Aussie Pride - Convict Past

Met two Danish female backpackers the other day (no, this is not the start of a draft letter to Penthouse) who are travelling around the world in their "gap" year between finishing university and starting work. Conversation was revolved around "where you from? what do you do? where are you going?" very typical traveller-like questions. From talking to the two, who spoke excellent English, them seemed very bright, intelligent 20-something year olds. They both had a well-rounded knowledge of the world as the talk headed to things like world events, culture and literature (this means, in order, the Paris Hilton imprisonment, a Danish band called "Mew" and the latest issue of Danish Vogue magazine...well rounded yes, deep no).

Danish backpackers (Author's impression)

The only thing I could offer to the conversation about Denmark was that their future Queen was an Australian (well at least a Tasmanian), Princess Mary. I know people from Tasmania who think she is a scrubber (unfair, but note, not my thoughts), so they will be pleased to know that the Danish chicks are of a similar mind. Tried to impress them with my knowledge of Iceland (background note - Iceland was a colony of Denmark and was populated by Danish settlers and my sister lived in Iceland where she had a baby, little Ester). Danes are as fond of Icelandics as Poms are as fond of Australians so I didn't impress them much.

Ester the Eskimo - Icelandic baby

The girls then started to ask questions about Australia as they admitted they would have liked to have gone there and had enquired about air flights to Perth. They asked was the country rich, did people have money (reply - just as rich as most places in Europe). They asked were their plenty of jobs (unemployment is low). They asked if it was safe, was their a lot of crime? I answered that it was pretty safe, much safer I imagine then a lot of places in Europe. This answer struck one of the girls with surprise and confusion reigned on her face. "Oh really" she said, "I always thought that Australia is where England sends all their criminals." Me "Yeah a very long time ago". Danish MENSA candidate "Don't they still send them".

It seems that Danes are of an opinion that Australia is still populated by convicts. Whether this is a rumor put about by gossiping Danish birds in attempt to slag off dear Princess Mary or a sad comment on the education system of Scandinavian countries (which must solely be limited to building Viking longboats and IKEA furniture) I do not know.

Crown Princess Mary of Denmark

(former Prisoner #81952, Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land)

For the benefit of any Dane, Finn, Swede, Norwegians or Häagen-Dazs Ice Cream employees who may be reading this here is a quick guide to modern Australia:

Government: our government is led by the Prime Minister Carl Williams and his conservative party, the United Australia-Iron Chain Gang Coalition.

Defence - Australian troops are currently in combat in Iraq, Afghanistan and Broadmeadows (pictured is the 33rd Calvary Battalion of the Rebels).

Family Life - Australian families are typically tight knit enjoying many social engagements together such as picnics, sporting pursuits and armed robbery.

Fashion - Australians are fast becoming "cutting edge" in the world of fashion. Here are two models at Brisbane's 2007 Boggo Road Fashion Show.



Business - the Australian economy is booming. The richest Australian man is Jamie Packer. Here he is conducting business in his usual effective, direct style.

Architecture - One of the most famous buildings in Australia, if not the world, is the Sydney Opera House.

Medicine - Australian doctors are leading the field in successful IVF births as can be testified by Mr H. Bergler, proud father.

Innovation - One of the greatest innovations of Australian enterprise, the Glenrowan Bicycle Helmet.

Hopefully any prospective visitor can be assured of their safe passage in my home country.

Regards

Author

River Kwai - Part 2

Continued...

There are a number of plaques, sculptures and monuments that are placed around the Bridge either by foreign countries who participated in the war or the locals. Couple of my favorites: if you ever watched a World War 2 movie where the Yanks are the only ones fighting either the Gerrys or Japs, this is proof that its not only Hollywood producers that believe this take on history - the US plaque built by American veterans who pay tribute to the American soldiers who were interned by the Japanese, the Americans who built the Bridge/Railway and the Americans that perished during its construction (apparently the British, Dutch and Australian POWs were just hanging around).

There is a huge sculpture of the word “war” placed around the plaza near the Bridge. Next to this is another word sculpture (the green one), I wasn’t sure what it said and assumed it was written in the Thai alphabet “maybe the Thai word for war”. Being the thorough, informative tourist that I am I enquired with the tour operator what the word meant? He looked at me a bit confused and explained that it was the English word for “all” (maybe if I had taken the photo from the other side). These 2 plus a couple of others make up the phrase “all war is evil” (if they had placed the words in the correct order and face the same way I wouldn’t look like a tool).

This part of the Railway has a tourist train (the real Railway train comes later) that crosses the Bridge and back. As noted in earlier photos, you can walk along the Bridge. So when the train starts across the Bridge and you happen to be walking across it at the time you had better get out of the way as the train will just run right over you. The driver or someone on the train just yells at you (in Thai) to get the fuck out of the way as it is coming (as if the big yellow engine wasn’t warning enough). There are a number of sections on the Bridge that you can take refuge on, but if these are full then you are added to the toll of the Bridge. I took this photo and have passed it on the families of the people in the picture as a way for them to remember them.

A little journey from the Bridge took a ride on the Death Railway on the Death Train starting at the Death Station of Wang Pho. I purchased my Death Train-ticket and hoped upon a Death Carriage (nice shade of blue) and took a Death Train Seat next to a Death Train Window. The Death Train Conductor (who looked like he wouldn’t be out of place in the Imperial Army out of Star Wars) punched my Death Train-ticket Stub and oversaw my Death Security on the trip (mainly by smoking cigarettes and picking his nose). On my Death Voyage I was able to purchase a Death Can of Coca-Cola and a Death Cornetto Ice Cream.

During the trip you pass through the Thai country-side and you start to get an idea of how rough the going would have been trying to build the Railway. As you pass along the river and through the jungle you can see the atrocious physical conditions the POWs would have had to work under let alone being mistreated by their guards and during a time of war. It was done without any machines, entirely by hand which makes it astounding that it was achieved at all. You pass by campsites, caves and gullies which were used by the POWs to live in and treat their sick. There is the cave that the famous Australian medical officer Weary Dunlop operated on hundreds of men while working on the railway. The trip takes about 30 minutes taking you back to Kanchanaburi.

That night spent the night on a river boat beside the River Kwai. This looked to be a very tranquil setting at the end of a long day. But the place was invaded by mosquitoes and having read in the local paper about record levels of Dengue fever in Thailand meant that I became a prisoner of my room (that was a poor choice of an analogy considering the topic). The room was like a big wicker basket, felt like a snake. Chose to stay in rather then go out and explore the town as I was buggered. Watched TV which was all local Thai channels featuring solely soap operas. The action on these shows consists of the female characters performing the following in each episode: crying, talking to yourself, attacking and screaming another character (actually, much like most women).

Despite some pretty ordinary efforts to cash in on the tourist interest in the place, well worth the visit to such an significant historic place.

Fin.

River Kwai - Part 1

This trip was a 2 day tour from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi in eastern Thailand that took in the River Kwai Bridge and the Death Railway. Tried to be a bit more respectful in writing about this as it is a fairly sensitive subject.

Again the background stuff (I know you love to read about or skip). The railway was built from Burma to Thailand during the Japanese World War 2 occupation. It was built by Asian labourers, British, American, Dutch and Australian Prisoners of War interned by the Japanese and were treated extremely inhumanly. About 200,000 Asian and 60,000 Allied POWs worked on the railway. Of these, around 100,000 Asian labourers and 16,000 Allied POWs died as a direct result of the project. Almost 3,000 Australians alone died.

Trying to found out the Thais history in the war is a little difficult. I think most people would think that it sided with the Allies, given the way Japan is portrayed and the various sites dedicated to Allied soldiers I visited. After some investigation (not from the tour guides) I learnt that after a brief fight with the Japanese (a wopping 8 hours in total) the Thais surrendered and allowed Japan passage through its country in exhange for terrorites taken by the French (in Laos and Cambodia). The Thais allied themselves with Japanese for the remainder of the war until almost until the very end and then swapped governments and proclaimed itself an ally of the US (like betting on a horse race and being allowed to change your wager 10m from the finishing post).

The Thai Army most effective weapon (circ.1941)

First stop on the trip was to the JEATH War Museum in Kanchanaburi. JEATH stands for the main combatants involved in WW2 in the area; Japanese, English (anyone of Scottish, Welsh or Irish descent who fought in the war will be glad to know you are classed as “English”), American/Australian (we have to share a letter), Thailand and Holland. The museum, unfortunately, is a woefully bad excuse to commemorate such a significant event. Like many so called tourist attractions in SE Asia, you are prohibited from taking any photos while inside. This might be to protect the intellectual property of the displays or a mark of respect to those it is dedicated to. In this case it is to protect the outside world from seeing for themselves this awful collection of sub-standard displays. There are some relevant photos of POWs and artists impressions of life in the camps and on the railroad construction. These are presented with “information” details put together in such a way that the curator’s office must be staffed by the (now infamous) blind kindergarden kiddies that seem so influential in any work of major importance in Asia. The information ranges from being inaccurate, poorly written or misspelt rendering it incomprehensible. Displays put together with all the care and visual attraction of an amphetamine addicts attempt at finger-painting. A lot of the “artifacts” are photocopies of foreign newspaper articles that have been stuck on the wall. I understand that a lot of the museum is put together by local Thais where English is not their first language and it might be a bit thoughtless of me to be so critical of their efforts, but I can imagine the outrage in Australia if a similar museum was built dedicated to another nation that was so poorly put together. The second photo of the fake guard tower (one of the few I was allowed to take) offers some good advice to anyone thinking of visiting this place.

After exiting the museum there is a fairly flash statue dedicated to a Japanese soldier Takashi Nagase, the only such monument at the place. He worked as an interrupter during the construction of the Death Railway. He apparently had a change of heart once the Japanese lost the war and remained in Thailand, became a Buddhist monk and set up a peace foundation that assisted in setting up the museum. There were a number of elderly tourists at the museum from Australia, England, Europe and US, some I imagine were veterans themselves and I suppose the museum has attracted a lot of them over the years. Anyone who has ever listened to the RSL’s Bruce Ruxton or has met a veteran of the Japanese theatre of war will know that they do not regard the Japanese fondly. Imagine the reaction of elderly gentlemen such as these who come to this place, endure the poor excuse of a memorial to their sacrifices and then are confronted by the only decently constructed thing in the place which turns out to be a dedication to the enemy! (How about we erect a statue of Osama Bin Laden at the World Trade Center site). Found out later that this poor effort of a place has received some criticism and a new (and improved) museum has been built. Asking the tour operator why don’t they go there instead was advised that the JEATH Museum was cheaper and people don’t spend much time viewing the attractions (surprise) and therefore the tour doesn’t fall behind the schedule.



After the disappointment of the “museum” we moved on to the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery where things improved dramatically. This is the site were all the Allied POWs that died on the railway were eventually laid to rest. It is an immaculately kept and presented place and is much more befitting place to remember the young men who died in this war. There are over 8,000 graves here separated into sections depending on the soldiers’ nationality. The Australian section is quite large and really demonstrates what a significant contribution such a small (population–wise) country made to the conflict in the area. It also is very moving to wander along the tombstones that detail the soldiers’ name, what unit they belonged to, when they died and most sadly the soldiers’ age which in most cases was in the early 20s. The cemetery is really well maintained but discovered this is only due to the fact, like a lot of foreign war graves, they are funded not by the local country but by the respective governments of the dead. At least the Thais do a good job to honour this.



A number of the dead were never identified and the soldiers were either cremated and buried together in the monument below or were accorded their own grave stating only that the soldier was from the Allies and “Known unto God”. While wandering around a came across this grave of a J R Carr in the English section. I did a bit of searching on the internet and I found out only that his name was John Richard Carr, originally from Manchester. Don’t know if related, but it was a little eerie to come across this and very sad to find his age was only 26 (I know when I was 26 I had trouble scratching my arse let alone anything dealing with anything more difficult). Very sobering experience.

Next, on to the actual River Kwai (or Kwae) Bridge that was made famous due to its bombing by the Americans (just as much by the movie “Bridge on the River Kwai). I remember watching the movie as a kid some time ago (and like all Asian tourist sites, if there is a movie tie-in you can be sure that the DVD is on sale at a near-by stall). I pictured the Bridge to be a lot bigger structure, again the influence of the movie. Found out the movie was shot in Sri Lanka and (obviously) the movie Bridge was “Hollywood-ed Up” to make it more impressive. Still. The Bridge and Railway was originally bombed but has been re-built as a lot of the railway is still used by tourists and locals. The movie only showed a couple of carefully targeted bombs that blew it up. In fact they dropped a shit load of bombs hoping one would hit it. They’ve recovered a lot of them and this photo shows one which I’ve been assured has been de-fused (though typical Thai safety standards are pretty free and easy so I didn’t have the courage to start tapping on this thing).

It only takes about 5 minutes to walk one way across the Bridge (again my movie induced impression was shattered) and only about five people wide. It is a fairly solid structure considering the conditions it was built under. The tourist guides point out that for each sleeper on the railroad a POW died. The men were worked to death under terrible conditions, being starved and beaten by the Japanese prison guards. They would literally drop like flies while it was constructed.



Paid a local vendor to take my photo and you can see why so few photos of me have been exhibited (you can see why these people sell t-shirts for a living and not a more complex profession). Had hoped to get a shot with the Bridge in the background while I posed next to an unexploded bomb. Managed to get most of the Bridge in, everything below my forehead (shame, my do was looking great that day) and something that may be a bomb or could be a bus. The local stall sold a t-shirt proudly proclaiming the local attractions, with a Thomas the Tank like picture with the title “THE DEATH RAILWAY”. Typical of tourist attractions, almost anything that the locals can add the prefix “Death” to they will.

To be continued...

Aussie Pride

One thing that occurs when overseas and meeting other nationalities is the discussion of politics and Australia's unfortunate image as seen through our current Prime Minister Johnnie Howard. Either little is known of him despite being PM for 10 years (the Mr Sheen comparison seems the best way to describe him physically) or that he is Bush's lapdog in regards to international affairs. Either way there ain't much to be proud of in our head of government.


This Mr Sheen ....................................not this Mr Sheen

I do hark back for a time when our PM was a definite character who had a bit of balls and whether you liked him or not, he was funny at least. The following is an article from the The Age newspaper about Tony Blair's media advisor's recent memoir, in particular his meeting with then PM Paul Keating.

Keating offered Blair tips on handling Murdoch
London
July 10, 2007 -

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/im-paul-keating-now-f-off/2007/07/10/1183833444241.html

(Rather then wade through the article) the funniest bit was a discussion about Keating's future:


There was also discussion about Mr Keating's future, with his then media adviser, Greg Turnbull, telling Mr Campbell if Mr Keating won the 1996 federal election he would quit a year later. "Paul Keating said when he was out of office he planned to have an answering machine with the message: 'You have reached the office of ex-prime minister Paul Keating. Now f*** off and leave me alone'," Campbell wrote.

On Paul I do miss you...

Not on Previous Post

Blogger is crap.

After about an hour and an half of uploading photos for the previous Post (River Kwai) all the photos have "disappeared". The so called Help Centre for the site has numerous complaints about it for weeks but it seems little is done about it.

When or if the site is fixed i will re-attach the photos (that is if the entire blog hasn't disappeared)

Thanks and sorry.

Update (10 July) - Have re-attached the photos for the River Kwai post and they appear as the 2 most recent. blogger.com is still crap and very awkward to use with its many faults and errors (please forward liable action to this website)

Asian Cup - "Oman that was crap"

Unable to find a TV that was showing the Oman (what is an Oman?) Vs Australia game in the Asian Cup despite being in the very area that is called Asia. Resorted to viewing a game stat feed via the internet. For a game that scores so infrequently, this is very boring way to watch a game. The only interesting details were:

Oman 1 - Australia 1 (Goals: '32 B. Al-Maimani, '90+1 T. Cahill)

Looking to travel to Bangkok from Luang Prabang to see if i can see the Australia vs either the Iraq or Thailand game later this week. Hopefully the result is a little better

Completely unrelated, while waiting for the stats to update I stumbled across the Simpsons website where you can create your own Simpson character (yes I am struggling to fill in my days), see if you recognise the below:

http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/main.html

Milestone

Fast approaching 100 hits by visitors to the blog. I am a little excited and amazed (given I think I only know about 50 people all up). Crowds are already anticipating the forthcoming event as witnessed in streets all around the world. Keep an eye on the ticker on the right hand side to ensure you witness the event (I've been logging on to kick the thing over).

h

No new posts last few days as the blogger.com site is really very crap and seems to be shitting itself at the moment. Cannot upload my own photos and have difficulty posting any text. This post alone represents 1/2 hour (didn't say I say patient or persistent) of trying. This whole blog may die in the ass if not sorted out (can hear the cries of anguish from you all).