Phuket Thailand: Trip Advisor's Top 10 Island Paradises list

Trip Advisor has just voted Phuket has just been voted in Top10 island getaway spots in the world.

For your convenience, here are their best hotels and top hotels (according to reviews):

1 Villa Zolitude50 reviews

2  Boomerang Village Resort288 reviews

3 Rising Sun Residence23 reviews

4 Andara Resort and Villas114 reviews

5 BYD Lofts81 reviews

And the top-rated attractions, activities and things to do are:

1 Phuket Thai Cookery School46 reviews

2 Banyan Tree Spa Phuket7 reviews

3 Wat Chalong16 reviews

The only surprise is that Koh Samui, Koh Samet, Koh Chang, etc, didn't make that list, but I guess Amazing Thailand has to give other countries a chance now and then, jing jing.

The fastest hotel internet in Thailand? That'd be Conrad Bangkok.

One of Conrad's 22 meeting rooms

As someone who virtually lives on the internet for work (yes, this IS work, jing jing) this news release is something that will have business travellers to Thailand whistling while they work ...

-start-

The Conrad has made a decisive step toward being the best business hotel in Bangkok by upgrading its internet bandwidth line speed throughout the 391-room hotel to 50Mpbs.

“High-speed connectivity in business is an absolute necessity these days, and the Conrad wants to make sure our tech-savvy guests enjoy the best technology facilities that this city can offer,” says Manfred Pieper, General Manager.

This is the second time since he came on board in August 2008 that the hotel has undertaken an across-the-board speed upgrade. In January 2009, the hotel moved up to 30Mpbs.

“30Mbps was a big deal back then, and this underlines how fast the technology is changing. We have to anticipate those changes and invest in them on behalf of our guests to exceed their expectations. Information is sometimes confusing to guests because some devices’ capacity is advertised, not actual line speed. And others have a fast line speed but it is a shared line, not an individual one. Anyway, at 50Mbps our internet service is now two to three times the speed of some of our competitors.”

The hotel has invested in state-of-the-art Ruckus ZoneFlex 2942 wireless systems, considered to be the world’s smartest 802.11g access points, with no configuration required by guests.

”This smart system automatically steers your wi-fi signal to the best route to avoid any signal interference and maintain high-speed integrity without dropout,” says Pieper. “Our guests will also be pleased that it is available on a complimentary basis in all our executive rooms, suites, executive floor lounge, hotel lobby, swimming pool, and all our restaurants and bars. That means it’s free in around two thirds of the hotel.” In public areas, the complimentary time limit is one hour.
Elsewhere throughout the hotel the top-speed wireless can be enjoyed on a chargeable basis.

This technology upgrade bolsters Conrad Bangkok’s aims of being the city’s first choice business and meeting hotel. (It has previously won the Business Traveller Asia-Pacific ‘Best Business Hotel in Bangkok’ award.)

With 22 meeting rooms covering more than 20,000 square feet, its facilities are best-in-class, especially their audio-video conference facilities, including teleprompters, and video conferencing."

-end-

So maybe the tin cans and string the sales guy sold me as state-of-the-art are not quite up to speed. State of the ark, more like. Time for me to upgrade to thicker string me thinks ...

Of 3 Pagodas and a bunch of Wangkas in Kanchanaburi Thailand

For about six years I've dreamed of hammering up Route 323 on my motor bike. Today I did it.

Kicking off from the lovely grounds of the Pung Waan Resort at Nam Tok (near Sai Yok Noi waterfall, where an old Japanese loco sits eerily on a section of track which is now the railhead), we were immediately enjoying the wide, flat and smooth surface of the 323.

Not just for Mazdas ...

Route 323 runs riot for approximately 300 km, starting near Nakhon Pathom (just west of Bangkok) and out through Ban Pong (where the PoWs arrived in cattle carts from Singapore to build the death railway), through Kanchanaburi, out past Sangkhlaburi and ends at Three Pagodas pass on the Burma Thai border.

Originally it was a muddy track, the one used by the Japanese to march the PoWs up to various notorious Death Railway work camps in the Second World War. It was also their main supply route north, but virtually impassable in the heavy monsoons of 1943.

The vistas to the west are ruggedly awesome - beautiful mist clad mountains, purplish green.

