Speedo

Day 25 - Kanchanaburi

On a pontoon, eating small fish, regarding a bridge. A family of English near me are also regarding the bridge. "I don't know what's more impressive, this or the Sydney Harbour Bridge" the wife says. There's some validity to that, what's more impressive - The Burj Dubai or the Great Pyramid? The size of a thing isn't the only measure as men having been saying since before that pyramid was built. "It's like the Sydney Harbour Bridge, only that's higher". The husband has noticed that they are both bridges. Sydney does indeed have the higher bridge, 134 vs 27 metres, and longer too, 1150 vs 130 metres. Two nil Sydney. But this bridge here is the Bridge over the River Kwai so we can also score on construction speed, 101 months vs 20 months, and deaths during construction, 16 vs 90,0000. The latter figure is for the whole Burma to Thailand railway so should be pro-rated but still a likely victory for the 'Kwai. So, a draw. I guess that means they are alike. A hoot signals the approach of the twice-daily train and tourists on the structure move to safe spaces along its length. This isn't the wooden bridge shown in the film, this isn't the place shown in the film, this isn't even the River Kwai. The author of the book on which the film is based assumed the bridge crossed the river of that name but the railway just followed the course of the Kwai and actually crossed the Mae Khlong river. With admirable practicality the Thais renamed the Mae Khlong to the Kwai in the 1960s to avoid confusion. Visually there's nothing notable about the bridge, just the deep pools of blood into which its piers are sunk.

I'm up early to catch the bus. At the bus station they play the national anthem and people rise in respect. But not on the bus, we all remain seated. Is there an exemption? Do my fellow passengers share my republican beliefs? I've read that the king isn't popular. He certainly seems a bit of a bounder. Really, google him, it's pure soap opera. Married four times and divorced three with one of the wives fleeing to the US before the then-prince abducted one of the children back to Thailand. I guess he didn't like the others anyway. There's a video of him and the current wife dressed in a g-string (her not him) celebrating the birthday of the king's poodle whose name is, no word of a lie, Air Chief Marshall Fufu. He took on an official mistress in 2019 to add to the sense of fun and chaos. Said to be 'widely loathed and feared', 'unpredictable to the point of eccentricity', 'erratic and virtually incapable of ruling' and that he has a gambling habit funded by the former prime minister Thaksin (no relation to the insect) Shinawatra who was deposed in a military coup in 2006. He is also said to be worth between 30 and 70 billion US dollars which you would think would cover a few nights on the fruit machines. He makes our royal family look like amateurs, what a lad. Of course writing all this could land me a jail sentence but I'm gonna hazard a guess that the king doesn't read this blog.
The bus takes me to Hellfire Pass, an evocatively named section of the Burma to Thailand railway (how many estimated deaths during construction? Anyone? Bueller?). It was where prisoners of war and conscripted labourers working 18 hour days hacked down through 20 metres of solid rock using hand tools. For their effort 69 of them were beaten to death by the Japanese. The pass begins to rise above you as you walk into it, into hell, and looms down higher and higher from each side like you are being swallowed by the earth. The effect is not dissimilar to the holocaust memorial in Berlin and describes the exact same human ability to treat other humans as less than that.

The return bus runs to no particular timetable but is at least every three hours. The hellfire pass ticket office guy cheerily informs me that he hasn't seen one for an hour. Two hours later all I've had for company in the bus stop is a Dutch couple and a termite mound. They have been equally talkative. I get dropped at Nam Tok Railway Station. The route will take me along the death railway, along the Wam Po Viaduct, over the famous bridge and back to Kanchanaburi. There's an old steam train engine displayed here from the time of the railway's first operation. The Japanese also have once back in Japan apparently which seems in rather poor taste. But then they've never really grappled with this part of their history. The ticket office isn't open so I have lunch at a place opposite. Its a raised wooden deck under a long tin roof on soaring tree trunk supports with sides open to the air. A nice venue though almost completely deserted which bestows a pleasant stillness. The only fan operating is cooling the two girls sat at the table next to me. I miss my jet engine fan from the previous night as I quietly swelter but one doesn't like to make a fuss. Bottles of what I assume is the local homemade spirit is stand in a row at the front of the restaurant. They look remarkably similar to the bottles that the motorbike hire shops have out the front too. If they're fuel then it's incongruous that a restaurant sells them. If they're booze that's quite the invitation to drink and drive in the hire shops. Perhaps, and this is Thailand after all, they are both. Lunch finished, sweat sweated, I go to the station to buy my ticket. The waiting area has hand painted posters of the various mishaps that can befall a traveller on the railway. Getting hit crossing the tracks. Getting hit leaning out of the window. Getting hit while lying on the track. Falling from the roof. Falling from an open door. It all seems rather far-fetched. The train pulls in and with impeccable timing minivans appear and disgorge tourists. One of them is wearing jeans. How? It's 40 degrees centigrade. I guess you don't have to be a pedophile prince not to sweat. My carriage swiftly becomes a German carriage. They fester and fuss, unable to find seats they like. They look at me rather sourly, I think I am in their desired seats. The carriage is old with wooden benches, wooden walls and decrepid ceiling fans doing their millionth rotation. But they are better than the air coming through the window which is like a hairdryer. It's still a marvellous way to get around as we curve along the wooden viaduct that clings to the mountainside with the river far below. The carriage ought to tip with the rush of passengers to my side for the photo op. They lean far out of the windows to capture the rustic danger of the architecture. Did they not see the posters in the station? The Germans all disembark at a station adjoining a luxurious hotel and it's just me and a Thai guy left.

He asks me for water but I have none and the disappointment spurs him to look out of the window and shout at everyone we pass. Everyone. Back at Kanchanaburi I have dinner at a place called 'By de River'. It is indeed and a metre below the metal grating on which I am sat (via chair) fish pluck at insects lit by underwater lights. When my fish soup arrives it rather resembles the river water, as if I'd reached down and ladled some into my bowl. Tastes better though. Night falls. Tomorrow, danger.