Kanchanaburi

August 16th 2014

This sounded very interesting when I first booked it – a Temple where in 1999 a tiger cub was left off as a rescue animal.  The monks took care of it.  In subsequent years, another 8 tigers were also rescued and brought to the temple.  Tiger Temple was born.

I wasn’t sure about visiting this temple.  At first I was impressed by the animal rescue aspect of it but then I started reading into it and began to wonder if this isn’t a glorified zoo.  Lonely Planet does not  recommend visiting the temple indicating issues with animal abuse and pointed to animal activist websites.

I had already booked the tour and decided that I would have to go and see for myself .  Was this a cheap way to make money off of animals or was this a rescue site trying to save and protect the tiger?

Overall, the visit was disappointing not to mention thought-provoking.  The facilities weren’t maintained and in need of repair while off in the distance, you could see them building a tiger stadium.  After seeing the tigers up close, we were encouraged to walk with the tigers as well as feed the cubs.  Most zoos have eliminated contact between humans and animals, this zoo seemed to be going in the opposite direction.  We skipped the walk and the feedings because it didn’t feel right.   There is a fine line between providing a sanctuary and protecting the animal to exploiting them for profit.

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August 16th, 2014

Prasat Muang Sing is a Khmer outpost of Angkor Wat. Remember Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie? It was filmed at Angkor Wat and this was an outpost dating back to the 11th and 12th century when the Khmer ruled most of southeast asia. One of the things that I liked about this place was that it wasn’t crawling with tourits. It was really hard to take a picture of the bridge over River Kwai without a dozen or so tourists on it. This has a few passing but overall easy to photograph without tons of people in the picture.

There was one moment that I had to laugh. There was a girl in a group of girls who was holding her phone with what is called a selfie stick. Years ago when I worked at CLS installing systems into hotels, there was a girl I worked with named Sher. She would hold up the camera and say “Kodak Moment – Self Pix” – she was the originator of the selfie decades ago. The selfie is not new but the selfie stick is. What I laugh about is that there is NO shame! Sher held a camera up and hoped both are faces were in it, the selfie stick? That is the epitome of narcissism. Continue reading →

Bridge over River Kwai

August 16th, 2014I have to admit that I never saw this movie until I rented it.  I watched it while I was in Bangkok.  A lot has changed in movie making and this 2 hr 40 minute movie was very slow to watch.  As with a lot of movies during that time, the message is about the US or in this case, the British overcoming and winning even when they were losing.  The hardship and tragedy of the story was lost.

The bridge over river Kwai was built so that the Thai-Burma railway would connect Rangoon to Siam – which it does today.  The bridge was built by POWs – primarily British POWs with a few US citizens mixed in and asian labourers.  Like the Hellfire pass, the conditions weren’t good, long hours, physical abuse and very little medical care.  Many men died – it is believed that for each sleeper rail (railroad tie) a man died.  That is a lot of men.

Our tour guide asked us to look at the side of the rail as she had done the day before.  On the side of the rail was the place and year that the rail had been made.  Interestingly enough, at the Hellfire Pass, the rail was made in 1898, at this location it was 1911 from Germany.  It made me wonder if these were lying around waiting to be used or were they reused from another railway?

The bridge was repeatedly bombed and rebuilt!

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Oriental Kwai

August 15th, 2014

When I was planning my trip to Thailand, I was looking at places to go that I had not gone before.  Kanchanaburi was a name that came up and it looked like it would be an interesting place to visit.

I set out looking for tours.  There were day tours from Bangkok but I thought there was a lot to see in one day and three hours each way meant the day would be very long with a lot of time spent on the road.

At one point, I found myself a little frustrated,  I found this hotel on Tripadvisor and I wanted to stay at this hotel. The overnight tours that I found used primarily floating hotels.  Not sure I liked the idea of a floating hotel.

After going back and fourth of using  a preset tour or creating my own, I decided to book the hotel and to create my own tour.  Evelien at the Oriental Kwai Hotel put me in touch with Joe at www.thailandattractiontours.com who put a custom tour together for me.  Kiki, our tour guide was wonderful, our driver got us around safely.  I highly recommend them. Continue reading →

August 15, 2014

The Siam-Burma Railway, also known as the Death Railway was built by the Japanese during WWII in an effort to ship supplies from Burma all the way to Singapore.  It is called Death Railway because 240,000 people worked on the railway and over 100,000 died while working on the project.  Of the people who died included POW as well as recruited labor.

The train is still used today. We waited for the train, boarded and then went a few stops.  We got off the train to meet our drive and headed back to Kanchanaburi.  It reminded me of the train I took in Rangoon (the circular line), it wasn’t very fast, bumpy, loud and fun.  If I were to go all the way to Rangoon, it would get old very quick.

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August 15, 2014

During WWII, the Japanese wanted to build a railway from Burma to Bangkok so they could ship supplies all the way to Singapore.  The Japanese, against the Geneva Accord, put POWs to work along with recruited labor into building bridges and cutting through mountains to complete the train.  Many of the men died.

Hellfire pass earned its name because men were forced to work on it around the clock.  During the night, the site of the starving men working under the glow of torches resembled a scene from hell.

The museum is quite nice and so is the walk down to the pass.  It is hard to imagine that such tragedy happened in such a pretty setting.  I also found myself wondering, why is it that when I learned about WWII it was all about Europe, Germany and then the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor?  There was so much going over in the Pacific but I didn’t learn anything about that until I started to travel to that part of the world.

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August 15th, 2014

Off to Kanchanaburi for a tour a two day tour.  I was joined by my friend Michael who is living in Singapore and his friend O.  Kanchanaburi is the setting for the film “The Bridge over the River Kwai” and there are a lot of things to do around that area.  After meeting our guide Kiki at 6:00 AM to head out on our 3 hour drive to Kanchanburi.  Our first stop was the Erawan National Park where we hiked up to see the waterfall.

All in all, there were 7 levels of waterfalls,  our small group went up to the fifth and decided to do some swimming.  We never made it to the last two.  According to my fitbit, I had climbed 50 flights of stairs – an all time new record for me.  It was up and down and up and own!  In 90 degree heat this was no easy accomplishments and knew I would sleep well that night. Continue reading →