We soon came to the Hellfire Pass turnoff, with nurseries opposite in full tropical bloom. All of this beauty disguises the fact that the dreaded Cholera Hill (as it was nicknamed) sits just behind.

Several signs spruiked resorts and floating jungle rafts, cool hotels anchored in the Kwai Noi river. It is brilliant fun to put on a life-jacket and just float for kilometres downstream with cave-riven steep cliffs soaring abruptly 200 or 300 metres above you (warning: do not try this in wet season; a boat once had to come racing after me when I missed my 'stop').

Sai Yok Yai falls is quite splendid when in full cry, and riverside restaurants and boat hire outfits here do a roaring trade. Literally. Have you ever heard a V8 longtail boat in full cry? It makes my BMW bike sound positively whiny in comparison.

Still, I enjoyed making that comparison along the many straight stretches of the highway, seeing if there was anything after the red zone on the rpm metre ... well, you know, perhaps, it just goes around the clock and starts again or something. I wasn't going to die wondering.

I always enjoy the coffee shops along the way in Amazing Thailand. Cute little places in the middle of nowhere that can whip up a latte as fine as any you'll find in downtown London, Sydney or New York.

We stopped for a coffee just before the turnoff to Thong Pha Phum (I like that place name ... it sounds like sound-checking a drum kit, jing jing.) Thong! Pha!! Phum!!!

And this is where confusion set in ...

Note digital lights even out here ...

On my map (the trusty Roadway Thailand Atlas) the road to Thong! Pha! Phum! is a sharp left, and the road to the 3 Pagodas Pass is straight ahead. However, what we were presented with in reality was a 90-degree turn off at the lights to 3 Pagodas, while the road to Thong! Pha! Phum! carried on straight.

I put my helmet down on the road shoulder to go and speak to some soldiers/ customs/ police/ miscellaneous uniformed personnel at the nearby checkpoint. Yes, Three Pagodas is here, a right turn. Oh, so the road signs were correct then (never, ever, NEVER assume anything in Thailand!)

I put my helmet back on and ... hey ... what the? ... aaaargh!!! An ant. Biting my neck. Bastard! Then another on my ear. Aaaargh! Then all over my head. I ripped off my helmet, to see it infested with a whole colony of tiny black ants, drawn in no doubt by the heady (pardon the pun) pheromone of sweat built up over tens of thousands of kilometres done on Thailand's roads.

It took a full five minutes of swatting, slapping, scraping and smearing the little blighters to render my helmet secure again (OK, that doesn't make me a great Buddhist).

The case against opium 

The road now took a windier demeanour, curving hither and thither through forested hills. Rounding one bend, the road was suddenly blocked by a meandering crowd and a fleet of pick-up trucks. A Karen hilltribe festival. Perhaps an ordination. Splendid day-glo costumes adorned the kids, cleverly tied cloths festooned the adults' heads. Some guy was pounding out tunes on a weathered set of skins. Thong! Pha! Phum! An elderly couple danced like they meant it. They were either drunk on rice whiskey, high on opium poppies, or crazy. I bet a dollar on the latter.

Then the road descended wildly, with huge concrete lane dividers which made it feel like a luge run. This was Cool Runnings Thai-style.

Out into the open again, the countryside opened up magnificently, a huge flood plain where the Kwai Noi has been dammed and the Khao Laem reservoir has buried villages and temples but given life to a lively amount of traditional fishing villages and water sports. Er, and whisk broom empires. Forget what your broker's telling you about Google; get into whisk brooms, these people must know something on the inside I'm telling you.

Richer folks in the area have jagged top spots for their houses with commanding lakeside views of where the two ends of the Death Railway finally joined in October 1943.

Further on a huge bridge across the Ranti River afforded money-shot valley views. Then climb climb climb to Sangkhla Buri, a refreshingly prosperous town, with fancy median strips, a massive gold reclining Buddha, and ... tah daaaaaa ... the 3 Pagodas.

Hold on a minute. I thought the pagodas were supposed to be white? And we're still a few kilometres short of the border. These were pirated pagodas!

Sangkhla Buri is clearly a popular town for locals to visit (about 6-7 hours by road from Bangkok). A swathe of small guest houses and restaurants lined many many back roads that I took, looking for Thailand's longest wooden bridge, the Mon Bridge. Easy to miss really, it's only 400 metres long!

