This week has been tough because I am presenting new material but my interpreter has been excellent and the class has gone well. I had three Thai students—two of whom were from the surrounding countryside and they all became fast friends and were very good to work with. Overall the first week was difficult but enjoyable.
The Internet in my room is about $12/hour so I will probably only be
posting pictures on this blog on weekends. I can walk across the park to the shopping center and use an Internet café to check my emails for less than a dollar for an hour but can’t post photographs. On Saturday I went to the National Museum and rode the water taxi along the river. The weather here is hot and humid but we are getting a lot of rain right now.
On Sunday I took a tour up north—actually pretty near the Burmese border—and visited the war museum, military cemetery and remains of the Bridge over the River Kwai, famous from the movie.
We took a bus up to the location then visited the museum which consists of a collection of large photographs of the prisoners of war. It is not a good visit for the squeamish and does not bother with political correctness—the Japanese do not come off well at all here. If you remember the movie, about 30,000 Allied prisoners of war, mostly British, were killed, worked to death or starved building a stretch of railroad in the mountains to connect the Burma Road. The Japanese documented most of this with photographs and after viewing them I can tell you it was as brutal as anything I’ve seen concerning the Holocaust. What the movie didn’t tell us was that another 100,000 impressed civilian laborers from SE Asia and China died building the road. The military cemetery is maintained by the British government and as you would expect is very moving. Some American POWs worked and died here but it was mostly British and Australian. The 
majority of Americans were survivors of the USS Houston after it was sunk. Ironically, and appropriately, the museum is managed and operated by the local Buddhist monastery to promote understanding and non-violence.
The bridge was completed in 1943 and the Japanese had started reinforcing the wooden structure with steel but when the Allied Forces gained a stronghold in China they set up airfields and immediately began bombing the Burma Road. The Royal Air Force specifically targeted the bridge over the River Kwai taking
out several spans. After the war and defeat of Japan, Britain rebuilt the bridge into the steel structure that stands today and then sold it to the Thai government who still operates the railroad with rail service to and from Bangkok with these outlying villages.
We rode about 1 ½ hours of the rail service today—the section through the mountains that was later called the “Death Railway” because of the terrible toll in POW deaths from 1942-43.
I start my second week of classes tomorrow. Sorry about the delayed blogs but I will post irregularly and try to let you know when I do. I believe the trip to Cambodia and Angkor Wat is going to happen on May 27-28. When it does I should have some spectacular photos.
The Internet in my room is about $12/hour so I will probably only be
posting pictures on this blog on weekends. I can walk across the park to the shopping center and use an Internet café to check my emails for less than a dollar for an hour but can’t post photographs. On Saturday I went to the National Museum and rode the water taxi along the river. The weather here is hot and humid but we are getting a lot of rain right now.On Sunday I took a tour up north—actually pretty near the Burmese border—and visited the war museum, military cemetery and remains of the Bridge over the River Kwai, famous from the movie.
We took a bus up to the location then visited the museum which consists of a collection of large photographs of the prisoners of war. It is not a good visit for the squeamish and does not bother with political correctness—the Japanese do not come off well at all here. If you remember the movie, about 30,000 Allied prisoners of war, mostly British, were killed, worked to death or starved building a stretch of railroad in the mountains to connect the Burma Road. The Japanese documented most of this with photographs and after viewing them I can tell you it was as brutal as anything I’ve seen concerning the Holocaust. What the movie didn’t tell us was that another 100,000 impressed civilian laborers from SE Asia and China died building the road. The military cemetery is maintained by the British government and as you would expect is very moving. Some American POWs worked and died here but it was mostly British and Australian. The 
majority of Americans were survivors of the USS Houston after it was sunk. Ironically, and appropriately, the museum is managed and operated by the local Buddhist monastery to promote understanding and non-violence.The bridge was completed in 1943 and the Japanese had started reinforcing the wooden structure with steel but when the Allied Forces gained a stronghold in China they set up airfields and immediately began bombing the Burma Road. The Royal Air Force specifically targeted the bridge over the River Kwai taking
out several spans. After the war and defeat of Japan, Britain rebuilt the bridge into the steel structure that stands today and then sold it to the Thai government who still operates the railroad with rail service to and from Bangkok with these outlying villages.We rode about 1 ½ hours of the rail service today—the section through the mountains that was later called the “Death Railway” because of the terrible toll in POW deaths from 1942-43.
I start my second week of classes tomorrow. Sorry about the delayed blogs but I will post irregularly and try to let you know when I do. I believe the trip to Cambodia and Angkor Wat is going to happen on May 27-28. When it does I should have some spectacular photos.
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