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Floating market "Dumnoen Saduak"
The floating market used to be inside the city borders of
Bangkok, but as the city was
growing and space became more valuable, it was transferred to the outside.
Unfortunately, now it has become mainly a tourist attraction, whereas it
must have been a real market before. True, you still can buy food and
fruit, but you hardly see any items bought by Thai people, and the canals
are crammed with tourist-loaded boats. The long boats, apparently popular
from a James Bond film, are also amply available. The market takes place
in the early morning.
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Bridge over the river Kwai
At one and a half hour drive
from Bangkok, you will
find the famous "bridge over the river Kwai", where tens of thousands of
prisoners of war (Great Britain, Australia, USA and the Netherlands) and
citizens died. There is a museum, called JEATH (Japan, England, Australia,
Thailand, Holland). Apart from the fact that they are messing around with
the proper country names (shouldn't the name have been JGATN or something
like that), some information sources report the A to stand for America,
and some say it is Australia. The museum itself is interesting, for me
mainly because many Dutch newspapers are exhibited, where I read the
stories of now very old people (if they are even alive still) who have
actually lived through this torture.
The bridge formed a part of the railway to Burma (Myanmar),
which was supposed to go all the way to India. It was also a main target
for the allied forces, as the Japanese wanted to use it to transport there
supplies, and the railway was therefore bombed several times.
The neighboring graveyard
is full of graves of very young men (soldiers), many died at the age of 20 or a
little older, and had probably no idea where they were going to, let alone
how it would end. We see many Dutch names as well. |