Can you spot the Wangkas?

On the other side is a Mon tribal village (they exiled from Burma in 1949) called ... wait for it ... Wangka, jing jing.

Today there are about 25,000 Wangkas living on that side of the river. So approximately half the town are Wangkas.

And so, with childish smirks on our faces, we left the Wangkas and headed up toward the border. Lord knows how the Japanese thought you could get a train line up through the Tenasserim Hills here, but they did, exacting a dreadful toll on the allied men of A Force.

The 3 Pagodas are actually a tad underwhelming. Not huge. Not impressive. But distinctive all the same.

They symbolize the area at which Buddhism entered the country from India in the 3rd century, and also mark the area through which several Burmese invasions against Thailand were launched (and vice versa), and of course was the point at which the Thai Burma Railway exited the country. A small section of track commemorates that (although this section of the railway was ripped up immediately post-war to ensure Karen separatists did not make use of it).

A huge Thai flag fluttered limply to one side. A starry/ stripy Myanmar flag on the other. A queue of cars, trucks and three-wheelers, all groaning under the weight of baggage, lined up to exit Amazing Thailand.

Some Wangka on a BMW

We posed for photos. Asked Thai soldiers to shoot us (er, with the camera I mean) but were politely declined as they preferred to sit in the shade of the customs office veranda. The Burmese soldiers however were much more co-operative. At the first sight of the camera they sprung to their feet, cradled their AK-47s, and couldn't wait to shoot us. On sight. Fingering their triggers, and pacing up and down, they motioned my friend to point his camera away. He didn't. I urged him to, otherwise I myself would shoot him. Wangka!

Like any border town, markets have sprung up here. Selling Thai and Burmese handicrafts, clothes, whiskey, and Chinese crap. Kids played with remote controlled cars at the base of the Thai flag.

Kid ordering 2 goat soups

One stall had a large pot sitting on the counter. Out the top seemed to be some kind of horn. On further inspection, it was a goat's horn. Still attached to a whole goat's head. In the soup. Shit! It was goat's head soup. (Is this where the Rolling Stones got their inspiration for their seminal album?)

The shop owner indicated in the universal fashion that this could put lead in your pencil.

As my friend coerced the head from the pot trying to get the thing to smile for a photo, I noticed a bunch of kids materialising from a gaping hole in the side wall of the shop.

"Is that Burma?" I asked. Yes, he replied, grinning. There was nothing to stop people or goods simply climbing through from one country to another via his shop wall. I took a step forward -- he raised a hand indicating I shouldn't try it ...

Other World War 2 military sites around Kanchanaburi Thailand

Apart from the Bridge on the River Kwai, being a really fun town, and a very popular getaway for Bangkokians, there are many other WW2 related military sites in Kanchanaburi.

The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery: 7000 Allies rest in peace here along Sanggchuto Road. The most visited of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s 25,000 sites worldwide. Immaculately maintained by a team of gardeners.

The Chung Kai cemetery: 1384 British rest in peace in this original cemetery not far from the main one above

.

The Thai Burma Railway Centre: Museum and research centre. A work of passion by Aussie founder Rod Beattie. The definitive account of the whole Death Railway experience, plus invaluable resources for relatives of POWs. 

The JEATH Memorial: Not a mis-spelling of Death, actually an acronym for Japan, England, Australia, Thailand and Holland, soldiers of which helped construct the infamous Death Railway. Built by the chief abbot of Wat Chaichumpol, this monk-run museum is a good repository of photos and artefacts.

The World War II Museum: Situated just west of the bridge on the city side of the river. Houses some Japanese trains and artefacts, and life-like reconstructions of camp life.


Take your time to steep yourself in the atmosphere of the world war 11 stuff, but don't forget to enjoy Kanchanaburi for the natural beauty of the river and mountains, and for the fun restaurants, resorts and bars on offer.


You can treat it as a day trip from Bangkok (2.5 hours by train, bus or car), or why not come up for a few days.

Some lesser known facts about The Bridge on River Kwai, Thailand

Did you know?

+ The Japanese simply called it 'Bridge # 277' and, in one case, the ‘Mekuron Bridge’ (bastardisation of Mae Khlong).

