A Cultural few days in Kanchanaburi with the GF. Interesting, but at times depressing
Kanchanaburi is famous of course for the Death Railway and the Bridge over the River Kwai. Which is something I have to correct – it is the bridge over the Rive Kwae – it rhymes with ‘air’ as in the Bridge over the River Kwair. The mispronunciation is understandable I guess –
I suspect with an English spelling of ‘Kwae’, a lot of English speakers would say Kway which in Thai, is a common, although vulgar reference to male genitalia. (‘Cock’ for the American readers, if there are any who have managed to get past the big words and read this far).
Amazingly peaceful now – photos here :
http://seismatters.com/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=79
The Cemetery is especially depressing, but a place that should be visited.
Of interest to me was the statistics – although it claims a special place in the hearts of Australians, the most deaths of men of European extraction associated with the railway were British, by a factor of two. And we must not forget the others – 5 times or more of regional people that perished under brutal conditions.
It’s easy to simply blame the Japanese for what happened of course, and there are no excuses, as there are none for the atrocities in Europe committed by the Germans (and even at times the allied forces), but we have to move on – without forgetting.
I guess that is why war Cemeteries are so important.
A less depressing site was Wat Dum Suea, not far from the town of Kanchanaburi.
A magnificent temple with Thai and Chinese style buildings.
Quite a climb to get to it, but well worth it. I actually felt quite pleased with myself at the end, due to a group of Russian tourists who had just arrived – some quite young and fit and where obviously struggling as they made it up the last few steps. Maybe my time isn’t up just yet.
Another place worth a visit is the film set of the epic Naresuan movie.
The film was criticized by many of the so called intellectuals (foreign of course) but I enjoyed it.
Movies should (in my opinion) be treated as entertainment, not fact. So what if there are some inaccuracies? Movies tell a story, and stories aren’t all true. I am sure a lot of the same intellectuals thoroughly enjoyed Star Wars or Shrek. Both clearly factual, at least in their narrow minds.
The set itself is massive. Interestingly a lot of it made out of Styrofoam.
Unfortunately the foam is deteriorating and it makes the price of admission a bit hard to swallow. A bit of maintenance and it would have a long term future. Here’s hoping they make another movie, using the same set and area.
The big disappointment was the Tiger Temple.
This is quite famous, and we were looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it has been hijacked by a bunch of foreign backpacker types who seem to have made it into their own private petting zoo. Thais are obviously second class to them. They have priced everything well out of the range of normal Thai people and almost act as if they don’t exist. Personally I was embarrassed.
The only high point was meeting a monk who was from Udon. We (the GF and I) at last had someone sensible we could talk to.
Having been to the Tiger park in Chiang Mai, we were very disappointed. Whether the Tigers in Chiang Mia are better or worse off, I don’t know. What I do know is the Thai style of doing things beats what is going on at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi.
The Thai style is far more personal and interactive. What is done at the Kanchanaburi Tiger Temple is mass tourism –
Getem in – take their money – getem out.
And the attitudes of the foreign ‘volunteers’ to local visitors is abysmal.
BTW, the Thais have an entertaining expression for backpackers – ‘Farang Kee Nok’ which pretty well translates directly to ‘Bird Shit Foreigner’.
It indicates to me that a large portion of the populace has had enough of these obnoxious parasites. Unfortunately, Budget airlines and a culture of ‘entitlement’ in places like Australia and the US particularly, mean we see a lot of them, many on their ‘Gap Year’ which they are ‘entitled’ to simply because they have successfully made it to the amazing age of 17 or 18 or whatever the legal rooting age is now.
Can’t say I am entirely innocent – in my younger days, I thought I was entitled to all sorts of things too.
Funny what 32 years in seismic does to a man.
A good read on rights and entitlement is Heinlein’s ‘Star Ship Troopers’ – a pig awful movie except for Denise Richards (a bit long in the tooth now at 40+, but I would still pay to see her naked), but quite a good book. Its message is more political than Science Fiction and quite appropriate for the world today.