The Bridge on the River Kwai and the Institution of an Indian-Parsee Chef in Hong Kong.

Blog number 19,  24.01.2021 Covid status: National lockdown continues in the UK with  'stay at home' rule and all travel corridors closed off with a fast pace programme is jabbing approx 200 vaccines per minute. 

The bridge on the river Kwai and the institution of an Indian Parsee chef in Hongkong

One day the war will be over, and I hope that the people who use this bridge in years to come will remember how it was built and who built it. Not a gang of slaves but soldiers!

-The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Bridge on the River Kwai (Sept 1993)

Two hours from Bangkok, in western Thailand, Kanchanaburi province carries a more sombre message than most other Thai tourist destinations.  Kanchanaburi town is immersed in the gruelling history of the Death Railway construction with the River Kwai's infamous Bridge. It is seemingly one of the best well-known, significant and poignant war histories. The prisoners of war (POWs) and slave labourers completed one of the most remarkable engineering feats in history. In mere 16 months, a 415 km railway line had been constructed linking Thailand (Bangkok) to Japanese occupied Burma. It had been achieved at the appalling human cost.

David Lean's famous film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai' (1957) centres around one of the railway line's main engineering achievements and is based on a French writer, named Pierre Boulle's novel (1952). The film used the Thai-Burma railway construction's historical setting although the actual movie with a new bridge was shot in Kitulgala, Sri Lanka. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 and won overwhelmingly seven Academy awards.

River Kwai

In September 1993, I had the opportunity to attend the second International Obst and Gynae conference hosted in Hong Kong while working as a newly appointed Obst & Gynae consultant at King Fahad National Guard Hospital, Riyadh. At the end of the meeting, along with my colleague, I had planned to take a stopover in Bangkok for a few days before returning home. I had seen the famous film a few times and had a hidden desire to visit this infamous Bridge, which was about two hours of train ride from Bangkok, comprising a half-day tour. My friend was attracted to shopping (I didn't blame her), but I did go ahead with my plans after obtaining all the necessary info from the hotel's concierge upon arrival in Bangkok. I engaged in further sightseeing in Bangkok and of course, shopping, the next day!

Following the invasion of Thailand in 1941, Japan sought to create a rail route through Siam into British Burma. The autocratic army plan meant to lessen Japan's dependence on sea transport for military supplies while moving forward towards India.

This rail route took the now-infamous Death Railway status, controlled by the Japanese army using the enslaved labour of thousands of local civilians and POWs of the Allied forces. The Death Railway earned its name due to the enormous number of lives in the most dangerous circumstances during its construction. The railway track crossed over the Khwae Noi River, on a bridge, becoming familiar worldwide as the Bridge on the River Kwai. A rough estimate suggests that nearly 100,000 locals as forced labourers died during this railway construction. Of more than 60,000 prisoners of war enslaved on the Death Railway, almost 15,000 are believed to have perished under the most gruelling conditions strife with hunger, malnutrition, malaria, cholera, dysentery, trophic ulcers and other illnesses prevalent in the humid heat and dust of the tropics. Even those who overcame the odds had to endure appalling living and working conditions, including food shortages, absent medical care, and the mammoth task of construction on deplorable terrain handling the primitive equipment and more or less using their strengthless hands. The sufferers begged deaths instead of their prevailing lives! That's not to mention the incredible violence and torture inflicted by the Japanese and Korean soldiers supervising the construction. The Bridge was completed in Oct 1943.

Scenes of the death railway

The Bridge on the River Kwai is real and used by local passenger trains from Bangkok to Nam Tok, the last station in Thailand. The Burmese section of the railway track was lifted out once it was not in use a few years after WW2.  

I took a morning train from Bangkok's Thonburi commuter train station to Kanchanaburi and the Bridge on the River Kwai ( next station) following the tracks of the Death Railway itself. The train took about two hours to reach Kanchanaburi, stopped for 20 minutes and then crossed the Bridge itself after another five km to take a long break at the station named Bridge on the Kwai river. The train runs further alongside the scenic River Kwai over the Wampo Viaduct to Nam Tok on an elevated track when it takes few sharp turns following the same river. Construction of this section of the trail was the most dangerous and labour intense, causing far too many daily fatalities amongst the workers.

The carriages of the train were a  typical commuter train style but were clean, comfortable and uncrowded. I spotted a few families with children who had boarded the train in Bangkok and were travelling up-to Nam Tok. Sitting next to an open window, occupying the whole seat, whilst chugging through the Thai countryside was the most enjoyable way to reach Kanchanaburi. The fields were ripe with rice, mangoes, papayas, sugarcane, rubber, cassava, corn, tobacco and cotton.  Vendors moved around freely in the carriages selling chilled soft drinks and pre-packed cut fruits and other food items. The slices of mangoes with spicey masala sprinkled were delicious while enjoying the countryside scenery. 

JEATH Museum etc

The Bridge station has a war museum, cafes, shops and a couple of steam locomotives on static display. The visitors could walk across the bridge on the side walkways of wooden planks, remembering to stand aside for the train when one comes along. The sections of curved steel bridge spans are original and were brought from Java by the Japanese. The bridge escaped the planned bombing during WW2 and remains in place in Kanchanaburi as a tourist attraction and functioning railway bridge. Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, situated across the bridge on the other side, pays respects to the fallen heroes. 