+ The 378-metre long bridge is not wooden -- it is the only one of 688 POW-made bridges made of cement and steel in Thailand, jing jing.

+ It was made from materials purloined from Java Railways, Indonesia, while the rails came from the British-built Federated Malay States Railways.

+ The use of Azon bombs against the Death Railway bridges was one of the first instances of guided bombs used in warfare. Within three months, 23 bridges along the line were taken out.

+ The Imperial Japanese Army transported some 220,000 tons of military supplies between December 1943 and August 1945 up the POW-built line into Burma. The line was also instrumental in their subsequent withdrawal from Burma.

So how did YOU score on this little test?

The REAL story of the Bridge on River Kwai, Kanchanaburi, Thailand

‘What a load of shite, eh?’ says Dick Lee, in a thick cockney accent. The octogenarian former-HQ dispatch rider is building up quite a head of steam about the seven-Oscar-winning Bridge on the River Kwai. It is 54 years since the movie premiered to worldwide acclaim, but he is not alone among ex-POWs who still voice their disenchantment.

Note well-fed PoW on left

A friend, Paul, remembers attending a screening for veterans in London in 1958 with his father, Captain Hugh Pilkington. ‘He turned to the doorman and said “what a lot of tripe”.’

But perhaps the biggest idea of how wide of the mark the script was comes from Colonel Philip Toosey, the commanding officer played by Alec Guinness. ‘He didn’t even recognise himself as the character portrayed in the movie,’ Julie Summers, Toosey’s grand-daughter and author of The Colonel of Tamarkan, tells me. ‘The film made millions of people think they were seeing something realistic when they were not.’ Unsuccessful entreaties were made to the film’s flamboyant producer, Sam Spiegel, to add a supertitle that branded the movie ‘fiction’.

So where did the movie go wrong?

Bombshell: there never was a River Kwai. Jing jing!

Blame Pierre Boulle. In 1952 the French author published his novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai. A POW himself, he’d heard survivors talk of building two bridges on Khwae Mae Klong; and many railway camps were along the adjoining Khwae Noi. The ‘khwae’ part obviously stuck in his head. But khwae is simply the Thai word for river. ‘So he inadvertently named it “River River”,’ laughs Summers.

In 1942, the Japanese desperately needed a railway link between Bangkok and Rangoon Burma to fuel their push into India. Use was made of 60,000 Allied POWs in Singapore and Java, a windfall labour force. A further 200,000 native labourers were also chain-ganged.

With the route fording rugged terrain adjacent the Burma border, 688 bridges spanning nearly 13 kilometres were needed along the 415 kilometre sector that became notorious as ‘The Death Railway’.

The rather ugly asymmetrical bridge

One bridge had to span 378 metres across Khwae Mae Klong at the provincial town of Kanchanaburi (‘city of gold’). Tamarkan, on the south bank near the confluence, was historically where the Burmese crossed the river in their bid to sack the ancient kingdom. The POWs swelled the usual population of 5000 and local vendors enjoyed a boom, trading much-prized duck eggs which supplemented meager rice rations.

Kanchanaburi was also headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army 9^th Railway Engineering Division. ‘They was no mugs, they knew what they was doing,’ Lee reckons. Some of the best minds behind the Thai Burma Railway – including engineer Yoshihiko Futamatsu – went on to design Japan’s ‘Bullet Train’.

For eight months POWs toiled in blistering sun and driving downpours to complete The Bridge, with little mechanical assistance. Materials from an 11-arched steel bridge in Java were shipped up, and British-laid railway tracks in Malaya were recycled.

Train coming ... #$%&!!!

While never sabotaged with explosives, quality control was deliberately lax, the admixture of the concrete pylons diluted when guards’ backs were turned. The wooden service bridge adjacent was also home to a fine colony of white ants, introduced by the very men who’d built it.

One humorous episode involved two Japanese guards who disappeared during a lunch break, presumably consumed by the setting concrete. They were subsequently found, AWOL with their local girlfriends!

