The End Of An Odyssey

All in all, our trip to Bangkok and its vicinity featured a few key sites, namely Kanchanaburi and its Death Railway and Bridge On The River Kwai as well as Ayutthaya and its ruins and not forgetting Bangkok itself. It was one exhilarating journey, quite a relaxing one but obnoxious at only one point of time (the bus ride from Ayutthaya on the way to going on a boat ride...which was laced with ammonia of the uric variety....urggh). Other than that encounter, everything else went well. Some more pictures below completing our Bangkok trip album on an amicable manner (captions provided below each pictures):

The 1990s were witness to the most dramatic transformation in the city's history, with the skyline changing almost weekly. A village of a few dozen people has burgeoned into a throbbing city with around 10 million people. Apart from Chinatown, which has retained much of its cultural identity, most of the ethnic sections of the city have become homogenised. Bangkok has come to look more and more like modern cities everywhere in the world. With the dawn of the 21st century, improved management and new state-of-the-art mass transit systems (Skytrain) are signs that Bangkok is finally succeeding in its efforts to overcome its endemic transport problems (Discovery Channel)

Once used as a royal summer retreat, Bang Pa-in, the former Summer Palace lies about 20km south of the ruins of Ayutthaya. The rulers of Ayutthaya used Bang Pa-in as long ago as the 17th century, but the buildings you see today date from the late 19th and early 20th century reigns of Rama IV (Mongkut) and Rama V (Chulalongkorn), who used to travel from Bangkok to this idyllic retreat in the countryside (Discovery Channel).

The Chao Phraya River view from a boat

Anyhow, what made Bangkok unique, just like what made Sabah unique, is the people of Bangkok. Therefore, I would love to end this album with a snippet from Discovery Channel on the people of Bangkok:


"It is the people of Bangkok who infuse its bland concrete enclaves with energy and personality. The Thais' graciousness and charm give a vital dimension to a visit; often it is their smiles that are indelibly imprinted on a visitor's memory long after they return home. Who are these people and where did they come from? Discounting the prehistoric tribes who mysteriously disappeared, it is thought that the Thais originated in China and moved south from the 10th century onwards. Whatever their origins, Thai blood was augmented by infusions of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, Mon, Burmese, Malay, Japanese, Indian and even Persian, whose features are visible in many faces today.

The most prominent ethnic group, the Chinese, have managed to retain much of their original culture, and yet even these people have been rapidly absorbed into the Thai fabric. Thailand is rare among Asian countries in having avoided class, ethnic, religious or civil wars. A strong Thai sense of identity and independence has also helped the country avoid colonisation by foreign forces."


It is highly unlikely that I will be visiting Thailand anytime soon, having been to Phuket Island and now Bangkok and its vicinity, my curiosity of Thailand has been satiated quite sufficiently. I feel that it is time to set my eyes on someplace else in the future, perhaps Cambodia? Angkor Wat? Tomb Raider country....???

Ayutthaya: The Ancient Capital City of Thailand

On the fourth day of our visit to Thailand, we traveled up north of Bangkok to pay tribute to Thailand's ancient ruins of Ayutthaya....as usual, before revealing to you pictures of our time there...here is an excerpt from the guidebook, yet once again courtesy of Discovery Channel:

"Ayutthaya was founded in 1351 by Prince U-thong, who later become King Ramathibodi I. By the 15th century the kingdom of Sukhothai had passed under Ayutthayan rule, and the court's influence spread as far as Angkor in the east, and Pegu, in Burma (Myanmar), to the west. Regular relations with Europe began in the early 1500s with the Portuguese, and later with the Dutch, British, and especially the French. Europeans wrote awed accounts of the fabulous wealth of the courts of Ayutthaya and of the 2,000 temple spires which were clad in gold.

Ayutthaya was one of the richest cities in Asia by the 1600s and, with a population of one million, greater than that of contemporary London. Merchants came from Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia to trade in its markets. Ayutthayan kings engaged Japanese soldiers, Indian men-at-arms, and Persian ministers to serve in their retinues. As quickly as Ayutthaya rose, it collapsed. Burmese armies had been battering at its gates for centuries. In 1767, however, the Burmese triumphed and in their victory they burned and looted without restraint, destroying most of the city's monuments. Within a year, Ayutthaya had become a ghost town, its population of over one million reduced to a few thousand."

