Hellfire Pass

Hellfire Pass. It actually indicates that something must be interesting here or popular like bridge over Kwai river in Kanczanaburi. Still I decided to visit the place on the way back from Myanmar border. Hellfire Pass was a name of this pass given by POW(Prisoners of War) who have worked on it and the reason is that this was one of the most difficult ones to finish buidling a railway from Thailand to Myanmar(Birma at the time).

Plan was made by Japanesse and their engineers calculated that it will take couple of years to finish the project in normal conditions, so Japanesse decided to push the work with POW and some workers from Thailand(some, but still few times more then POW's), so they finished it in  16 months. On the way thousands of them has died because of hunger(only 2 portions of rice with vegtables per day), disseases, tortures, etc. Story behind is very interesting, but sad at the same time.

It is not the scale of Nazi death camps in Poland, but still impressive to look on the results.

The best thing about this museum and trek around it is the quality of exhibition. It is simply the best museum in SE Asia for me. Everything in Thai/English, great movie also in both languages, aircon in the building, everything carefully prepared for you and really well done. You can simply enjoy looking and reading as everything is just "served" for you. Good job!

The vistor it self :)

Here was the railway during the war(after British destroy some parts of it being scared of some new supply lines for partizants and later Thai goverment decided to destroy most of it as they didn't want such a symbol)

Short description as I'm not the best in history.

Most of the work was done by hand using basic tools. Dynamite was used to blow bigger parts of rocks, but only few times.

Impressive, huh?

Views from the pass

And more old trail. Apart of digging in the rocks, they had to go through jungle, built support structures(most of the time made from bamboo or other wood, as steel was too expensive), built bridges(the Kanczanaburi one is one of few made of steel, most of them were bamboo construction - cheap and easy to rebuild after airstrikes)

Australian memorial

And from the top.

From the museum. Some important artist design that.

So there is plenty of history behind, but I don't remember everything and I also don't want to bore you with such an informations. Interested? Go by your self to west part of Thailand and figure it out. Worth it !

Three Pagoda Pass

Three Pagoda Pass, czyli przejście graniczne trzech pagód(o ile tak to się tłumaczy na polski). Opisywane w przewodnika na kilka bądź kilkanaście linijek. Cóż. Oprócz tego, że zawiodłem się na celnikach którzy nie przedłużyli mojego czasowego importu motocykla, to dodatkowo oprócz zdjęcia poniżej niewiele tam zrobiłem. Odwiedziłem lokalny market, zakupiłem tanio whiskey(trochę nielegalnie bo nie wolno, ale celnik już mnie znał po sprawie z motocyklem więc nawet nie próbował rozmawiać ponownie), jakąś branzoletkę dodatkowo do nadgarstka zakupiłem i pojechałem z powrotem, bo dalej się nie da. Tam już Birma, do której motocykla nie chcą wpuścić :(

Na to są właśnie trzy pagody. Słynne. Wysokości człowieka.......

I mapa na granicy jest.

Droga jak to bywa w Tajlandii bardzo fajna, szeroka, niezłej jakości, dookoła pagórki i lasy.
Najważniejszą częścią tej wycieczki była restauracja polecona przez obsługę hotelu w którym nocowałem(dodatkowo dostałem mapę, która była bardzo nie w skali).

W restauracji dostałem smażone owoce morza na gorącym półmisku. Ale było wspaniałe.....

Żeby było ciekawej restauracja była na brzegu dużego strumyka/małej rzeczki. Kilka małych altanek zbudowanych z bambusa nad samym strumykiem pozwalało poczuć trochę chłodu, oraz dodatkowo moczyć nogi w zimnej, górskiej wodzie.

Więc były nogi w zimnym strumieniu, jedzenie na gorącym półmisku, książka, coś do zapisywania wrażeń i wiaderko lodu do drinków. Wszystko oczywiście siedząc pod zadaszoną od słońca bambusową altanką.
Czego chcieć więcej??

