Bridge on the River Kwai and then ...the floods!

The E&O Express train stops on the Bridge over the River Kwai. We remember the movie, and what an impact it had in the late fifties. The organizers shepherd us off the train and take us on a cruise on the river. A retired British Army officer addresses the assembled audience and tells us the history of the building of the railroad from Thailand to Burma. His talk is followed when we are back at the bridge by a visit too the museum where we learn the full impact of this incredible story of Japan using prisoners of war to build the railroad in record time to hasten their war effort.It is 415 klms long and was built be 68 888 POWs and 200 000 Asian "recruits" between 1942 an d 1943. A total of 130 000 lives were lost due to unbelievable Japanese cruelty, very poor nutrition, sanitation and extremes of weather. We see pictures of emaciated Australian and Dutch POWs looking much like prisones out of Auschiwtz. Because of the recent experiences at Pearl Harbor we begin to get a better understanding of connections between the war in the Pacific and the Japanese expansionism in East Asia. On the train is quite a large party of Japanese. We wonder how they feel when the are confronted by all this painful history.
As we wake up the next morning the scenes around the train are of vast flooding on both sides of the track. Sometimes only rooftops are visible. We see small families huddled together and piles of debris floating in torrents. animals try to find shelter on bits of floating wood. We are amazed that the train can still travel on. We pass over several river mouths, with water churning in different directions. People on higher ground trying to make their way in waist deep water with meagre possessions held above their heads Children in windows waving and still smiling. .I see a pig on some floating timber. Eventually the Train Manager announces that the track is becoming dangerous and they have to summon experts to decide whether we can continue.After much shunting backwards and forwards and all kinds of effort to bolster the rack with big wooden beams the decision is made to turn back.They decide to take us back to Bangkok, and arrange to fly to Singapore. The spirit on the train is one of huge adventure.
The floods we learn, were due to less than 24 hours of heavy rain resulting in flash flooding
Happy New Year and best wishes to all for 2012.