In all truth, there was nothing special about the bridge other than the haunting history behind it. The bridge's architecture is not impressive, and the stretch of the river it is over is calm and not incredibly wide or challenging. Few restaurants were overlooking the river near the bridge, where I opted to take my lunch. It was a buffet lunch with the usual Thai delicacies, including my favourite papaya salad and satays. The small war museum felt more sombre with comprehensive information posters in English, Burmese and Thai language. A few personal stories described in those posters were heart touching and dedicated to the village people's kindness locally. In the war cemetery across the road, nearly 10,000 war heroes were honoured, reading the headstones as I wandered thru the graveyard. 

Entrepreneur & founder of the first cross-harbour ferry service in Hong Kong.

You can't say you have "done" Hongkong, till have taken a star ferry trip across Victoria harbour. These ferries are a lovely fleet of electric-diesel vessels with names like the Morning star, Celestial star or Twinkling star. In 1993, our convention venue was in Hong Kong island, leading my friend and me to take the ferry every day to cross Victoria Harbour. It would take us ten minutes to make the crossing of approx 2.5 km wide and then walk towards the venue to reach in time. Travelling in these ferries gave an honest reflection of daily Chinese life when thousands of commuters crossed the harbour while going about their daily chores and jobs.

Star ferries across the harbour.

Dorabjee Naorojee Mithaiwala, arrived in Hong Kong from Bombay in 1852, hidden as a stowaway aboard a ship bound for China. The Portuguese captain who located him out was kind to permit the young man to remain on board and work as a cook on the ship. Mithaiwalla soon set up a bakery in Hong Kong and started building up his customs to provide bread to the British Army and Navy and European households. As his business grew, his company established three hotels successfully in Hong Kong.

While sampans were still used to make the crossings, with a need for regular ferry services, entrepreneurial D N Mithaiwalla, bought his first steamboat in 1888. He launched his Kowloon Ferry Company with the Morning Star, to transport his workers and cargo (mostly bread). By 1890 the company was running four single-deck ferries across the harbour.

Ten years later, in May 1898, following his retirement, Dorabjee Naorojee sold his company to a British businessman named Catchick Paul Chater who owned The Hongkong and Kowloon Wharf and Godown Company Ltd. Later on changing the name, The Star Ferry Company Ltd, as we know it today, was born. The Star Ferry company remained the primary means of public transport between Kowloon and Hong Kong island until the Cross Harbour Tunnel opening in 1972. The distinctive green and white Star Ferries are fast and cheap transport and a part of Hong Kong as its ever-dynamic skyline. More than 60,000 passengers cross the waters between Kowloon and the Central Ferry Piers on Hong Kong Island each day holding a special place in locals' hearts. It remains the most common scenic way to cross the harbour that provides an up-close view of the iconic harbour skyline and an experience reminiscent of old Hong Kong's charms in the last 150 years. As I had two sets of pictures taken in Hong Kong through my visits in 1993 and then in 2012, I have coupled them to post a few of them.

Star ferry terminal scenes.

The Monster buildings in Hong Kong

Chungking Mansions

The clusters of colourful residential blocks, a Rubik cube-like character known locally as Monster Buildings, gained worldwide fame after serving locations in several famous films. The symmetry, patterns and aesthetics of these buildings are now a photographers paradise. The residents are fed up with tourist photographing their bildings that such actions are more or less banned unless permission has been obtained. I have enclosed a few pictures of these newly built residential complexes, taken during my visit to Hong Kong in late December 2012.

The richness and colonial past rub shoulders with residential convenience scarcity in Hong Kong, much noticed when I was there in 1993. Kowloon's posh hotel, The Peninsula, a Colonial glory, was within spitting distance of the infamous Chungking Mansions, housing more than 5000 immigrants. The building features flats and a city within, Chinese food and curry sheds, Asian commodity stores, clothing shops, foreign exchange tills, etc. The residential complex is now more than half a century old but remains a popular destination in Kowloon and is famously mentioned in Lonely Planet guide to appreciate the adverse housing aspects of Hongkong. The matchbox-sized flats are trendy being easier on the pockets to acquire an alive and kicking pad here.

Victoria Peak

Scenes from victoria peak

As the highest point on Hong Kong Island, Victoria Peak has been Hong Kong's most exclusive tourist attraction since colonial times and is also home to the city's rich and famous today. One can say that the harbour was the very birthplace of the city itself. 

Victoria Harbour at night time

The deep waters between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula are what a collection of fishing villages grew to become an international trade centre. Today, the harbour is the city's throbbing heart, and its iconic skyline is one of the world's most stunning urban landscapes. The peak offers breathtaking views of the city and the mountainous countryside beyond. Standing at the height, my neck stretched high across symmetrical skyscrapers, human-made sky-high concrete jungle and then eyes dipped down to the arresting scenes of Victoria Harbour. In the evenings, the harbour panorama yields to multi-coloured spectrum in the form of a dazzling galaxy of light, gleaming around you. 

 I intend to write up my next blog on Central Java's ( Indonesia) famous architecture, called Borobudur temple, which remained hidden and lost for centuries. I thank you for reading my travel blogs. I have posted my handwritten travel memoirs of Hong Kong( 1993, 2012) and Thailand (1993, 2018) visits.