The Bridge on the River Kwai

I can't remember if I wrote about our trip to Hellfire Pass and The Bridge on the River Kwai. It was a week ago!  We drove to Kanchanaburi province and had a lovely lunch along the Kwae River (the Thais spell it "Kwae", unlike Hollywood), then visited the Hellfire Pass museum where the Japanese who occupied Thailand in World War II forced American, British, and Australian prisoners of war to carve a pass out of solid rock in their quest to link Thailand to Burma by rail.  The museum documents the horrible suffering of the POWs - many of whom died from starvation, malaria, or beatings - and the cruelty of their captors.

 Our peaceful lunch spot

Life on the Kwae River

Australians made up the majority of the thousands of POWs who died building the "Death Railway" from Thailand to Burma for their Japanese captors

This is the pass carved out by forced labor.  You can see the remnants of the railway.

The memorial

There are small memorials like this along the pass - erected by family members, the Australian government, or others who want to pay tribute to our troops who suffered here

THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI - ANOTHER PART OF THE JAPANESE "DEATH RAILWAY" FROM THAILAND TO BURMA DURING WWII

On the way back to Bangkok we stopped at the Bridge on the River Kwai of movie fame.  It is quite a tourist spot now, but the younger members of our group who had never seen (or heard of) the movie weren't impressed.  At Hellfire pass, as I walked down the cut that Allied soldiers had made in such agonizing conditions, I could sense the spirit of the place and its meaning.  At the River Kwai bridge, it was more of a photo op - I'm glad I could say I've been there but the large groups, noisy vendors, and billboards did not do justice to its heartbreaking history. 

On The Bridge Over the River Kwai (in Thailand it's "Kwae")

A party barge being hauled down the river.  We could hear the karaoke cranking!

Yes, those of us who could, whistled

This is dragon fruit being sold by a vendor near the bridge.  We bought some for a snack on the bus.

"Sanuk"

      “Sanuk” is the Thai word for fun, and Day 16 of our journey was certainly sanuk!  We got up early to catch a plane to Nakhon Si Thammarat  in the southern part of the country, arriving around 9:30 a.m.  The most humongous double- decker bus you’ve ever seen in your life (really silly since there are only 16 of us!) took us to the temple known as Wat Mahathat where we were lucky enough to witness a teenager being ordained into the monkhood with his proud family looking on.  Most Thai boys are expected to become monks, even though the practice is becoming less common.  They become monks for a period of a few days, several months, or for life and it is encouraged because the family believes they will get to “heaven” (nirvana) more quickly if their sons become monks, if only for a short time.  Another ceremony was taking place at the Wat (temple) as lengths and lengths of bright saffron fabric was being wound around the steeple at the top.  This was being done by the Buddhist faithful at the temple but they didn’t mind if we joined in as long as we did so respectfully (I’m not sure these photos I took would be counted as respectful but no one seemed to mind).  On the other hand, when I posed for a photo with one of the hundreds of Buddha statues at the wat I was chastised in pantomime by a Thai woman who let me know that you don’t pose all cutesy with the Buddha, but should fold your hands in front of your chest in reverence to his image.  Ooops.  I apologized in pantomime and "wai'd" her.  Thai's use the "wai" to show respect, greeting and apology. 

 A "wai" is performed by folding one's hands in front and bowing.  The higher the hands or held and the lower the bow expresses the degree of respect or apology.  So I "wai'd" the lady and I think she forgave me. 

