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Day 8 - Sunday 15 March 2015
Saiyokyaicoffee……..I’m awake earlier today for a change and there’s nothing stopping from making an early start. My blog for the day starts, as normal, with a short review of the accommodation. Saiyokyaicoffee is located on the left heading northwest between markers 154 and 155 on Highway 323. It’s three-story accommodation and location on the main road classes it as a motel as opposed to resorts which are common in the area. The rooms are new fitted out to a good standard as is the elevated restaurant and coffee shop offering some views of the distant hills. Although located next to farmland it is unobtrusive. Coffee, toast and jam are free for breakfast and a cold water dispenser helps compensate for the lack of a fridge in the standard accommodation. Curiously there is parking space near the rooms but to get to it requires travelling down a dirt track to the right of the building. Relative to other accommodation in the area the 600 baht rate is about right.
Saiyokyaicoffee……..I’m awake earlier today for a change and there’s nothing stopping from making an early start. My blog for the day starts, as normal, with a short review of the accommodation. Saiyokyaicoffee is located on the left heading northwest between markers 154 and 155 on Highway 323. It’s three-story accommodation and location on the main road classes it as a motel as opposed to resorts which are common in the area. The rooms are new fitted out to a good standard as is the elevated restaurant and coffee shop offering some views of the distant hills. Although located next to farmland it is unobtrusive. Coffee, toast and jam are free for breakfast and a cold water dispenser helps compensate for the lack of a fridge in the standard accommodation. Curiously there is parking space near the rooms but to get to it requires travelling down a dirt track to the right of the building. Relative to other accommodation in the area the 600 baht rate is about right.
Sai Yok National Park……..photo. As mentioned there are two sites I particularly wish to visit today. I would have thought a few hours would cover these but as I haven’t pre-booked accommodation or joined a group tour I never know how things will work out. In any case I can easily fill any slack in the day should that be available. Baring that in mind I head further along the 323 in completely the opposite direction to my intended travel today It’s still just 9.30am. I know I’m very close to Sai Yok National Park so should I spend any time on it? The main attraction is the waterfall inside the park but the feedback I’ve already received is that the falls are not worth visiting now in the dry season. Nevertheless I reach the park gates and take some photos. I don’t see the point in paying the fee so not for the first time I turn the car around. I figure that reaching the gates qualifies me to write a review of the park later. Just! Now I must head back in the direction of Kanchanaburi.
King Rama V Memorial Hospital……..photo. Not too far back along the 323 I pull off to the left. Hardly a major attraction, but on a small hill there is a memorial to a former monarch, King Rama V. The reason why it’s here is that he was the founder of the hospital in the grounds of which his statue was erected. The King had travelled in Europe and learnt a good deal about the practice of medicine and wished to promote his findings in his kingdom. Further, his young son was plagued by ill-health. I was sure I would get distracted somewhere but finally it’s to the main business of the day and hopefully the defining moment of this tour
Hellfire Pass Memorial……..Marker 139 is the location of my next destination and it was here I found myself yesterday, too late to make a site visit. Hellfire Pass Memorial has been on my wish list for many years. Previously I had relied on public transport to reach this province. Private hire to the memorial was just too expensive. The only option was possibly the Kanchanaburi to Thong Pha Phum or Sangkhlaburi local bus service. It just didn’t happen for far too long. Now I have the Toyota, anything is possible and this is the time I put a great wrong to right. Those who visit Kanchanaburi to visit the River Kwai Bridge, the cemeteries and the Jeath Museum only get half of the picture of what happened on the Thailand/Burma railway, the so called Death Railway. For a visit to Hellfire Pass is as close as one can get to appreciating the suffering of those who were forced to build it. While this is arguably the most important site on my current tour, I wonder how I can review it when so much has already been written about it. Perhaps I will get some inspiration when I walk the trail. The first building that comes into view is the visitor centre which sets you up for an emotional roller coaster ride as you make your way along the trail. The Hellfire Pass (Konyu) cutting is just 500 metres from the centre but requires a still climb up concrete steps to reach it. The intention is that you can return through the cutting or take the loop clockwise if you wish but today I don’t have that option. They have closed the cutting as a safety measure to remove loose rock from the rockface. It seems a pity but I decide to walk further along the track bed as far as the view point across the Kwae Noi River. At every step I take it’s still quite hard to imagine the suffering that took place here despite the facts and figures ringing in my ears. The trail itself carries on for 4 kms but few people travel all its length and those wishing to do so must report to the visitor centre. Reluctantly I head back but it’s not the end of proceedings. One can pick up the trail at the opposite end. For most people it’s by special arrangement but I have the car if I can find the road that leads to it.