Nine POWs lost their lives during construction, but a further 400 of 2600 Australians, English, Dutch, and Americans based at Tamarkan perished from disease, malnutrition, and wayward Allied bombs. (The attrition was low compared to 24% of all POWs who died in Japanese hands --12,800 Allies and up to 100,000 Asians died building the railway.) Credit to Toosey, a strict disciplinarian and stickler for maintaining hygiene and dignity. And, unlike in the movie, he did encourage – even covered for – one escape attempt.

With little or no fanfare, the bridge was completed at the end of April 1943. After a foot regiment, the first train crossed May 1. Many POWs probably willed The Bridge to come tumbling down. But it stood defiant.

Again, unlike in the movie, The Bridge did its job, enabling 1000 tons of goods and munitions each day to reach Japanese troops in Burma, despite the RAF and USAAF trying to blow it back to Indonesia. Hitting a narrow-gauge rail line from several thousand feet proved tricky, so American military boffins devised the Azon: radio-controlled bombs with adjustable fins. BOOM! On June 24 1945, three curved spans were blasted into the river. A couple of months before war’s end, The Bridge was out of action.

Post-war, the bridge was repaired. Two rectangular spans lend an awkward asymmetrical look. With the movie achieving ‘classic’ status, the Seventies saw a new army arriving in Kanchanaburi – backpackers. Lee says: ‘There was nothing there at the time except a couple of rooms and a shack.’ They all wanted to see the bridge on the River Kwai. But there was no such thing. So Amazing Thailand responded by changing the name from Mae Khlong to River Kwai. Happy now?

The Bridge remains one of the biggest drawcards in a kingdom with a royal flush of drawcards.

Friendly but persuasive ...

Kanchanaburi -- three hours northwest of Bangkok and gateway to Erawan Falls, the Tiger Temple and Hellfire Pass -- is a buzzing low-rise town where everything screams ‘tourism’ … T-shirt stalls, friendly but persuasive post-card vendors, T-shirts, pirated CDs, T-shirts, hawkers cooking Unidentified Frying Objects, T-shirts, and bars where you can ‘get shit-faced on a shoestring’ (as one sign exhorts) while watching screenings of The Movie. Cue infectious Colonel Bogey March soundtrack. Pencil-sharp V8-engined long-tail craft cannon along the river like Brock at Bathurst. Floating karaoke bars pump out insidious music each evening, surely a war crime in itself.

There is a dramatic beauty. Depending on the season, the backdrop is either the purple peaks of the Burma Ranges, or a hazy grey painterly rendition. But, no, Thailand was deemed not jungley enough -- the film was shot in Sri Lanka (Spiegel sending the movie footage home on five separate flights).

The train line insinuates itself into the burgeoning tapioca-and-sugar cane provincial centre of 175,000 it helped foster. We hop off the third-class rattler at Kwai Bridge Station, where vintage locomotives and Japanese diesel truck-trains litter the station. 

‘Do you think that’s it?’ my travel mate, Kerry, asks.

The Bridge is not as heroic as it looks in the film. It does not have the iconic gravitas of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, nor the Golden Gate. Mainly because its matt-black arches sit at street level. We approach it side-on from water level for a more theatrical impression. ‘But that can’t be it … it’s metal,’ says John from Murwillumbah, derailed by the movie.

We walk the planks. They creak underfoot, as a scrum of tourists pick their way across the metal spans. When the train and tour buses arrive from Bangkok it is standing room only, as we sardine our way from one end of the bridge to the other. Yawning gaps open to a watery grave 20 metres below. ‘No OH & S issues here then,’ quips John.

The shady Theerawat

Khun Theerawat, a Tourist Police officer, confirms that once a year a careless tourist will fall into the river below.

 TOOOOTTT!!! A short, sharp horn blast. Expletives deleted! A yellow-and-red loco chugs into view. Fortunately it stops at the platform. Relieved, nervous giggles. The train inches gingerly forward to the slaps and groans of displaced planks. Further horn blasts shoo stragglers. Beaming faces peer from open sash windows. Motor-drives click and whir in syncopation with the train’s squeaking wheels. Two Muslim girls give a super-friendly wave. The train clatters above umbrella-ed vendor carts, past tapioca fields, then swallowed by the jungle ...

‘I walked into the jungle where a bit of the old railway was still lying,’ Lee says. ‘It was so silent, you think, “Did that all really happen?” Like a bleedin’ dream.’