Wycieczka na granicę nie udana, bo papierów nie załatwiłem ale restauracja po drodze wspaniała :)

Sangkhla Buri

So, one of the side trips was towards Myanmar border. Towards city of Sangkhla Buri. Not many farangs, a bit cooler and nice landscapes. I also tried to renew my temporary import document for my bike on the border and check if it is possible to cross with bike over national park to more north parts of Thailand.

After all both of cases failed as on border they sent me to Bangkok to extend paper and it was not possible to cross over park without 4WD and special permission. 

No matter what the trip by it self was very nice and some pretty interesting thing to do around.

At first I drive more then 80km inside of national park(another one) taking one of side tracks from main road. Great fun to ride 60 km/h on the gravel road in the middle of bamboo forrests.

Then I found pretty good place to stay overnight at the lakeside(yes, there are plenty of lakes in this area, which atcually reminds me south-east Poland with Solina lake).

One of the highlights of area is golden temple. It looks like was hindu, but they kicked them out and rebuild to be buddism. Still in ongoing, probably never ending construction but pretty good.

So, here is one of many altars around temple. Hammers and other tools for building and some leftovers from candles.

Hey, that's tall golden temple :)

I think the idea was to fit in most of the free spaces a buddha statue. Probably they are fitting some extra ones from time to time, as founds are limited.....

Thai villager type praying. Moro T-shirt, big belly, jeans with fancy belt.

An overview of temple :)

More sky as I like it here :)

On going construction....

There will be a buddha. One day. For sure......

Back side. Not very clean around here(as no one is normally walking there), but somehow impressive.

There also will be buddha. But later. Much later. Ok, I'm done with stupa and sky :D

This buddha is finished, but everything arond is underconstruction. Sorry....

I expect that in high season parking is full of cars and all small shops which are under this amazing red roof are very busy, but in low season........ Slawomir is only farang around :D

In front of temple there is something like that. Buddha obvious, the man with axe, ok can be....

But what the hell this old lady is doing here ?!

Did I say something about temples in last days? Probably I did, so let's see some more.
They are really good in Thailand in adapting to a style, but making it somehow different then the others. I don't know how they do it.

This particullar one had a polished stainless steel pillars around. Almost like a mirrors :P

A sun was shining that day.....

So close up on ornaments.

The overview on area. Ok, maybe on sky :P

Hmmmmm...........
Candles?

Another building.

At the temple was also an exhibition of pictures from neighbourhood area. Some were really good. I think around 200 pics hanging on the passways between different buildings. Something different again.....

At the other part of city there is this big one lying buddha.

And some small stupas around it. Nothing impressive, but well. I was there....

Sangkhla Buri is also famous for the longest wooden bridge in Thaliand. Generally there are lakes everywhere around, so people are living on floating houses, there are floating markets and everything is around lakes basicaly. Here is bambo, floating bridge to second side of city.

Here is main and famous bridge.

Is not exactly bridge as it is missing the central part. So it is now like two molo's. One from village side(where are no hotels) close for people, the second one on hotels side, renowated, with lights and people walking on it.

The sunset in Sangkhla Buri.

Kayaks ;)

View from the "real" bridge.

Yep. We are missing some parts, but who cares......

Local house under the bridge.

Hmmm...... what this young boy is doing here?? Showing off....

No!!!!!!! He is going to commit a suicade!!! Don't JUMP!!!!!!

And then he flyies......................

It is really high from the bridge. The boys are really brave in order to jump from there. 50m at least. Respect!!

Here is the end of Sangkhla Buri. Nice, quiet town close to Myanmar border with not many turists, plenty of water around, great landscapes, friendly people and good roads.

Some landscapes on the way back.

Blue blue blue......

Floating village

I must say one thing. Maybe someone notice it already. If I like the place there are plenty of pictures from there, if not exactly there are only few pics(like Kanczanaburi, but I kind of like the house on riverside and roads around, just the city by it self was not interesting).

Sangkhla Buri. Good choice for side trip :)