On the far western edge of the Death Railway, I was walking the tracks on what I thought was an abandoned section of rail. Thankfully it was after crossing a 20 meter high bridge over jungle, whose planks were spaced quite far apart, that I learned these tracks were still quite operational.
After jumping out of the way of the oncoming train, I continued down the tracks. Popping out of he woods, far from any road was this mysterious set of stone stairs leading up into the greenery. After nearly falling off a narrow bridge and facing a head-on train, I certainly wasn’t going to pass on an enigmatic stairway.
About 40 steps in, the Death Railway was no longer in sight and the stairway split into two paths. One was in much better shape and went to the right, continuing up the mountainside.
The other was rougher, unleveled, and marked by this sign. DANGER. HIV.
I assumed the rest, written in Thai, was further explanation. Absolutely no idea what it meant though.
Well I certainly didn’t expect to get HIV by walking up some stairs. What lay at the top, though, is a post for another time.
Death Railway? Yikes. How did it get that name? That was not very nice, not finishing story 🙂
It’s a stretch of railway from kanchanaburi to the Myanmar border built during the Japanese occupation in ww2. Mostly forced labour and the conditions were notoriously horrid.
Short version of how it ended is that the danger trail ended up becoming impassible because of loose stones becoming wet from light rain. At the top of the right trail there was a nice cave Buddha temple that provided an excellent view over he entire mountain valley.
Thanks for reading.
Danger. Highly Impressive View. 😉
Quite possibly.