More like a recurrent nightmare. Which is why, to me, the most resonant line in the movie is when Alec Guinness says: ‘I hope in years to come, when the war is over, people remember who built it and how they built it.’ Amen. Ironically, certainly not by watching that movie.

Now, if I could just get that damn Colonel Bogey March tune out of my head.

Question: been to Kanchanaburi lately? How do YOU find the place now?

Best books about the Death Railway Kanchanaburi Thailand

There are stacks. Literally.

I have personally read around 30 or 40 books, diaries, manuscripts, etc over the years of the POW experience on the notorious Death Railway Kanchanaburi, about 2.5 hours northwest of Bangkok (yes, it's in Amazing Thailand not Burma as some people erroneously think).

Central to this of course is the story of Hellfire Pass, which has taken centre stage in Thailand as shorthand for the atrocities, much as Changi in Singapore has over the years. However, it should be noted that Changi camp was deemed to be the camp to be in under the Japanese because if there was food, medicine, supplies, etc on the island, that's where they would be.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, and to save you wondering which of all of those books to read, here is my shortlist of the 'best' books about the Death Railway:

1. One Fourteenth of an Elephant - Ian Denys Peek.

After wading through so many books, feeling a sameness of tone and material, this was somehow fresher, and gives excellent stories from around the incredible Wang Po viaduct area where elephants were heavily used (they found each pachyderm could lift as much as 14 men.)

2. The Railway Man - Eric Lomax.

Can a book about such a dismal episode really be called delightful? Yes, I think so. Lomax was a trainspotter back home before the war, so offers a unique perception of the Death Railway in terms of the machinery, the engines, rail gauge, etc, all wrapped with a wonderful storyteller's eye.

3. And Dawn Came Up Like Thunder - Leo Rawlings


I may be a little biased with my choice here because I was given a signed copy by Dick Lee, a PoW who appears sitting on a log in one of the hundreds of illustration plates contained in this book. And I guess that's what makes this one different ... it tells the story of the atrocities up the line visually, with deft sketches, water colours, drawings and paintings.

4. The Colonel of Tamarkan - Julie Summers


The REAL story of the Bridge on the River Kwai. Do NOT buy Philip Boulle's Bridge on the River Kwai thinking that's how the famous bridge was built. Boulle was a PoW (well, he's French, they're good at that sort of thing), but not on this part of the railway ... he wrote from hearsay, even getting the name of the river wrong, jing jing. Summers is uniquely placed, being the grand-daughter of Colonel Toosey (the character played by Sir Alec Guinness in that movie) and sets the record straight.

5. Blue Haze - Leslie Hall

I include this not because it necessarily worked for me (I found it a little dry and for-the-record) but on the strength of recommendations by two authorities on the railway: Bill Slape, manager of the Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum, and Rod Beattie, proprietor of the Thai Burma Railway Centre.

Well, that's my five. I'm sure you agree with some, disagree with others, right? Let us know by leaving a comment here ...

ANZAC Day in Kanchanaburi Thailand 2011

"You'll be lucky to git a seat, eh," said Bungy, a Kiwi motorcycling mate of mine from Chiang Mai, when I told him I was going down to the ANZAC Day dawn service at Hellfire Pass.

I was a little taken abeck. I mean aback.  It's been only 3 maybe 4 years since I was there last for the service and it was something of a country derby then. Maybe 400 or 500 people on a good day (of which there were precious few for those poor saps working on the Thai Burma Railway, of course).

And so it was that was great unpleasantness that we knocked our little karaoke session at Pung Waan Resort on the head uncharacteristically early -- although some in the audience would say not early enough! -- and requested a wake-up call for ... gulp! ... 2.30am.

After a quick coffee, we hit the road, Route 323 the former Japanese marching trail, up to Hellfire Pass, arriving around 3:30am. The torches were already lit, flaring red against the bare rock face which gave the notorious cutting its name.

The hush was eerie ... I could almost sense the ghosts of ages past still hanging around this deathly gorge. And near the end of the cutting, I saw the first signs of progress: large screen TVs, with their geometric test patterns glowing incongruously in the pass. Then at the end,  where the cutting evens out and the track moves north into the jungle, temporary stands had been set up.

