Sunrise Memorial Service at Hellfire Pass

I hired a local driver to bring me to the Pass. The hour long drive at 3 in the morning was quiet and dark. My driver spoke "nitnoy" English and my Thai is the same so there was little conversation. What I do remember the most is how red the trunks of the teak trees shone along the highway as we drove though the national forest to get to the Pass. We saw very few vehicles except other vans and vehicles carrying fellow attendees. We arrived an hour before the service was to start and were told that the parking lots were already full. My driver would have to drop me at the museum and circle out to park along the highway. I opted to take the tuktuk ride around the hillside to the entrance at the other end of the Pass since I'd never walked that end. While it was a more level walk, the large stones in the path and sporadic tree root combined with no light but burning bamboo oil lamps made the walk slow and tedious. I made it just the same and will remember being there for a long time. And I'll always remember the shine of red-brown teak tree trunks illuminated by the high beams of an old Toyota pickup.