69. MORE HELL ON EARTH

post 68 - The Khmer Tragedy

post 24 - The Beast In Man

post 37 - Good Morning Vietnam!

 












The source of all conflicts - ego, pride, ambition, greed - in one word - Man 















The Bridge over the River Kwai - the original is long gone.
This was re-constructed in another part of the Mekong River and that section of the river named Kwai. This was created after the success of the movie of the same name and it's the marketing of the tourism people that has turned this area into a tourist hotspot.

This is well-documented and glorified by Hollywood and the Japanese demonised. There's no such thing as a clean, humane war be the participants Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans, Americans and their allies, Russians and their allies, Israelis, Arabs....ad infinitum, ad nauseam...

 


 




The Death Railway








 











Hellfire Pass























Originally known as Konyu Cutting, it was changed to the more glamorous Hollywood appealing Hellfire Pass, now, the title of a book...sometime, movie rights perhaps?...and money? Along the way, stuff get lost in translation.......


Much blood, sweat, tears and many lives went towards the cutting by hand through these rocks to create the opening to construct the Thailand to Burma railway.

I didn't feel the same depression I did in S21 and the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh (post 68) as this railway memorial and museum was beautifully high-tech and comfortable, but my heart was heavy in the former. 

The Khmers never received justice or compensation nor a war pension or a home nor medical treatment or artificial limbs.....all they had as a memorial were a huge bunch of bones.
The local labourers and others from South East Asia recruited as free or cheap slave labour to build this railway were as good as forgotten.

As I left Kanchanaburi by train from another war memorial and war graves conceptualised and financed by non-Asians, I held on to what's best in my life and let the rest fall away......




No one saves us but ourselves...
No one can and no one may....
We ourselves must walk the Path..
Buddhas merely show the way......The Buddha