King Rama V Memorial Hospital……..photo. Not too far back along the 323 I pull off to the left. Hardly a major attraction, but on a small hill there is a memorial to a former monarch, King Rama V. The reason why it’s here is that he was the founder of the hospital in the grounds of which his statue was erected. The King had travelled in Europe and learnt a good deal about the practice of medicine and wished to promote his findings in his kingdom. Further, his young son was plagued by ill-health. I was sure I would get distracted somewhere but finally it’s to the main business of the day and hopefully the defining moment of this tour
Hellfire Pass Memorial……..Marker 139 is the location of my next destination and it was here I found myself yesterday, too late to make a site visit. Hellfire Pass Memorial has been on my wish list for many years. Previously I had relied on public transport to reach this province. Private hire to the memorial was just too expensive. The only option was possibly the Kanchanaburi to Thong Pha Phum or Sangkhlaburi local bus service. It just didn’t happen for far too long. Now I have the Toyota, anything is possible and this is the time I put a great wrong to right. Those who visit Kanchanaburi to visit the River Kwai Bridge, the cemeteries and the Jeath Museum only get half of the picture of what happened on the Thailand/Burma railway, the so called Death Railway. For a visit to Hellfire Pass is as close as one can get to appreciating the suffering of those who were forced to build it. While this is arguably the most important site on my current tour, I wonder how I can review it when so much has already been written about it. Perhaps I will get some inspiration when I walk the trail. The first building that comes into view is the visitor centre which sets you up for an emotional roller coaster ride as you make your way along the trail. The Hellfire Pass (Konyu) cutting is just 500 metres from the centre but requires a still climb up concrete steps to reach it. The intention is that you can return through the cutting or take the loop clockwise if you wish but today I don’t have that option. They have closed the cutting as a safety measure to remove loose rock from the rockface. It seems a pity but I decide to walk further along the track bed as far as the view point across the Kwae Noi River. At every step I take it’s still quite hard to imagine the suffering that took place here despite the facts and figures ringing in my ears. The trail itself carries on for 4 kms but few people travel all its length and those wishing to do so must report to the visitor centre. Reluctantly I head back but it’s not the end of proceedings. One can pick up the trail at the opposite end. For most people it’s by special arrangement but I have the car if I can find the road that leads to it.
Camp Hintok……..Despite given directions I struggle to find the end of the trail and find myself near the river at Camp Hintok. This is a curious place which appears to be a resort but when I make enquiries I realise the camp has special significance. The name, in fact, hasn’t changed since the building of the railway. A small museum is located on the site of the POW camps alongside the river. The museum relates how the prisoners had to walk up to the construction site, up to 9 kms away to work and make their way back, often in total darkness. As for the camp now, it still is a camp with tents, but air-conditioned tents with all mod-cons. It caters for tour groups who wish to further explore the area. It’s really time I found the end of the trail. Time has flown by, it’s now 1pm.
Hintok Cutting……..The Hintok cutting is as far as one can go for now. Having found the right road I soon locate the site and unlike the start point there is nothing at all here except the old railway bed leading to the cutting and the site of the Three-tier Bridge beyond. It’s completely deserted and quite eerie. However I manage to walk through the cutting and that gives me great satisfaction, making up for the earlier lost opportunity. I find my way back onto the 323 and head back in the direction of Kanchanaburi, stopping for quite a late lunch on the way.
