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National Geographic : 1947 Feb
Contents
Scintillating Siam Ministry of Communi- Taunggyi cations had followed a R .. a policy of constructing 6683 j roads only as feeders to Do the railways. Toun s In 1933, however, a phn road-building program 5909 en broadly covering the ttara whole country was planned on an 18-year R n construction program. /oulmei Today several roads p radiate from the capi- 592 tal, and many regions that formerly were iso- K RY lated have been linked Tavo to important trade cen- N oPa ters. Roughly half of P a uri the nearly 10,000 miles P of projected roads have Mer Ui' been completed since P-. . work began 10 years ' ago. C ..' * From Bangkok you (.o can motor down the Ist eastern coast of the oi Gulf of Siam, past a: o. couple of seaside re sorts, and travel on to .' 36. Chanthaburi; or by an other highway network . the motorist can probe Kant . Kantang the eastern provinces Railroads which long had been Highways largely cut off from the s oo100 50 capital. STATUTEMILES capital. M Still another road SUMATRA 51 swings westward to traverse the rice plains. After Six Years Passing Nakhon Pa thom, where stands the During the war Japa tions against Malaya largest pagoda in Siam, shaded areas along the it turns southward, were returned in Novel touching Rat Buri and Phet Buri, and extends on to the seaside resort of Hua Hin and beyond. Highways also lead into central Siam, but connecting links have not yet been completed to join them to the road system that has been developed around Chiang Mai, Lampang, and Chiang Rai in the north. 100,000 Died Building Jap Railroad Other routes in both the north and south still remain to be finished, but already the country has seen visible changes since towns have been tied together. Areas which before were isolated have now begun shipping out surplus products, and new agricultural areas have been opened up. A 94 48 o M oo Drawn by Roy W. Collins and Irvin E. Alleman as Thailand, Siam Resumes Its Older Name n occupied the country and used it as a base for opera and Burma. In a boundary dispute, Siam gained the eastern frontier from Vichy France in May, 1941. They nber, 1946. Siam has one communication line, however, of which it can hardly be proud. It is the railway line into Burma which the Japanese built by forced prisoner-of-war labor. Tens of thousands of Britishers, Australians, Dutch, Javanese, and Indians, as well as some Ameri cans, toiled in the malaria- and dysentery ridden camps along the jungle route to Burma. Week after week the men labored, many with few clothes and no medicines, through sun, rain, fatigue, and inhuman treatment. It is truly a road of death, for it is estimated that 100,000 persons lost their lives in its building. Near Kanchanaburi, not far from where the route branches from the main Siamese railway, stands a monument-if it is 195
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