Saturday, 17 December 2011

Kanchanaburi Days 2 and 3

Pong Phen Guesthouse , Kanchanaburi, Thailand,Thursday

Left Bangkok at 10.30am took taxi not to the main Hualomphong station but to the one the other side of the river called Thonburi Noi where we purchased tickets for the 3 hour journey to Kanchanaburi.At 100 Baht each must be considered a bargain although third class did mean a broken bench seat.
The train 258 left on time and stopped after about 500 yards….oh dear was this a bad sign..it turned out to be because of single track working; we gave way to a loaded train of military vehicles and operatives all caked in mud presumably from the flooded areas around Bangkok. No real evidence of excessive floods but you certainly see the remains of floodwater and the mounds of rubbish it left behind.Saw a lot of activity trying to put this right.
The train stopped many times along its route at stations little more than uprated bus  stops and others that were little gems decorated with bourgainvillas of all colours.
Have decided that Thailand is the land of the never ending car boot sale we bought crisps and a pineapple for our sustenance along the trip.
Eventually arrived at Kanchanaburi station where we took our first pickup van taxi which delivered us very quickly to the guest house right overlooking the river.We arrived just in time to catch our first Thai sunset which Bangkok had not afforded us, the sound of the birds and insects as the sun went down was a bit special and we tried to think of other places that it matched.
The hotel is a grouping of lodges and ours overlooked a branch of the river…not sure if it’s the Kwai will need to check that out  but it looks promising.
It turns out that we are overlooking a small inlet of the river where a floating houseboat is moored it has the rooms at deck level with a large open seating area above .
The bridge we can see definitely crosses the river but it is too modern to be the one we have come all this way to see .At sunset the noise of the river bank is increased as a karaoke boat goes past , know which I prefer! After a reasonable meal we down a couple of beers and head for a good nights sleep something we have found very easy so far.
Erawan Falls, Friday December 16
An early morning start which saw us pick up a trip organised with Toi’s  Tours to visit the Erawan National Park about 80km north of Kanchanaburi  , Hellfire Pass, Krasae Cave and the Death Railway and ending finally on the River Kwai bridge. Maureen had wanted to see the Elephants  but it wasn’t possible to combine them with the Hellfire pass museum  so in order to gain a greater appreciation of the  rest of the time here the museum won.
We were driven north to the park entrance  along with Wim, from Belgium, Serena from Turin but studying at Oxford and Peter from Sweden.Our guide Dau gave us a brief welcome to Thai language with the difference between sweatyka  and sweatykrap  which still remains that to me!
Dau turned out to be extremely attentive and her driver  called Um ….urm I think it’s that, was very skilled at diving into places he should not have got into, overtaking two lines of traffic and all this done with scant regard for  the solid yellow lines down the centre of the road.
We have arrived in the cold or dry season and the vegetation shows the signs of autumn or the fall with the leaves turning brown and dropping.The ground here looks really dry the relevance of this we are to discover later.Dau says that she does not look forward to the cold water morning showers on days like this when the temperature drops as low as 16 degrees C! ..seems Ok to me!
The falls are at seven levels with increasing degrees of difficulty as you progress from one level to the next.Level one and two take us to large swimming pools with opportunities for swimming with those nibbler fish that are becoming common place all over Europe, only here they are seemingly more interested in a bite than a suck, Maureen says that they are about 4 times the size of the Lanzarote versions the really big fish didn’t seem interested at all and just floated in corners out of the way of the tourists, mainly Russians.We only made it up to level 4 , I felt a bit ashamed when I compared it with Colin’s recent Everest trip but hey who said this was going to be a walk up a mountain!Level  4 was the most interesting of the falls as this gave you the opportunity to slide down the bosoms of some famous woman we didn’t know

After lunch at the entrance to the park we got back onto the bus and dropped off Peter and Serena who had taken the elephant option whilst we headed toward Hellfire Pass.

we could see the two mountain ranges either side of our route to the pass and they looked pretty tall and imposing.The pass is a cutting through the mountainside as the Thai Burma railway made it's way toward the Burmese frontier.It was built by the Japanese during World War 2 to transport men and materials to prepare for the invasion of India.When I say built they really just oversaw the construction as the labour was provided by a force of English, Australian,Dutch and a few American POWs along with nearly 90,000 Asian labourers 'recruited' from conquered territories.

