Thursday 12 July 2012

The Bridge on the River Kwai

Wednesday 11 July


One of the reasons Reg wanted to come to Bangkok was to take a trip to see The Bridge On the River Kwai  - the bridge which was famously constructed by Allied prisoners of war, under the orders of the Japanese millitary, during World War 2.  Reg remembers seeing the film starring Alec Guinness; the film is loosely based on a true World War 2 incident, and on the real life character of Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey.

We decide not to take a tour but to visit the River Kwai Bridge under our own steam.  There's only one train a day that goes there from Bangkok - and it goes from a small railway station some distance out of the main city area.   Once again we have to get up really early to catch his train, which leaves at about 7.50 am and according to the timetable will take 3 hours to get there.

While we're waiting for our train a lady has to cross the railway line (literally, walk across the train tracks) to the 2 feet high platform the other side - she has with her a baby, her mother, and numerous bags, plus a circular baby walker on wheels.  She first of all helps her mother to negotiate getting down from the platform this side, then gives her Mum a hand up the other side, while still holding the baby.  She hands the baby to her mother, and comes back across the train track to start fetching all her belongings.

At this point Reg our knight in s.hining armour decides to help her, and hands her some of the packages, then gallantly carries the rest across the track himself, dropping a toilet roll out of a bag on the way, and reminding me of the Andrex puppy advert, as it trails along the platform.  Reg has just managed to shove the last of the lady's bags to her through the open train window, when we see that a train is coming, which might be ours.   Reg is still on the opposite platform!  Judging the speed of the train, Reg takes a leap of faith and crosses the track, leaping up onto our platform just in the nick of time.  I angrily tell Reg off, and the guard shakes his head and does a throat-cutting gesture.  Reg really did cross the line this time.

Meanwhile the woman Reg helped smiles happily and waves a thank you from the window of the train on the opposite plafform.

There's another Western couple of about our age - we discover they are Dutch - waiting at the station, going to the same place as us.  We chat to them until the train arrives.  The carriages are basic but there's a pleasant breeze cutting through the sultry heat - all the windows in the train are wide open.

We get talking to an American woman, about our age, who a couple of years ago married an Englishman she met on the internet (who's travelling with her), and they've now retired to Thailand.   They catch our eye as they have 2 large suitcases with them, plus 2 holdalls.  The woman (who tells us that her husband is a Lord, so she is a Lady, and hands us her card which verifies this) says that they've just returned from their annual visit to England, to see her husband's mother, and to buy a stock of tins of corned beef, which they love, and which you can't buy in Thailand.

"We carry an empty suitcase with us to England," Lady Areya (no kidding, honestly) tells me in a matter-of-fact sort of way, "and fill it with tins of corned beef.  My husband doesn't like Thai food much."


Lady Areya is at least 6 feet tall, and dressed in a cotton top and flowing cotton skirt, which she wears with coloured knee high socks and lace up shoes.  She has long grey hair, which she wears loose, and a huge silver chain around her neck, with a Buddha medallion swinging from it.  She may be a bit off the wall, looking a bit like a mayoress with her own dress code, but she's an intelligent lady.

She tells us that she's a Buddhist and has been for many years.  We have an interesting discussion about Christianity and Buddhism; she explains about Karma, and Enlightenment, and what her faith means to her.  She spends a lot of time on activities in her local temple - "I used to be a farmer, and can do practical things like plumbing and welding," - and is clearly a very contented person.  She says she never meditates, as she doesn't think it necessary.

"But look at that man over there, I can tell he's meditating," she says to us,  conspiratorially.  Reg and I both look across at a young man who has his eyes closed and his mouth open, who is clearly asleep.

We arrive at the Kwai Bridge railway station half an hour late - its extremely hot on the train, and even hotter off it.  This little station area is of course a prime tourist spot, with Bridge on the River Kwai t-shirts and nick-knacks for sale.  We take a wander across the bridge, and find the bullet holes in the casing under the girders, which Lady Areya tells us to look out for.  Reg thinks about the famous film;  we look at the original ancient wooden sleepers which cross horizontally underneath the rail tracks, and think about the men who sweated blood, and in many cases gave their lives, to lay them.

This railway, which extended to Burma, was called the Death Railway - 16,000 Allied prisoners, and 100,000 slave Asian labourers,  lost their lives while building it.  Causes of death ranged from exhaustion, malnutrition, malaria, cholera, and beri-beri, or a combination of these.  Anyone contracting cholera was usually dead within 48 hours.  There was no medication to speak of; any additonal rations received from the Reg Cross were confiscated and eaten by the Japanese guards.

We take the little open-sided, brightly-coloured "tourist" train across the bridge - the river is mirror-calm beneath us.  We do this so that Reg can feel that not only has he walked over the Bridge over the River Kwai - he's been over it by train, too.

It's a long wait for the train back to Bangkok - it's due at 2.30 pm but is an hour late - that, apparently, is  Thailand for you.  We are hot and weary on the homeward train, and the 3 hour journey seems to go on forever.

When we arrive at Thon Buri station and try to get a taxi, 2 taxis look at our hostel address and refuse to take us - whether it's because they don't know where it is, or because of the heavy traffic, we don't know.  Eventually a Thai lady comes out of her shop and decides we need help.  She hails a taxi for us and I  don't know what she says, but she tells us with a smile that the taxi driver will take us.  We thank her profusely - the driver doesn't look too happy, but when we get to the Silom area, where the hostel is, we recognise  a restaurant we visited the other night and we direct the driver to our hostel.










































It was backbreaking work, and the prisoners were cruelly treated; many  of them died, either from sheer exhaustion, malnutrition, malaria or cholera, or a combination of these.

The  

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