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bangkokbound69
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For a one day excursion away from the bars and the beautiful women in LOS, is it WORTH it to see the Bridge / River Kwai ?
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 4:36 pm on Sep. 25, 2002
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Chompoo
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That depends greatly on you. I don't think there is really much to see at all and the tourist hype is incredibly overblown, IMO.
If you bring a girl you like out for a day trip (especially if she is from anywhere near there), then almost anything you do will be interesting and she'll take care of you.
Also, for many people, including me, visiting battlegrounds or military cemetaries can be quite moving. If you are like that or have some other emotional attachments to the war then it might be worth it. (But relatively speaking it is almost insignificant compared to most other war memorials.)
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Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 5:09 pm on Sep. 25, 2002
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chateaujade
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Short answer: No
Longer answer: if you are a WWII buff or military historian maybe. It's an ugly bridge, partially original (but not bamboo as in the fake movie) and partially rebuilt after the war, but bear in mind that it goes nowhere, as Sangklaburi is flooded (it's a dam reservoir) and the railway end before Three Pagoda Pass (Burmese border)
Proposals to finish the railway by completing the Hellfire Pass bridge keep being shot down both by Thai-Burmese politics and by veterans groups and organizations of survivors of the slave labor camps the Japanese ran. It is said that one man dies for every tier on the Death Railway.
There's a cemetary and a small museum at Kanchanaburi, not far from the bridge, but really, unless there's something personal, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone to have had a relative die in the making of the stupid bridge -- then you are probably better off going to see the ruins of Ayuddhya, or something else, instead.
The original bridge was BTW not destroyed by heroic OSS and SOE and Seri Thai commandos as per Pierre Boulle's novel and the subsequent movie.
It was bombed by Allied air forces. As was Bangkok, quite a bit.
The book and movie were, sorry, fiction based on reality only rather distantly.
Boulle did better with Planet of the Apes.
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Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 5:10 pm on Sep. 25, 2002
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chateaujade
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Oh, BTW Boulle didn't even get the river's name right.
It isn't the River Kwai. Kwai (rhymes with why?) means water buffalo.
The river is the (Menam) Kwah, sounds like queh? and a really short Thai vowel that is. Almost like a duck quacking while getting its throat cut. Not a long drawn out or even a normal vocalic but cut short right in the middle.
And it is absolutely NOT kway, rhymes with way, which is a very impolite term for cock, prick, dick. RUDE.
Hope this helps...
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 5:16 pm on Sep. 25, 2002
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Deleted Member
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Try to squeeze in one night if you can. After traipsing around the bridge area, there's a great soapy in town.
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 5:51 pm on Sep. 25, 2002
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MrJoe
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I would agree with chateau's assessment (whose historical and lingiustic notes are of course correct) except for one thing;
"for many people, including me, visiting battlegrounds or military cemetaries can be quite moving."
I share this tendency with Chompoo.
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Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 8:49 pm on Sep. 25, 2002
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chateaujade
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Eric Vogel's "Willie McBride" comes to mind. aka "Flowers of the Forest"
Very few Americans at that JEATH Cemetary. British, Australian, and Dutch mostly.
And in the casualties, the POWs were vastly outnumbered by Malayan (and Indian and Chinese) press ganged by the Japanee Army into slave labor out of British Malaya. Maybe Singapore too.
Anyway, the bridge at Kan and the cemetary are monuments to war crimes, it wasn't a battlefield, and most of the victims were civilian. The rest were POWs and their abuse was a straight up war crime, that's all.
Mostly it's the Aussies that remember this matter in proper focus, everyone else just remembers the movie.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:16 am on Sep. 26, 2002
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MrJoe
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CJ,
Good points. However, I don't confine my affinity (reverence even) for soldiers to ANY nationality and I certainly don't exclude POWs.
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Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:47 am on Sep. 26, 2002
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pinga
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Bangkokbound69,
I've done the trip once a while ago. In fact, it was not that bad. Always wanted to see the remainings of that bridge and surroundings. The guide with us was very good and we got a nice time there. Ah! reading a bit on historical issues concerning the bridge before arriving there was interesting. I think we visited a waterfall somewhere else on the way back and it was a nice spot to rest the mind a bit........Nowadays, you may be aware of the different prices for the one-day tour....I think we are talking about 1.5K/person....
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Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 2:33 am on Sep. 26, 2002
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chateaujade
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Pinga, the waterfall would be the Namtoke Erewan.
MrJoe, I somehow doubt that you think I meant things that way. The info was presented as just that, info, and not as a suggestion that you should only care about American dead, or combatant American dead.
Mostly I was debunking the movie, in which the "bamboo" bridge was blown up by American commando and ex-POW William Holden.
Well, actually no one ever managed to escape from that camp...not alive anyway.
The place remains, a monument to the cruelty and barbarism of the Imperial Japanese Army, and a testament to their goal of a Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
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Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 7:20 am on Sep. 26, 2002
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