catherine
Joined: 10 Mar 2005
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:44 pm Post subject: kanchanaburi Thai and world history |
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Kanchanaburi is a province in Thailand near the border of Myanmar,where the old Thai Burma railway was built during the Second World War. It was immortalised in the Film "Bridge Over the River Kwai".
I went to Kanchanaburi for historical reasons. and was amazed at the drive that must have gone on to build not only the Road but the railway as well in a year. Most of the area has reverted back to deep ravines and bamboo shoots. Whilst no one can condone the treatment of the prisoners of war, it is amazing how tranquill the place is now.
The Buddhists maintain a museum there that records in amazing detail the treatment of the prisoners of war. They call is the Jeath museum, as they refuse to call it the Death museum. Jeath stands for the Japanese,English, Ausralians,the Hollanders. When I visited there it was part of a day trip, from Bankok, but I was very fortunate, as it turned into much more.
The Jeath Museum itself is fascinating, but on a day trip from Bangkok, you only have an hour, and there is enopugh information, in there for about three days. I was so busy concentrating on the photographs from the time, and there are loads, it was not generally known that for a lot of the time the prisoners of war, had film, and cameras. I was so busy looking that I failed to notice that the museum emptied very quickly.
I was still reading and mooching when I bumped into a guy. It was only a tap, but the results were devastating, he burst into floods of tears. This totally floored me, as I could not understand why, so I stood back as the man was in no state to ask him whether or not he was alright, he patently obviously was not. I stood back totally bemused, and then noticed that there were only four people left in the museum. The other lady told me that the man was her husband and he had built the Thai Burma road, and then the railway.
She also told me that he had had severe nightmares for thirty years. So we all stood there until the man had composed himself, which was probably only five minutes, but felt like eternity. The lady them asked my husband and myself to stay with them. Over lunch he said that he would like to talk about some of his experiences, which apparently he had never mentioned to anyone, in thirty years. It was one of the saddest lunches I have ever spent, but sometimes he recalled a life that was humorous if ironic. He recalled football matches which the allies played against the Japanese. One of the prisoners was a professional footballer prior to the war, and he kept beating the Japanese which made them so angry they made him go and get a stool, so that the camp commander could beat him over the head (HE WAS NOT TALL ENOUGH TO REACH WITHOUT IT). Well we were not the most popular quartet over that lunchtime because we kept everyone waiting shamelessly, if you were one of the people waiting I sincerely apologise.
After lunch the wife asked us if would stay overnight, as she said it had helped her husband to talk. They were staying two days. We decided that not having any clean clothes, toothbrush was a small price to pay to listen to living history.
We stayed in a very pretty wood house straight on the River, it was very scenic, and had an enduring beauty. We were asked to go and help find the graves of several of his friends. The man felt he wanted to find them but did not want to do so on his own. Privately I thought there was no chance of that. However I was amazed when we went to the cemetary
how organised every thing was. Every possible grave that could be identified had been, those that couln't still had a plaque erected by the Thai people. We were lucky we found four graves.
The next morning we also went back to the museum, the Jeath museum, and outside the hours that the regular tourist buses came from Bangkok, it was very peaceful.
I was amazed at how well preserved and organised everything was, I was also amazed that thirty years after the war almost every grave had a little posy of flowers on. It was sad, and it was poignant, but the absolute beauty of the place is amazing.
You can still get the train which only runs a few miles, but it is there. but it is amazing how unlike the film it looks, that is until someone told me that the film had been shot in Sri Lanka. |
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