Wat Mahathat in southern Thailand

 A new monk being ordained by the elder monk

The family members of the boy are gathered around.  His ordination will bring them good luck and a better chance at achieving nirvana

 This is the non-respectful pose that got me in trouble

 For a reason I don't understand we wrapped fabric around the stupa

 Buddha's footprint

 A band of Buddhas

Next we went to the city outskirts to the lovely home of one of Thailand’s last puppet-masters, Suchart Subsin. The traditional Thai form of puppetry is shadow puppets.  The old gentleman who performed for us carves these wonderfully intricate puppets out of buffalo hide.  They have moving parts and he controls them with sticks from below presents to show by moving the puppets in front of a silk screen with a bright light shining behind, creating beautiful lace-like shadows.  Our puppet-master is trying to preserve this art form and has performed for the king himself and is an expert who is consulted by artisans throughout Asia. As is written on the paper I received with the purchase of some of his artwork, Khru Suchart always performs to bring knowledge as well as joy to his audiences without them realizing it." 

      He performed all the voices of the puppets while his son provided a musical score to help tell the story.  It was in Thai, but Professor Tam translated the gist of it for us.  The show was based on a traditional Thai folktale, but he’d added some modern touches… the princess in the story at one point donned short-shorts and had a cell phone!  After the show, which everyone loved, we looked at his “museum” (an upstairs loft in his bamboo home) where he kept examples of old puppets made from different animal hides and from different countries.  It was fascinating.  We all got a chance to see a demonstration of how he carves the puppets out of thin leather and had the opportunity to give it a try ourselves.

 The puppetmaster with a professor from the local university

 These puppets are like lace - but about 2 feet tall and carved out of buffalo hide

 This guy is carving a new puppet with an awl-like tool

 Practicing my puppet-making skill

      In the afternoon we took the giant mega-bus up into the hills to visit Kiriwong Village, a community that has been ravaged by flooding.  Zig-zagging our way up the hills I couldn’t help but feel that this giant bus was a poor choice to be taking up a steep and narrow road with no shoulders.  I was sure of it when we started hitting the low-hanging electric wires strung across the road at intervals.   Seriously.  I’m guess-timating here, but let’s say the bus was 20 feet tall.  These wires were about 15 feet off the ground and our crazy Thai bus driver would just slowly inch his way forward and (unbelievably) the wire would slide up the windshield and scrape over the roof of the bus without electrocuting us and without cutting the power supply of  all the hill villages.  Finally the road got so narrow we could go no further, so we walked the rest of the way to Kiriwong, where the inhabitants have been encouraged to revive the craft of traditional tie-dye.  The village, which has always depended on farming for its livelihood, had been nearly wiped out by a devastating flood.  The government decided that diversification was in order to help the villagers remain self-sufficient, so they began a fishing-farming industry and the tie-dye business.

 The One Tambon One Project (reviving traditional handicrafts to revitalize a village economy destroyed by floods)

 Tie dye lesson

 After we tied our handkerchief we brought them to this area to dye them

 We threw our projects into the cauldron filled with boiling mangosteen leaves

These fruits were the source of our dyes

 My completed tie-dye piece

       We were shown how women use bamboo sticks to augment the ties as they created designs on fabric and demonstrated which natural vegetation is boiled to create different colors.  Different leaves and fruit peels create beautiful earth tones such as terra-cotta, taupe, and moss green.  We were able to experiment with our own designs on handkerchiefs and went to drop our tie-dye into a huge cauldron of boiling mangosteen, which would give us the terra-cotta color.  Before we left we were given samples of mangosteen jelly and bought some of the villagers’ tie-dye and batik wares. 

