind a full screen by using a tray on a string pulley system up and down a 3 yard ramp. I ask you! (see padlocked gate with no fence).

Further explorations out of town to follow.

 

THE BRIDGE - KANCHANABURI

 3rd - 4th Jan 2022

The bridge on (not) the River Kwai

Kanchanaburi is famous for 'the bridge'. This was built between 1942/43 as part of the Imperial Japanese Army's railway project linking Thailand to Burma. Thailand was an ally of the Japanese during WW2. It involved the 'slave labour' of mainly British, Australian and Dutch POWs, along with other local ethnic groups and the stories of Japanese brutality, hideous conditions and horrific death toll are well recorded. The bridge itself gained international fame and notoriety thanks to the 1952 book and then the 1957 blockbuster film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'. Both of these played fast and loose with the facts, but were vastly popular. In fact, and here it gets confusing, the bridges (a wooden one was built first) were built over the River Mae Klong. The River 'Khwae', pronounced 'Quair' ('Kwai', pronounced 'Kwy' means 'water buffalo' and, as I have just discovered, is an expletive deployed to remind someone that they resemble an intimate part of the female anatomy) was indeed nearby. To avoid confusion and to satisfy a growing tourist industry they renamed the Mae Klong the River Khwae Yai. So you can see the whole thing is a bit of a fabrication; life imitating art. Actually only bits, the plinths and spans at each end, are original. The rest is rebuilt and supports an operational railway. Anyway, don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, or to disillusion tourists.

Left: Looking down the tracks from east to west. Tourists are free to roam over the bridge and there are safety points in which you can stand if a train is coming (there are only three a day and, as I mentioned earlier, they go very slowly with lots of hooting and whistling). Can you imagine the 'elf 'n safety' dictatorship in UK allowing that to happen?

Right: There is a booming market area surrounding the east side of the bridge.

Left:.....and several rather decent looking riverside restaurants. Boat cruises are also on offer.

Right: There is a WW2 museum nearby. It is probably one of the least inspiring museums that I have visited. This 'retired' Jap train is parked outside. What the relevance of the car on the back is I could not fathom. It looks a bit like my sadly long-departed trusty 1988 Datsun Bluebird. I often wondered what the breakers yard were going to do with it.

Left: The displays inside were of little interest or relevance. Endless racks  of ancient rusting rifles, and swords plus helmets and other paraphernalia. Any explanatory notices were in Thai. There were many faded photographs lining the walls and few seemed to be of interest. There was one of Adolph Hitler and another of Stalin. Quite what part they played in this theatre of war was not explained.

Right: Against the wall outside were two 'statues'. On the left 'Charles de Gaulle' and on the right 'Winston Churchill'. Neither bore the slightest resemblance.

Left: Another 'fascinating' and unexplained exhibit. There was an additional 5 story annex which had large displays of china and porcelain artefacts, more swords, more rusty rifles and even cheap local jewellery. 

Right: Part of a long display of, I suppose, Japanese swords. I'm only showing these photos because I jolly well took them and expect will be of little or no interest to anyone! Least of all me.

Left: A skeleton in a glass case. Of whom?!

Maybe just to remind us of the POW's dietary regime?

Right: Outside on a plinth was an old Cessna 152 light aircraft. These were produced  in the USA from the mid 1970s. Again, what relevance this had was entirely unexplained. The plaque merely told us its rather boring specifications and uninspiring flight performance details......

Left:....and in the market area a be-masked violinist playing, very badly, an unrecognisable tune. Yehudi Menuhin not! I gave him 10 Baht out of sympathy and towards his, hopefully, imminent retirement. I doubt if he will be troubling the Royal College of Music and maybe not even tourists for much longer if he has any sense.

Right: The west end of the bridge. Maybe original?

Kanchanaburi as I discovered is, for the most part, a very pleasant town with delighful (unless you were a POW) forested and hilly/mountainous surrounding countryside  and home to many Western and Antipodean ex-pats. It is a very 'linear' town stretching about 4 miles south-east from the bridge.

From the bridge you get to the touristy mile long main street, Mae Nam Khwae, containing a vast array of bars, restaurants, hotels, guest houses and shops. Talking of shops, every street in every town in Thailand has at least one '7/11' store. There were three in this street. They must be the Thai equivalent of our Co-op shops and exist in profusion (probably Government owned). They sell all sorts of goods including food and alcohol. The puritanical Thai law prohibits  the sale of alcohol between 2 - 5pm and after 9pm. Except where it doesn't! (backhanders?). The Thais are subjected to all sorts of restrictive laws but have marvellously inventive ways of getting around them. During the total lockdown period here where the sale of alcohol was forbidden everywhere, it was amazing (I am told) how much alcoholic 'tea' was served from teapots into plastic teacups. Or in venues that were owned by 'those in charge'. Rather reminiscent of the present UK Government tribulations.....one rule for them etc.

I digress. At the southern end of this street is the railway station, another museum called the 'Death Railway Museum and Research Centre' and the most impressive Commonwealth Graves Commission War Cemetery plus an equally impressive 'Chinese' cemetery. On south you move into the more commercial area. At the southern end of this, next to the river, is the JEATH (Japanese, English, Australia/USA, Thai, and Holland) museum. 

All will be revealed in the next edition. No doubt you are quivering with anticipation. 

Left: Just found this photo of a floating bandstand on the river. Curious.