Hellfire Pass

Hello New Year!!!

Everyone is just about to shake that holiday spirit and head back to work. But not the two of us, nope! We are just getting started on our long weekend out of town.
This time we headed back up North West of Bangkok to Sai Yok National Park in Kanchanaburi. Here we booked ourselves into this really unique jungle resort of only 29 rooms at the bank of the famous River Kwai.
We have been to Kanchanaburi a few times but in different places and we have written elsewhere about the “Bridge on the River Kwai”, “The Erawan Falls” and other sites we visited. There is also going to be a dedicated album about this trip with more great images (yes, I did lug around the big camera for this one). Meanwhile here a few impressions taken with our iPhones along the way,
This time we have returned to explore the equally infamous “Hellfire Pass”. And guess what, our resort is directly at the pass. We arrived with somewhat muted expectations, given that we were to check into a “tented” room, which is all this small jungle camp offers. Happy to say that our expectations were exceeded by far.
Definitely not your typical hotel but we were not looking for a typical hotel. We were looking for a small secluded place with quality accommodation for us to be close to where we wanted to be and enjoy a relaxing and undisturbed weekend.
And we found all of the above; more evidence required? No problem:
So our first afternoon was spent with a leisurely lunch at the resort restaurant right at the bank of the River Kwai. How is this for a view:
The rest of the day was then lazing about and waiting for dinner. This was served in the garden and once again uncomplicated and thoroughly enjoyable.
Though in the evening we were reminded that we are in a different part of Thailand now and our warm sweaters quickly came out. Don’t believe it? Check it out, even these bundles of wool had to cuddle up:
We woke up in the morning to a “chilly” 14 degrees Celcius and before you laugh, yes we know, that’s not cold but if you are used to 34 and above and at times 40 and above, this is cold enough to give you a blocked nose. Apparently the night before it was 11 degrees. Well, one night to go for us …, let’s see what it has in store.
Anyhow; day two: a simple yet hearty breakfast and off to the Hellfire Pass Museum.

After spending some time to educate ourselves with regard to the history of the place (you can read up on it here). We headed out to trek the 7km (to and from) of really sometimes quite rough terrain. In as much as this is a beautiful and scenic hike today, one can only begin to imagine what a true Hell on Earth it must have been for the POW’s whom were enslaved here for the most useless and wasted effort in engineering of all time. Today none of their work remains; the railway has gone as have the bridges they built.

And remember, this was 100% manual labour, no machines here; all they had at their disposal were the kind of rudimentary tools:
Here are some pics taken along the walk:

Beautiful, interesting, sobering…

The highest form of respect to the men and women whom had to suffer in this place for no good reason…!

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