Reclining Buddha, Bangkok's oldest and largest temple-Wat Pho- has the country's longest Reclining Buddha.

Reclining Buddha 151 ft. long.-made of brick & plater and gold leaf.




Wat Pho  -Temple- was built in the 16th Century by Rama 1  (r1782-1809).

Serene Buddha reclining on right arm, golden flowers in vase by elbow.





The feet are studded with mother- of- pearl inlay.

There are 100s of Chedi in the grounds of Wat Pho, but the four most important are the Great Chedi which honor the first four kings of the Chakri dynasty.

Ancient medical paintings.

Ancient medical  painting.

 

Adding a whimsical touch to this temple of learning are huge stone caricatures of westerners wearing top hats. ( Westeners  in Thai are farangs.) The statues arrived as ballast on trade ships returning from China.

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Welcome to My Panda Bear Photographs taken at the Giant Panda Research Center Chengdu China

My visit to the Chendgu Panda Preserve has been one of my most exciting adventures.

The baby Panda bears were fun to photograph and their antics made me laugh.

Pandas like to climb and explore.

To see a slide show of the Panda bears click on this or any other images.

Snacking is a past time for baby Pandas.

I love bamboo shoots.

Time to snack. Time to climb.

Three is never a crowd.

                                                                 



It maybe time for a snooze..

Thank you for looking.

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Hellfire Pass - Thailand- 2012 - with Photographs by Joseph S. Palmer

There is a museum co-sponsored by the Royal Thai Armed Forces Development Command and the Australian government at the site to commemorate the suffering of those involved in the construction of the railway. It was built by the Office of Australian War Graves and opened by the then Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard. As a part of the museum experience, it is possible to walk through the cutting itself and along a section of the former railway track bed. An audio tour including recorded memories of surviving POWs is available at the museum.^[3]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Kwae Noi Lookout today is a spectacular view of the Kwae Noi Valley .

There are no longer any trains running on this stretch of the line. The nearest railway station is at Nam Tok Sai Yok Noi, where trains of the State Railway of Thailand can be taken for a trip over the famous Whampo Viaduct and across the bridge over the River Kwai to Kanchanaburi, which is the nearest major town and tourist base. Visitors to the museum usually base themselves in Kanchanaburi. It is possible to roll into one day a trip to the Erawan Waterfall in the morning, followed by a visit to Hellfire Pass and its museum in the afternoon, and then catch the train back to Kanchanaburi to cross the famous bridge around sunset.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Groups of men worked around the clock for 16-18 hours to complete excavation of the 17 metre deep and 110-m long cutting through solid limestone and quartz rock in only 12 weeks. Forced to work at night, Konyu Cutting was nicknamed “ Hellfire Pass ” because of the mixture of hammering noise, lighting from fires, oil fired bamboo torches and carbide lamps that created an eerie illumination that looked like the “Fires from Hell”. After the war in Oct 1945, the graves of 124 men were located in Kanyu No1 Cemetery, which is now occupied by grazing pasture.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The Trail starts at Hellfire Pass Cutting, and incorporates a number of infamous features along the track, such as Compressor Cutting, Hintok Station, both the “Pack of Cards” and Three Tier Bridges, plus the panoramic view of Kwae Noi Look-out .

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crosses placed in memory of loved ones who died working on the Hell Fire Pass.



Crosses with Poppy flowers are seen along the bed of the now gone rail road.







Hellfire Pass (Thai: ช่องเขาขาด, known by the Japanese as Konyu Cutting) is the name of a railway cutting on the former "Death Railway" in Thailand which was built with forced labour during the Second World War, in part by Allied prisoners of war. The pass is noted for the harsh conditions and heavy loss of life suffered by its labourers during construction. Hellfire Pass is so called because the sight of emaciated prisoners labouring at night by torchlight was said to resemble a scene from Hell.^[1] 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

The most famous portion of the railway is Bridge 277, 'the bridge over the River Kwai', which was built over a stretch of river which was then known as part of the Mae Klong. The association with the 'River Kwai' came from the fact that the greater part of the Thai part of the route followed the valley of the Khwae Noi, 'Kwai' being the Thai word for Water Buffalo. In 1960, because of this discrepancy between fact and fiction, the part of the Mae Klong which passes under the famous bridge was renamed as the Khwae Yai (Thai แควใหญ่, English "big tributary").

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Kanchanaburi War Cemetery (known locally as the Don-Rak War Cemetery) is the main Prisoner of War (POW) cemetery associated with victims of the Burma Railway. 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia,

It is located in the town of Kanchanaburi, Thailand, and is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. There are 6,982 former POWs buried there, mostly Australian, British and Dutch.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After the war, the remains of most of the war dead were moved from former POW camps burial grounds and solitary sites along the rail line to one of three war cemeteries. The exception was fallen Americans, who were repatriated to the United States. (A total of 902 American POWs worked on the railway – 534 men from the 131st Field Artillery Regiment and 368 survivors of the sunken USS Houston (CA-30); 133 of them died.)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Several museums are dedicated to those who perished building the railway. The largest of these is at Hellfire Pass (north of the current terminus at Nam Tok), a cutting where the greatest number of lives were lost. An Australian memorial is at Hellfire Pass. Two other museums are in Kanchanaburi – the Thailand-Burma Railway Museum, opened in March 2003, and the JEATH War Museum. There is a memorial plaque at the Kwae bridge itself and an historic wartime steam locomotive is on display
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

                                                   

A memorial building to those who have no known grave.

A Memorial to those who have no known grave.

In Memory of S.E. Thompson

In Memory of those who have no known grave.