      Our sanuk day still wasn’t over!  We had to wind our way down the mountain (and back under the electric wires) to arrive at Nakhon Si Thammarat Rajabhat University.  This is a rural college of about 500 students, most training to become teachers.  The gracious faculty of the university first ushered us to the “American Room” – which was outfitted with computers donated by the U.S. Ambassador’s office.  We were invited to use the computers to check our email, etc., courtesy of the U.S. embassy.  Then we were led to the school banquet hall for a ceremonial dinner.  We were pretty scruffy, having gotten up at 5 a.m. to catch the plane, hiked, sweated in the humid heat, and loaded on and off the bus several times up to this point so we certainly weren’t prepared for to be treated as honored guests at a lovely banquet – but that’s what happened.  As we approached the building a dozen students dressed in uniform threw flowers at our feet.  There was a giant banner welcoming the 2011 Fulbright Scholars.  As we entered the banquet room we went through a receiving line, meeting several distinguished faculty members and the university president.  A few Americans who are on faculty at the school were also present.  Then we sat down to speeches and ceremonial gift-giving, followed by a feast served to us by the students and treated to a show presented by them.  It was wonderful and we certainly felt like VIPs!  I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned yet that there is a camera crew that is following us wherever we go as they are doing a story for ASEAN Television.  It’s quite annoying, actually.  Not only are they constantly jumping in front of us to snap our photos, but they are always standing in the way between us and what WE want to photograph.  But the Fulbright people are all excited about this television exposure so we’re just going to have to get used to them.

Getting the VIP treatment as we arrived at the University

 Greetings from the university president (right) and faculty

 Cultural performance by the students

Sixteen hours after we had risen to catch our early flight we finally checked into the Ligor City Hotel – only to check out early the next morning as we set off for another adventure!

Going to Church at a Buddhist Temple

 This Buddhist temple is right next to my hotel in downtown Bangkok so I decided to check it out

 Buddhists buy flowers, food, and incense to offer to Buddha at the temple.  These faithful are putting gold leaf onto the statue of Buddha

 I happened to be there for their church ceremony.  The people kneel on the floor and talk (even on cell phones!) while the monks pray.  At the end of the ceremony the people give the monks flowers and food.

"Mai Pen Rai"

One of our Thai hosts and her 15 year old friend who hopes to study in the U.S.

      Mai Pen Rai is an expression the Thais use often.  Thai people don’t worry about being late, they remain calm when they’re stuck in Bangkok’s horrific traffic jams, they shrug their shoulders when things break down.  Miss your plane?  Mai pen rai!  Bus breaks down in a remote village?  Mai pen rai!  It’s basically the equivalent of our “never mind” or Africa’s “Hankuna matada”… and I needed to invoke it during my Thai “home-stay”.  We were supposed to be staying at the homes of members of the Bangkok Rotary club.  I found out that Shannon, a teacher from South Dakota, and I would be staying at the home of  Salakjiit Nopakun and her husband.  A little nervous about staying in someone else’s home, we were also excited to find out more about typical Thai family life.  But when Salakjiit picked us up we were forced to say, “Mai pen rai!”  She is a warm, wonderful, and wealthy woman who, a) didn’t want to disturb her home routine with houseguests, and b) wanted to show us Thai hospitality by giving us a treat.  So she and her two friends who were also hosting Fulbrighters had rented a huge van to take us to a seaside resort about two hours from Bangkok!   It was quite interesting, but not the home-stay experience we’d been expecting!

      Salakjiit’s nickname is “Jeet”.  Thais almost always have nicknames because their real names are so long.  The nicknames are rather interesting… “Jeet” means “Tiny”, one of her friends was nicknamed “Som”, which means the color orange, and other nicknames I’ve heard mean things like “Arm”, or “Grapefruit”.  Jeet is an English language professor at a college and is the Immediate Past President of her Rotary Club.  Her husband, Ed, is a international copyright lawyer (must get a lot of business in Thailand!) and is the President-Elect of the club.

 The monkeys watched us feast on crab, mussels, and some weird wormy looking shellfish

       They and their friends took us to a fishing village on the Bay of Siam for lunch at a quaint restaurant on a dock that specializes in shellfish.  We ate the best of many delicious meals I’ve had in Thailand, feasting on crab, mussels, and some weird kind of shellfish I’d never seen before which is kind of stem-shaped and was delicious.  The restaurant was overrun with monkeys who stayed away from our food but provided entertainment and great photo opportunities.  Then Jeet rented two boats to take us back through the narrow canals of the fishing village.  As you can see (if I’ve successfully posted the photos) the fishermen’s  houses are all built up on stilts and are quite picturesque.  Past the village we saw some great flora and fauna, including walking catfish and a giant Kimodo dragon (or was it a monitor lizard??) about 7 feet long.  Of course, as soon as we got deep into the jungle our boat broke down!  Mai pen rai!  Luckily it wasn’t too long before another boat came by and gave us a tow and eventually our boat driver was able to contact what must be the equivalent of AAA because a guy came in a small boat to repair our engine.  It was a great adventure.

