The ramshackle tourist bus stopped in a clearing and the driver, with a broad grin explained more by sign than words that we had come to the end of the road, that we were expected to get off and trek the rest of the way. It wasn’t quite what we had expected, where were the signs and notice-boards, the cold drinks tricycle with it’s stock of cold beers and cokes. The whole area seemed strangely dark in the clammy, sticky heat. Perhaps it was due to the tall green jungle canopy blocking out the tropical sun but not the heat or perhaps it was the shame still felt, lingering in the minds of of long-forgotten men that cast a sense of gloom over the place we had come to visit, the little known, seldom visited, only remaining stretch of the infamous Siam Burma death railway.
When the pen takes control. 