(Why do they call them stands when they're designed for sitting?)

We aced it. We got a seat on the rock steps adjacent the plinth where the ceremony was held. But the bad news was we now had about two hours to wait for the service. I got talking to the lady next to me. A Kiwi who had just visited the Kanchanaburi war cemetery the day before.

"Tregic, tregic, they were just kuds, gee whuz," she said.


I asked her about the clutch of medals that adorned her right chest (signifying medals won by someone other than the wearer). She told me the incredible story of her grand-father, Major Reginald Stanley Judson, DCM, MM and VC. That's right -- he won a Victoria Cross in the 1918 (and all the other medals in the short space of just 3 weeks).

I sat gob-smacked as she regaled me of his heroic deeds in essentially storming and capturing three enemy machine-gun nests, virtually single-handed (not literally single-handed like Lt Cairns in Burma who won his VC attacking the enemy with a sword even though one of his own arms had already been chopped off).

Before I knew it, it was already 5:30 and a few of the original PoWs from the railway were wheeled in and made their way to their VIP seats supporting each other, raising a spontaneous clamour of admiration from the crowd.

In front of us were a big group called Anzac Day Riders, mostly Aussie and Kiwi expatriates from Bangkok on an annual motorcycle pilgrimage. We gave the Kiwis a bit of a rubbing, I mean ribbing.

The pass filled up. 1500 was the best estimate of the crowd by most sources. Big enough, but certainly not crowded and distant as you might feel if you attended the Shrine in Melbourne or Cenotaph in Sydney.

"Those buggers died in a bloody beautiful place," said Ken afterwards, surveying the stunning valley of teak and bamboo. He could hardly stand upright for the weight of his own medals. He'd served in the Malayan Emergency, Borneo Konfrontasi and Vietnam. But he wasn't raving about the service he'd just attended: "Too much God," he said, fixing me in the eye. "Why can't they just tell a few uplifting stories about how they triumphed over this place ... it means more than a hymn and a prayer."

With the service over, it was then up to the Hellfire Pass Memorial Museum for the traditional gunfire breakfast. This involved a shot of rum. I think there was also coffee and Anzac biscuits served.

I bumped into Cyril Gilbert, who had been with A Force up the northern reaches of the Death Railway, which reminded me of the story he'd told me for The Missing Years of how he 'celebrated' his 23rd birthday. He was one of eight mates who had 9 herrings ... and spent half an hour dividing up the extra piece of fish so everyone got exactly the same amount, no more, no less than anyone else. Jing jing!

Then many boarded their buses, taxis, mini-vans and motorcycles, and headed the 60-odd kilometres south to Kanchanaburi to attend the 10am service there, and wander through the many excellent museums (see www.tbrconline.net), memorials and of course over the Bridge on River Kwai.

By midday the heat was blistering. Can you imagine those poor PoWs slaving shirtless in this summer sun day in and day out?

However, Kanchanaburi today offers a few creature comforts today that were not so readily available during the war. Crisply chilled Heineken in a row of fun bars, for one. "It's turning into rather a naughty town," confided one Aussie expat. (There were actually some creature comforts available in this very street during the war --  a great story told by Eric Lomax* of his Japanese guard handing him his rifle to hold while he ducked inside a little brothel for a short time!)

Soon good-hearted rowdiness oozed from pubs such as the One Mar bar, the Round the Corner Bar, and Ning Bar. Beer was drunk as quick as the girls could pour it. Even quicker sometimes. The stories came out. The yarns. The escapades. The laughter. The tears. The good mates made. The good mates lost.

I spent the afternoon and evening with the Anzac Riders who were brewing up their own brand of mischief, involving burn-offs with their thumping great gleaming chrome steeds out front, roaring down the road standing in the saddle, etc. Someone call the police! Oh, I forgot, the bar is owned by a policeman.

As an emotional release to the solemness of the morning service, this was perfect. Kanchanaburi is certainly a great base for Anzac Day celebrations for that reason alone, let alone that you're in the shadow of the historical railway running through the town.

Lest we forget.





* Read Eric Lomax's brilliant little book called The Railway Man, about his time as a PoW in this area. You can also check out The Missing Years - A PoW's story from Changi to Hellfire Pass by some bloke called Stu Lloyd.