Our lunch  restaurant from the Bay of Siam

 Visiting a small Thai fishing village by boat

      After lunch our hosts drove us to the beach where we checked into the ultra-luxurious Hilton Resort and Spa!  It was a super-Hilton with water slides in the pool, lavish landscaping and impeccable service.  After a swim in the Bay of Siam (giant jellyfish!) and the pool (fun waterslide!) we went to yet another seafood restaurant on the water where we drank coconut juice while we munched out on squid, sea bass, shrimp, and (I can’t believe I ate these in a foreign country) raw oysters.  It was delicious and I’ve had absolutely no stomach repercussions from my feast.  After dinner we went to an open market where we shopped for handicrafts and saw a cultural dance performance.

Typical market food

Thai silk dance

      After a great night’s sleep in our luxurious hotel we breakfasted and headed out for the Royal Summer Palace.  King Rama VI, who ruled during the early 20^th century, wanted a place to go enjoy the seaside so he constructed his summer palace at the beach.  The palace is completely on stilts and 90% of it is open-air so he could enjoy the breeze coming off the Bay of Siam from all directions.  We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the palace, but it was much more posh than it looks from the outside, with Chippendale furniture in the open-air banquet room, plumbing that would have been state-of-the-art in the 1920s, and even a theater!  Rama VI had been educated in England and was a big fan of Shakespeare.  He staged plays at his summer palace, his favorite being “Merchant of Venice” and Jeet told us he liked to take the women’s roles (which might explain why he left no immediate heirs and his nephew, Rama VII, had to take over when he died… Mai pen rai!)

The king's summer palace

Rama VI's beach house!

The Bay of Siam from my hotel window

       Rama VI was the grandson of Rama IV, the king from “The King and I”.  Since Jeet is completely fluent in English and was educated in the U.S. at Ohio State I took the opportunity of asking her how the Thai people felt about the movie “The King and I”.  Her answer:  “It’s banned, but we’ve all seen it!”  She said the Thai government has banned all three King and I films (Rex Harrison, Yul Brenner, and Jody Foster versions) but the Thai people can get them on the black market.  She laughed it off, saying that since the Thai people knew it was fiction – that Rama IV had actually been a monk for 30 years before becoming king, that “Anna” really didn’t have a close relationship with him (she was just one of many tutors at the palace) and that he was an old, old man when she was in Thailand and certainly didn’t go around dancing and singing – that they just looked at the films as entertainment and didn’t take them seriously.  I guess it’s kind of like how we just have to accept the fact that Disney fictionalized the Pocohontas story and instead of getting angry about we just disassociate ourselves from the fact that they’ve butchered history and enjoy the movie.

      Our hosts treated us to some more shopping opportunities and meals and when we were finally returned to Bangkok we felt that the modest gifts we’d brought for them were unworthy in light of the great expense and time they’d spent on us.  I gave them each a Stetson baseball T-shirt and Chipper Jones golf tournament hats (luckily Jeet’s husband does like to golf so perhaps he’ll appreciate the gift) – but it could no way repay the extraordinary hospitality we’d been shown.  BTW, one of the Rotarians (Ome, whose husband is the governor of one of the Thai provinces) had her 15 year old daughter accompany us also and the girl, Nao, is interested in doing a Rotary exchange to America.  We all assured her that we’d love to have her come and stay with us in the U.S., so maybe we will have the opportunity to adequately repay their kindness.