Make a whole new religion

5th December was the King's Birthday over here in Thailand.
So I had a day's off. Yeah!
With this holiday, Kaiqian and I went to visit the famous Death Railway in the province of Kanchanaburi.
Me still half asleep. (But I think I look sexy like that. ha! bleah!)
Since it's a 3hour bus journey, we had to wake at 5.30am. The watch says 6am.

A rough history of this tragedy, roughly 94,000 Prisoners of War and Asian workers (From what I read, the POW died in such great numbers that the Japanese had to employ Asian workers - coolies, to continue with the construction.) died when building this 415km railway.
In World War 2, the Japanese had needed a route to transport goods and soldiers from Singapore to further invade into India. However, the allied forces stationed in the straits will always bomb the Japanese ships. Hence, they had to find a land route.
The Japanese later found out that there is already a railway from Singapore to Malaysia, and another from Malaysia to Thailand.
What they needed was a railway, to link from Thailand to Burma (Myanmar).

So the Japanese got the POWs (mostly from Changi, Singapore) and asian workers to build this railway.
Although the Japanese had signed a treaty to follow the welfare guidelines for treatment of the POWs, the treaty was never honored.
More than 275,000 men worked day and night under the harshest weather conditions. The conditions got worse when the rainy season came, and Cholera broke loose.

We couldn't take pictures in the museum. So only this picture taken at the main door.
It's quite sad to read about what the POWs went through. There were pictures of soldiers suffering from mal-nutrition or diseases. But the caption of the picture was – soldiers considered fit for work.


On the walls of this building marks the names of the soldiers whose bodies are not found.

It was quite a good day. Weather was good and the traffic was OK.
I guess sometimes we are so used to the city life that we forget how lucky we are.
We never have to worry for peace or safety. Imagine how it will be like if there is a possibility that I will be dragged from this laptop now to build a railway. Or a soldier can break into your home to rape you. Or you never see your family member who went out to fight the war again. Or your house destroyed by a bomb.
The Death Railway
There are so many terrible ways to die. But those 94,000 people (mostly around my age, and had left home for the first time in their lives) wasted away slowly and painfully. And most probably they already know that the end of their misery is death.

I only hope that they had gone to a better place.

If I am not wrong. This is the actual bridge built. The wooden part. The rest of the present railway is rebuilt after the war.

Click here to read more about the History of The Death Railway