Here are pictures of the Ayutthayan ruins during my trip there:

My Excursion Into Kanchanaburi (Bridge On The River Kwai)

Well, let's just say that visiting Bangkok per se cannot be said to be enough as a good introduction to the Kingdom of Thailand. So me and my brother (accompanied by our mom...so understand that both of us were very good boys all the time...now you know why...no hanky panky stuff like visiting go go bars...sigh!) decided an excursion to the Bridge Over River Kwai, which is situated in the district of Kanchanaburi is in order.

(Some more excerpts from the good ol' Discovery Channel Guide. Ahem...here goes...)

"The River Kwai Bridge"

"Construction of the infamous Death Railway began during the Japanese occupation of Thailand and Burma in World War II in an attempt to shorten supply lines between Japan and Burma. The Japanese were brutal taskmasters in a harsh landscape. A combination of hard labour, regular beatings, disease and malnutrition led to the deaths of 16,000 of the 61,000 Allied POWs and approximately 100,000 of the estimated 250,000 conscripted Asian labourers. As one author grimly noted, such figures amounted to a 'life for every sleeper.'

The critical bridge, made famous in print and film, was located at Tha Makham, outside Kanchanaburi. An early wooden version was destroyed by allied bombing in 1943, only to be replaced by steel spans brought from Indonesia by the Japanese. This too was destroyed by bombing and only repaired after the war, when two new steel spans were erected. This segment of the railway still functions and is known as the "Bridge on the River Kwai."

Wow...touched? Here are some pictures commemorating those who died building the Death Railway. May those souls rest in peace...

War Memorial







The Bridge On The River Kwai



The Death Railway

These are some of the scenes that we have captured during and right after a "harrowing" (why was it harrowing? You can ask me that later) train ride on the Death Railway itself...



A Buddhist Temple In A Cave Along The Death Railway (Hallelujah!)

My Trip To Bangkok

(Excerpts from a reasonably informative Discovery Channel Guide on Bangkok)

"It is difficult to picture the city of Bangkok as a riverside fruit orchard. Yet, this was how the city looked 400 years ago: a bang (village) of a few thatched houses among the kok (wild plum) trees growing along the banks of the Chao Phraya River. About three centuries ago, Bangkok was a duty port for tall ships bearing the cargoes of the world. The ships would stop here for customs inspection on their way to the Thai capital of Ayutthaya, 76km (48 miles) up the river.

By 1650, the town had grown. Among the thatched houses were permanent dwellings occupied by Chinese merchants and court officials who were assigned to monitor river traffic. A pair of French-built, star-shaped fortresses served as sentinels at this gateway to the north. One sat just south of a small Buddhist temple called Wat Po, and the other on the opposite bank in Thonburi, at the mouth of Bangkok Yai canal. Today, the latter's whitewashed, crenellated walls stand as a silent reminder of a former age.

In the 17th century, foreign meddling in its political affairs forced Thailand to close its doors to all Europeans for 150 years. Missionaries and a few merchants, however, prised Bangkok open in the 1830s, and by 1860, trade and amity treaties had been established with many European countries and North America.

The year 1767 was catastrophic for the Thais. Fabled Ayutthaya, which for 400 years had been one of the richest cities of the East, was overrun and torched by the Burmese. The remnants of the Thai army fled south to Thonburi, where they established a temporary capital. It served as a staging area for ceaseless battles with the Burmese, the Laotians and the Vietnamese, all of whom were determined to incorporate Thailand into their own kingdoms.

By 1782, the wars had subsided and a general named Chakri was invited to assume the throne. Taking the dynastic name of Ramathibodi, he became Rama I. One of his first decisions was to move the capital across the river to Bangkok, where Chinese merchants had established themselves, and where there was more room for the city to grow."

Intrigued by these facts, me and my brother decided to pay Bangkok a visit in our recent trip there sometime late September this year. Well, the photos below bears testimony of our time there, exposing the cosmopolitan side of Bangkok for all to see: