BANGKOK & BEYOND - DAY 03 - PART 05 - HELLFIRE PASS

Ok sambung lagi story cuti-cuti kami di Thailand.

Lepas lawat muzium dan tonton video dalam teater di Hellfire Pass Interpretive Center ini, kami teruskan dengan Memorial Walk pula, which is a walk on the so-called Hellfire Pass itself. 

Ada Audio Guide percuma disediakan untuk pengunjung dalam Bahasa Thai dan Inggeris.

Ada 2 jenis walk di Memorial Walk ni: Walk 1 and Walk 2. Kami di Walk 1 je udah le... hehe.

Ruang berkumpul.

Ok jom kita explore the Hellfire Pass. 

Turun tangga ke Hellfire Pass Railbed and Walking Trail.

Memorial Walks terletak 250 meter di bawah bukit di mana Hellfire Pass Interpretive Centre didirikan. Ia adalah laluan yang sama yang dahulu digunakan oleh buruh-buruh paksa. Kini ia sudah dibina cantik dan selamat, no longer laluan tanah yang curam dan merbahaya. 

Walau pun elok tangga-tangganya begini, ia mungkin agak mencabar bagi sesetengah peringkat umur untuk menuruninya.

Di beberapa landing di tangga-tangga ini ada disediakan benches.  So kalau kelelahan boleh la rehat kejap. 

Memang suasana di sini cantik, so bergambar kejap.. hehe.

Ada banyak bamboo trees.

Santai je kami jalan. Kita ada banyak masa kata Saran, our local tour guide.

Laluan turun tangga diselang seli dengan laluan platform kayu yang rata menjadikan perjalanan turun kami berlingkar dan bertingkat.

Terus berjalan di Timber Boardwalk ini.

It was quite a pleasant descend actually. 

Bila sampai di points tertentu yang dilabel dengan nombor, pelawat boleh punch in the said number dan dengar penerangan dengan audio guide.

Sampai di bawah we came upon a gravel walkway. Further up, pelawat akan bertemu the 'Hellfire Pass', yang dipanggil Jepun sebagai 'Konyu Cutting'. Ia adalah nama pemotongan bagi pembinaan bekas landasan Burma Railway (Death Railway) di Thailand yang dibina dengan tenaga kerja paksa semasa Perang Dunia Kedua.

Info about the Walking Trail. Kalau anda ada audio guide, punch in code No. 04 di sini. 

Kawasannya teduh dan nyaman.

Kesan pembinaan landasan keretapi yang masih ada.

Lereng bukit berbatu yang dipotong oleh buruh kasar untuk jadi laluan keretapi.

Imagine cutting through hard rocks without proper construction tools under extreme exhaustion, sickness, injured and malnourished conditions.

Walking on the Rail Bed path.

Cuma kena hati-hati sikit berjalan atas gravel ni. 

Suasana hening dan sepi di sini kami rasa sama seperti suasana sewaktu kami melawat ke Kem Tahanan Nazi di Dachau, Germany dulu.

Wait... ssshhh.. can you hear it? The echoing sound of hammer banging on rocks...? 

... dan sekarang bayangkan.... 

Kami berdua memang suka kalau ada info board begini.

I am just lost for words....

Walking Trail ini tidaklah terlalu jauh tapi mencabar kerana berjalan laluan yang berbatu kerikil. Kalau penat boleh rehat di benches yang disediakan. For some, benches ni tempat mereka duduk for contemplation and remembrance. 

Gaung dalam di bawah sana tu.

Buruh paksa tawanan perang dikerah menebang pokok-pokok besar yang kemudiannya dibuat jadi bridge piles and sleepers. 

Mengikut cerita salah seorang survivor dari kumpulan tentera Australia tentang Romusha (tawanan dari negara Asia):

"If we had a bad time, they had a shocking time; they had no organization, no one to lead them, no one to help them, and they died in the tens of thousands".

The Romusha. 

The majority of deaths occurred amongst labourers whom the Japanese enticed to come to help build the line with false promises of good jobs. These labourers, mostly Malayans (Chinese, Malays and Tamils from Malaya), suffered mostly the same as the POWs at the hands of the Japanese. The Japanese kept no records of these deaths. - Wikipedia

"Enter at your own risk".

Kisah bagaimana tempat ini mendapat nama 'Hellfire Pass'. 

Hellfire Pass / Konyu Cutting pada 1945.

"Work gangs were labouring here in the daylight and in darkness, when bamboo flares and lamps lit the site. And that is what suggested to someone the name that has stuck to Konyu Cutting - Hellfire Pass".

Information about the 'Cuttings'.

Entering the cutting. 

"When the working day could stretch to eighteen hours or more, it was the most brutal place and its death toll can never be accurately known". 

"Most of the work done at this place was done with hand tools. Hellfire Pass was cut and blasted through the solid rock by men with hammers and spikes".

Ramai warga Australia berkunjung ke sini setiap tahun untuk mengenang peristiwa yang berlaku. Ada banyak memorablia dan bunga poppy yang diletakkan oleh keluarga mangsa yang terkorban sebagai tanda peringatan dan terima kasih atas keberanian dan pengorbanan mereka.  

Poppies is a symbol of remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime. 

"When we worked up at Hellfire Pass, the biggest percentage of the time there we were living on rice and what we called stink fish. It was dried fish and there was more bones than there was fish, sort of thing. But we just put up with it because there was nothing else you could do...".

Serpihan besi dari landasan yang telah dimusnahkan.

"Those who worked at this place suffered at the hands of their guards - all were beaten, many severely, some with permanent effect, some were killed". 

At the end of World War II, 111 Japanese military officials were tried for war crimes for their brutality during the construction of the railway. Thirty-two of them were sentenced to death. No compensation or reparations have been provided to Southeast Asian victims. - Wikipedia

"No chap that was there died on his own, he always had somebody beside him... you'd talk to him; you'd do everything you could for him, even though you knew you couldn't do anymore for him".

"The men had to walk to worksite, perhaps several steep kilometers from their camps. And in the wet season, for months, that was dangerous and it was unhealthy".

"The clothes in which the prisoners were captured soon rotted and their boots fell apart. I was about a hundred and fifty days without boots, just getting round in bare feet".

"Mainly barefoot with improvised loin cloths they live on little more than poor quality rice and their heroic doctors did what they could with virtually no supplies".

"I happened to be on a saw and they said they wanted the saw to cut off a leg... They had a bucket of boiling water there. They put the saw into the boiling water".

"Half a dozen fellas were holding this fella down. They took his leg off and put the saw in the bucket of water and washed it and I took it back to the bamboos".

"Dysentery, malaria, tropical ulcers and above all cholera took a fearful toll. Thirty percent of Australians held prisoner by the Japanese died in captivity".

"The rails have long since been removed but the cutting, the rock faces, are as the prisoners made them and knew them and left them".

"If you choose to walk through the cutting, you walk where they walked and worked and lived and died". 

Di sebelah plak penerangan tentang Hellfire Pass yang dilekatkan kepada cerun tebing, ada sebuah plak yang didedikasikan kepada Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop. Dia adalah seorang pakar bedah tentera British yang banyak berjasa menyelamatkan banyak nyawa di kem-kem tahanan, walaupun dia sendiri adalah seorang tawanan perang. Sir Dunlop meninggal dunia di Melbourne, Australia pada tahun 1993. Mayatnya dibakar dan abunya ditaburkan di Hellfire Pass.

Di hujung Hellfire Pass cutting ni ada sebuah Memorial. 

Dan perjalanan kami sehingga di sini sahaja i.e ikut path Walk 1. Walk 2 adalah sejauh 2 kilometer dan akan ambil masa di samping memerlukan stamina. 

Information Blue Walk 1 and Green Walk 2.

Perjalanan kami bermula dari Hellfire Pass Interpretive Center, turun Timber Boardwalk, walk through Rail Bed dan Hellfire Pass dan sampai ke Memorial. 

Emaciated prisoners. 

In their memory.

The Commemoration. 

Anzac Day turut diadakan di sini pada 25 April setiap tahun untuk memperingati perajurit Australia dan New Zealand yang terkorban di sini. 

So ended our walk. Sekarang nak balik semula ke Interpretive Center tadi. Ada 2 cara; samada patah balik ikut jalan tadi atau panjat tangga setinggi bangunan 4 tingkat which is a short cut. Ramai dari group kami patah balik. Kami berdua bersama beberapa group members yang lain chose to use the short cut. 

Sayup tingginya tangga ni. Tak pe pelan-pelan je. Terkumat kamit mulut membaca doa.

Teringat pulak masa kami berdua panjat tangga di Gunung Bromo. Sampai ketaq kedua-dua lutut saya rasa nak tumbang.

Berdegup kencang jantung sampai I heard my heart beating. I kid you not! Risau, kami pun duduk la rehat sekejap. 

Haaa.. ada anjung pula di atas ni! 

Memang berbaloi la berpenat lelah panjat tangga ke atas ni. Ada pemandangan Hellfire Pass dari atas. 

Kalau tadi kami dapat tengok dari bawah how big the cut is. Now dari atas nampak lagi besar.

Pandangan ke bawah dan pandangan ke hadapan. Jauh lagi nak daki ni!

Memang laluan ni betul-betul shortcut.

Dan akhirnya kami selamat sampai. Alhamdulillah. Kami berdua jalan slow-slow, stop-stop ambil gambar. Jadi tak la mencungap sangat.. hehe. 

Bergambar bersama group members lain yang berjaya mendaki short cut.. hehe. 

Di perkarangan Interpretive Center ini juga ada diletakkan gerabak keretapi lama. 

Selepas semua ahli kumpulan dah berkumpul, barulah kami meninggalkan Hellfire Pass. 

Dari Hellfire Pass, kami balik semula ke Kanchanaburi. Bila Puan Mona, our tour leader kata yang kami akan dinner awal hari ini, semua setuju sebab masing-masing dah tak sabar nak balik ke bilik selepas penat hiking di Hellfire Pass tadi.

Berikut adalah foto-foto yang sempat kami rakam semasa perjalanan ke Kanchanaburi. 

Dinner kami disediakan di sebuah restoran local Muslim di Kanchanaburi. Tak tahu apa nama restoran ini sebab tak ada langsung tulisan rumi.

Cantik pulak lampu jalanraya ni.. hehe. 

Kalau di luar Bangkok agaknya susah nak cari restoran halal yang besar yang boleh muat group besar. Apa-apa pun Alhamdulillah sebab restoran ni selesa.

Dan makanan yang disediakan pun sedap. Masakan Thai yang tipikal dan kena dengan selera kami.

Then tengah sedap kami semua makan dan bersembang tetiba ada sorang adik dalam group kami bertanya restoran ni ada Wifi tak.

Terus je dengan spontan salah seorang pak cik yang semeja dengan kami kata, "Tu haaa... password wifi", sambil menuding ke papan tanda ini. Semua pun ketawa! Saya sampai nak tersebur air yang saya tengah minum masa tu.. hahahaha... 

Selesai makan kami pun naik semula bas untuk ke Kanokan Hotel, hotel penginapan kami semalam. 

Sampai hotel terus mandi, solat, backup photos ke dalam laptop dan tidur. Sleep came easy as we were very tired....

Bersambung...

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