We arrived in Kanchanaburi by public bus. I usually prefer this mode of travel to gratuitous tourist herding transport vehicles that clog the highways of SE Asia. You can see them everywhere. Their garishly graffitied exteriors bulleting down the highways spilling freon and bumping disco tunes. Stopping every time the driver knows he can get a free meal or some other form of baksheesh for corralling thirty-two sweaty, rich, and famished farang into the most dismal roadside feeding trough he can find along the way.
Public transportation by comparison is less spacious (I've had my knees up against the seat in front of me many a time), but I find it is generally a faster and much more charming way to travel here. You'll never see an old woman transporting chickens sitting next to Buddhist monk in saffron robes on a V.I.P. bus, or hear fractured war stories from a retired Laoatian soldier either.
You'll also pay more attention to your surroundings on a public bus. On a tourist bus you'll never miss your stop because chances are, everyone on this bus is going to the same spot, so why even look up from your book? On a public bus, your stop isn't necessarily the last one. In fact, you'll probably be the only one getting off there. So you'll be paying attention all right. Checking road signs from time to time, making eye contact with the ticket-taker to see if your exit point is coming up. A little paranoia can be healthy. And if you're looking around with more purpose, guess what? You might actually see something!
Did I mention the snacks are better too? On public transport, from time to time, someone will leap onto the bus selling food the locals would actually eat. Warm waffles, banana chips, dried beef with sticky rice. This is the fast food you're supposed to eat here.
I can hear some of you already, “But is it okay to eat that stuff? It hasn't been properly refrigerated, right?” Well, the truth of the matter is it probably hasn't. But just how long do you think that overpriced noodle soup with egg in it has been swilling for at that roadside stop in the middle of nowhere? Probably an awful lot longer. I'll take the stuff the locals are snatching up over the stuff that tourists are settling for any day.
But I digress. Upon arrival in Kanchanaburi we were of course immediately swarmed upon by taxi drivers. Unlike the motorized tuk-tuks of Bangkok, here the transport of choice seems to be bicycle drawn rickshaws. I did not enjoy the experience of riding in this particular mode of transportation at all. For one it's not much faster than walking. But also, it strikes me as just plain cruel. To make this man pedal us and our packs in the heat of the afternoon over two miles through heavy traffic for the paltry sum of a dollar and a half seemed incredibly distasteful to me. However, after a three hour bus ride neither of Amanda nor I felt like stumbling through the busy city with our heavy packs blindly seeking out our guesthouse. Thankfully our rickshaw driver was not only friendly, but enthusiastic about his work, and I was able to ease my conscience by giving him a decent tip.
Our first choice in guesthouses was full, but we were quickly able to find a second, at our drivers suggestion just down the road. We desperately wanted to walk there, but our new friend insisted pointing out that we had overpaid him and that he should take us there. Not wishing to insult him (or deny him the possibility of a kickback from the hotel owner) we piled back again onto the rickshaw, and rode down the road a laughable twenty yards to what was nearly the next driveway.
Most of the major guesthouses in Kanchanaburi are built along the river, and ours was no exception. To reach them one goes down a side street off of the main road, which then descends away from the din of the traffic to where these wooden bungalows rest over the infamous river Kwai. it's not quite as romantic as it sounds like it might be, but it's nice nonetheless, and positively atmospheric at nighttime. It was already late afternoon when we arrived, and most of the cities attractions were closing. So instead of site-seeing we ate, read, and slept our way through the evening, planning to get an early start the next morning at seeing some of the cities historical attractions.
The Thai Burma Railway Center
Towards the end of World War II, when the Japanese occupied much of Asia, work began on a railroad to bring supplies across Thailand, and Burma in anticipation of invading India. With Japan's war against the Allies faltering, this project was expedited in order to secure their foothold in Asia. A feat that would normally require five years to complete, was performed in just sixteen months. In order to achieve such results the Japanese employed slave labor from prisoners of war. Conditions were inhumane, and over 100,000 Thai, British, Dutch, Australian and American prisoners died as a result of overwork, sickness and starvation. Today this stretch of track is known as the Death Railway, and the horrors inflicted on it's laborers are solemnly memorialized at The Thailand Burma Railway Center in Kanchanaburi.
The museum here is quite good. Using photos, text, and scale models it weaves a fair and proper picture of what took place here from 1942-1943. The engineering feat that was accomplished here is acknowledged, and the atrocities that took place are exhaustively documented. A video containing interviews with Thai prisoners of war is especially impactful. I found their staunch stories of survival full of equal parts sadness and hope.
Next door to the museum is a cemetery containing the graves of many of the servicemen who died building the railroad. Walking amongst the endless headstones here, I marveled at how young most of the POWs who died here had been. The average age seemed to be 23-26. Many were younger. I felt a moment of guilt and pleasure in this solemn place as I crossed paths with the stream of one one of the sprinklers that watered the green grass.
Just down the street was another cemetery, this one a traditional Thai type. In the center was a large conical structure built from cement which resembled a modern take on the traditional Chedi structures I'd seen previously in ancient temples at Angkor and Ayuthaya. Surrounding these were similar, smaller versions which were individual graves. Further down we found another style of grave. These were made up of a thick, concrete slab, curved like a crescent moon suspended on it's side. They were enscripted with memorials and met with a small hill of grass extending down like a tiny hill the approximate length of a human body. Many of these traditional graves had small photographs affixed to them, presumably of the person buried there. Many offerings were laid at the bases of the graves. Incense, tea, and brightly colored ribbons among the favorites. Though curious, I felt voyeuristic wandering amongst the bodies that lay resting here, and my lack of reference to what I was seeing made me feel very removed from their culture. I have never felt at home in graveyards as many do, and so I left Amanda snapping pictures of the site, to sit across the street drinking water in the shade of a tall tree.
The Death Railway Theme Park
Perhaps the museum and graveyard had left me in a somber mood, but I couldn't help but feel cynical when we reached the site of the Bridge over the river Kwai. It was crawling with people. The bridge that was so famously destroyed years before had been rebuilt so that tourists could have their picture taken on it, smiling while licking ice creams. T-shirts were sold with pictures of a steam train barreling across the trestle that so many had died building under duress. Those who were completely detached from reality could cross the bridge in a tiny toy locomotive, choo-chooing their way across the graves of countless of thousands of World War II POWs.
But the ultimate insult lay only yards away on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. Forgotten under the shadow of a tall white building lay a grim black wall in memory of those who had died. Clearly this memory had been erased. The wall was shabby and unkempt, the script written on it was hardly legible through the dirt it was covered with. A sharp contrast to the shiny train that stood a mere few paces away. There was no somber mood here. Nothing was memorialized besides commerce. I felt sick to my stomach. We left quickly and without hesitation.
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