Sai Yok Noi…….. Sai Yok Noi is the next town of any size on the way back to Kanchanaburi. It would be a sleepy, nondescript town were it not for one thing. At the end of the war, the railway the Japanese had built was taken over by the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). The line was considered not to be viable and much of it was ripped up. Now I’ve walked a part of the old line it’s clear to me that the original bridges and viaducts were made of hardwood, not so durable as concrete and steel. Maintaining them would be expensive. However, SRT decided to keep the line open from Nong Pladuk to Kanchanaburi and beyond across the River Kwai Bridge as far as Sai Yok Noi. What they probably didn’t realise was that they were creating a tourist attraction in itself at the terminus. The strange thing is that the line ends at Sai Yok Waterfall. It’s here I stop to take photographs amid a teaming mass of humanity that have taken advantage of a popular weekend in the school holidays. The main road passes directly through the area which is now almost log jammed. Quite why the site is so popular can only be down to the novelty of using the now famous railway. The waterfall itself creates little more excitement than turning on the bathroom tap. When I stopped at the site a 60-car DMU had made it right up to the waterfall itself. This service is the 909 from Bangkok which only runs at weekends. Other services would terminate a short distance away at Nam Tok station. When I pull up to that station it’s deserted. Amazing!
Sinakharin Dam……..It’s now well after 3pm and I should now be looking for the second site of interest to complete my tour but as I said earlier, I’m always looking to fill gaps. The gap though is merely a chink but I’m about to drive a wedge into it. Sai Yok Noi lies on the southern edge of Erawan National Park. Dare I add this to my list today? Well the park itself could be of less interest to me than the immense Sinakharin Dam. That can be reached in about 40 minutes. I make a decision to head for it even though it seems unlikely that I can add anything more today and will have to rest up in the area. I’m at the Dam by 4am. Before that I have the opportunity to enter the park to visit the waterfall but at 300 baht and with limited time I simply drive up to the gate, take a shot and return the way I came. Heading up to the dam the situation is completely different and the stunning views soon make this detour well worthwhile. The road crosses the dam itself and terminates at a car park where there are a visitor centre, services and refreshments. It’s a good place to stop and relax but half an hour is all I can allocate to this site. I head back towards Kanchanaburi. On the way up to Sinakharin Dam I noticed another dam in the lower basin, the Tha Tung Na Dam. Another short detour, I take this in as well. It’s now gone 5pm and options for the day are fast receding. On exiting my last site I ask about the location of the second of my primary sites for this area believing that I will have to pick up where I left off tomorrow. I’m amazed to learn it’s just two kilometres away.
Nine Armies Battlefield Historical Park……..I mentioned earlier that this part of Thailand is dominated by evidence of past conflict. Up to now everything has been focused on WW2 but previous wars have also been played out here: In particular the long and intense struggles between Thailand and Burma. After the sack of Ayutthaya in 1767, a measure of redress was achieved by King Taksin (see my blog for Thonburi) but it was not the end of the conflict between the states and further battles ensued. It was left to King Rama I, the first monarch of the current dynasty to finally put an end to decades of war. The Nine Armies Battlefield Park lies on the site of some of the bloodiest fighting. I took nine years to achieve a result and place Thailand (then Siam) on a firm national base. The site itself hardly justifies the tag of ‘historical park’, but there is an open museum with information about the conflict, unfortunately only in Thai. Bronze statues appear liberally around the site and there is a visitor centre above. The centre is currently being refurbished ready for a grand opening. Inside is a small amphitheatre and I can imagine that the progress of the battle and its outcome will fascinate future visitors. Curiously the centre is deserted, despite some important exhibits remaining inside. While it hasn’t taken me long to walk around this site, I managed to get a feel for it and just when I thought the end of my present tour would be delayed, I’m able to press on now to Kanchanaburi and find accommodation. That will be around 6.30pm as darkness sets in.
Kanchanaburi……..Although I’ve visited Kanchanaburi a number of times, I’m not actively looking for any accommodation I’ve previous used. It’s just an overnight stopover. I arrive at the main road running through the town and the first accommodation I see is on my left. Luxury Hotel appears to be suitable. The rather dated external appearance is deceiving as the rooms must have been refurbished quite recently. However, evidence of its true age soon becomes apparent. What it does have in its favour is a central location and I can get by. The Western Provinces tour hasn’t quite ended but there will be no further delays tomorrow. With the late arrival in Kanchanaburi, I won’t have time tonight to complete my blog. In any case when I look back at the day and realise what has been achieved it would be a tough ask to record all the day’s events in an hour or so. With an early start predicted tomorrow the task of keeping my blog up to date could be even harder. I turn in to the news that Chelsea have only managed a draw at home to Southampton. Next Page.