Once again an early start! All six of us got together for breakfast which was really good, fruit, eggs, tiny croissants and of course Thai food . I’m getting used to eating fried rice in the morning but that’s as much I will have in the morning!
it was quite an experience staying overnight at the Jungle Rafts as it was idyllic but I can only do one night without electricity! The views and atmosphere made up for the lack of modern amenities.
Before having breakfast we went to meet Wandy, the 53 year old female elephant who resides with the Mon people in their village further up on the river banks. Naturally, this was a great attraction for young and old and a bucket of fruit and vegetable peelings was left on the side so that we could feed her.
And then time for breakfast which was really good. Yesterday evening I couldn’t take any pictures as it was too dark, but our group sat at this table and this morning it was again set for us. By 8:30 we were ready to get our longboat back to the pier where Nem and his van were waiting for us (with all of our excess baggage).
We had to have an early start as yesterday we were too tired to go to the Hell Fire Pass and we needed to get there before going on to Erawan National Park. i will have to add the pictures at a later stage as these are on my camera but I do not have the converter with me to put those pictures on my iPad.
The Hell Fire Pass Memorial is a walkway and and Memorial in honor of all the prisoners of war of the Japanese and civilian Asian labourers (Romusha), who were forced to work to build the railway connecting Burma and Thailand during WW2. Many lost their lives due to the heavy workload, starvation, brutality and disease. More than 60,000 Allied prisoners worked on the railway and some 12.500 lost their lives here.
The name Hell Fire Pass came from the appalling working conditions at this site as actually this was the name given to the Konya Cutting . It is part of the Death Railway and this is the part where the prisoners had to use hand drills, picks and shovels to cut into the mountain and create a 500 meter pass for the train. Incredibly this task took only 6 months with many lives being sacrificed.
Following the audio tour and just walking on the track where so many POW’s worked and died in terrble conditions brought often tears to my eyes. We all became subdued and all lost in our thoughts.
It was good that after this visit we were off to the Erawan National Park where we would be visiting the 7 tiered waterfalls. It would be good to sink into the water and have Althea’s morbid thoughts washed away!
Of course Beauty made sure we stopped for lunch before we started our short hike in the park to the waterfalls. Again, we had a very tasty lunch – sticky rice with grilled chicken, papaya salad, chicken curry and light soup with vegetables and shrimps.
By 4pm we were on the way against our drive Mr. Nem knew that if we left on time we could get to the bridge over the River Kwai to be able to see the train leaving the station. We had such a busy day that we were hoping this last sightseeing stop was well worth it – and it was! We stopped on a street corner not far from the railway and walked up to the bridge. Naturally there were many more people who wanted to experience this but we could walk around freely. My thoughts went to those men during the war who were so badly treated and who died building this “Death Railway”.
In a few minutes time, the train that had stopped at the station started moving and again a loudspeaker announced that we had to move behind the red line.
in a few minutes’ time it was all over and we headed back to our van.now we had a short ride to our hotel where we could all relax and have proper showers.
Finally we made it to the Royal River Kwai Resort and Spa. Once we were allocated our rooms, we thanked Beauty and Nem for looking after us the past two days – indeed their hospitality and kindness is something that we westerners ought to take as an example in our lives.
Our room was massive, overlooking the swimming pool area and a garden full of flowering plants and exotic palm trees. The first thing we did when we got to our room was to charge all the phones and iPad so that I could get back updating my blog.
Just a bit of relaxation before we went to an early dinner.The main dining room was filled with rowdy school children on a school trip so we went down to the restaurant along the river – it was such an idyllic setting where we enjoyed our cocktails – gin tonic for Gerry and for me a mojito- just delicious!
we decide that we were ready to give Thai food a break and went for tenderloin steak for Gerry and grilled white bass for me with some really scrumptious green salad.
Off to bed – tomorrow we have a leisure day at the resort – we will be picked up by 5 pm to be taken to the station at Phanom Thuan.
