Kanchanaburi
The day started as we fondly said farewell to our new friends in Suphanburi and set out to meet new ones in the northwest province of Kanchanaburi, whom we greeted, of course, at a restaurant midway between the two provinces. After a wonderful lunch we drove with our new hosts to the homes where we will spend the next four days.
In the afternoon we visited Kanchanaburi’s most famous landmark, the infamous “Death Bridge”, immortalized in the film “Bridge on the River Kwai”. It was here that, during World War II, the invading Japanese army, while buiding a 300-mile rail link between Burma and Malaysia, used Australian, British and other prisoners of war, as well as slave labor, to build a bridge over the River Khwae (the name was changed to Kwai for the movie.) Over 100,000 men perished from malnutrition, disease and torture during the 20 months in took to complete the railroad. Thousands perished at this very spot when the Japanese mistakenly thought that they could avoid an Allied air attack on the bridge by using the prisoners as human shields and lining them up on the bridge.
We visited a cemetery where the graves of Allied soldiers were lined up in perfectly manicured rows, as at Arlington, with the exception that each grave was marked by a simple raise plaque, with a unique flower arrangement at each grave. I interpreted this arrangement as meaning that although all these men had fought and died for a single cause, each grave was that of an individual who maintained that individuality even in death. Needless to say, I found the cemetery to be an emotionally wrenching experience.
From the solemnity of the cemetery we proceeded to the Bridge itself. Unfortunately, the streets between the two have become a huge tourist trap, complete with vendors plying junky trinkets and food stalls selling all sorts of perishable foods that have been sitting out in the broiling sun all day. A run- down and extremely poorly organized war museum completed the garish scene, with life-sized mannequins that only hinted at the misery that had taken place here.
The bridge itself, now restored with new sections replacing those that the bombs destroyed, is just that – a bridge, with no more indication of its frightful moment in history than any other bridge. Knowing what had taken place here and what it was now left me feeling sadly empty.
My melancholy abated considerably when we shared a sumptuous dinner with our host families and other Rotarians at a fabulous restaurant further upstream. I can’t impress enough upon the readers of this Blog how incredible a Thai dinner is – not like a local restaurant at home, where one order a plate and then share a bite or two of our eating partner’s dish. Here the dishes keep coming and coming, each different and tantalizing. A diner never knows whether to fill his plate, thinking that that one may the last, or take a chance that there might be three or four or more still to come. And then there’s desert. A dilemma that I think I’ll have to sleep upon.
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