Hellfire pass was a cutting through the mountainside of about 8m wide by 25 m high all dug out by hand as there was no proper machinery to do it . A spike was driven into the stone , twisted and tapped in again and twisted until a hole about 8 inches deep, big enough for a charge to be filled.
When sufficient charges had been laid then they were blown and the rubble cleared.This was done for 18 hours a day during the 'speedo' ,this was the Japanese way of increasing the output of the workforce, all under the supervision of brutal Korean guards who gave little mercy if a worker stumbled,if they  appeared to slacken the required pace or even just felt like beating a worker for the fun of it.One guard called the Silent One would walk along the ranks at roll call and indiscriminently punch ,slap or kick anyone.

It got its name because working by tar lit lamps at night it made the workers think they were in hell.
They were'nt far wrong

It is estimated that the human cost of the railway was one life for every sleeper laid down, a truly awful waste of life and that doesn't take into the account of the torture and maltreatment at the hands of pitiless guards who had no concept of humanity.

Kanchanaburi Cemetery is a beautifully kept place.We've visited a few cemeteries in Europe and by their very nature are sad places but there is a feeling here of anger because by and large these poor men weren't killed in action against their foes....these were murdered by the conditions and treatment meted out by the people who were supposed responsible for their care.

I found it very difficult as we mixed with Japanese tourists to understand their reasons for visiting this place.

An interesting viewpoint can be that of Eric Lomax who said in his book The Railway Man,
If you are a victim of torture you never totally recover. You may cope with the physical damage, but the psychological damage stays with you forever.



In 1945 I returned to Edinburgh to a life of uncertainty, following three and half years of fear, interrogation and torture as a POW in the Far East. I had no self-worth, no trust in people, and lived in a world of my own. The privacy of the torture victim is more impregnable than any island fortress. People thought I was coping, but inside I was falling apart. I became impossible to live with; it was as if the sins my captors had sown in me were being harvested in my family. I also had intense hatred for the Japanese, and was always looking for ways and means to do them down. In my mind I often thought of my hateful interrogator. I wanted to drown him, cage him and beat him – as he had done to me.
After my retirement in 1982, I started searching for information about what had happened in Siam. The need to know is powerful. In the course of my search I learnt that Nagase Takashi – my interrogator and torturer – had offered to help others with information. I learnt that he was still alive, active in charitable works, and that he had built a Buddhist temple. I was skeptical. I couldn’t believe in the notion of Japanese repentance. I strongly suspected that if I were to meet him I’d put my hands round his neck and do him in.
My turning point came in 1987 when I came across The Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture. For the first time I was able to unload the hate that had become my prison. Seeing the change in me, my wife wrote to Nagase. The letter he wrote back was full of compassion, and I think at that moment I lost whatever hard armour I had wrapped around me and began to think the unthinkable.
The meeting took place in 1998 in Kanburi, Thailand. When we met Nagase greeted me with a formal bow. I took his hand and said in Japanese, “Good Morning Mr Nagase, how are you?” He was trembling and crying, and he said over and over again: “I am so sorry, so very sorry.” I had come with no sympathy for this man, and yet Nagase, through his complete humility, turned this around. In the days that followed we spent a lot of time together, talking and laughing. It transpired that we had much in common. We promised to keep in touch and have remained friends ever since.
After our meeting I felt I’d come to some kind of peace and resolution. Forgiveness is possible when someone is ready to accept forgiveness. Some time the hating has to stop.

  After reading that and with my interests in Restorative justice I find that I should take  a second look at my
 feelings and learn to deal with the anger that arises from here but it's difficult, however if a victim can do it then so should I.


if you are interested in more of this try theforgivenessproject.com  

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