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Bataan Death March, Philippines (Video)

During my 2014 trip to the Philippines, I retraced the route of the infamous Bataan Death March on the Bataan Peninsula on Luzon Island north of Manila. It was fortuitous that I followed the route on the 72nd anniversary of the March.

After the surrender of the U.S.-Filipino Bataan Defense Force during World War II to the Japanese on April 9, 1942, thousands of American and Filipino prisoners were force marched 102 kilometers from Mariveles and Bagac on the Bataan Peninsula to San Fernando in Pampanga. An estimated 60,000-80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war endured the seven-day Bataan Death March. Those who made it to San Fernando on April 17, 1942, were loaded onto train cars by the hundreds and transferred by rail to the concentration camp at Camp O’Donell. Approximately 2,500-10,000 Filipino and 100-650 American prisoners of war died from execution, exhaustion, injury, thirst, malaria, and other causes along the way. Survivors were held prisoner until Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II in September 1945.

This video footage shows what the route of the Bataan Death March looks like today.

No longer a dirt trail, much of it is now the Bataan Provincial Expressway. It begins at Zero Kilometer Death March Marker (Km 00) Memorial in Mariveles. A second route from Bagac, a district in the interior of Bataan Peninsula where thousands more prisoners were forced marched, merges with the Mariveles branch at Kilometer 23. The highway continues north to San Fernando with dozens of markers and memorials along the way.

The video begins at Zero Kilometer and follows the Bataan Death March route from kilometer 4 to 13. The shaky cam from an air-conditioned vehicle doesn’t convey what prisoners of war endured during the March, but it will give you a sense of the challenges they faced en route.

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World Adventurers Magazine

Macau

Macau is a place of contrasts. Macau, or Macao as it was better known when it was a Portuguese colony, is officially the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China. Like its many names, the SAR is filled with more people, culture, and history than its small size suggests. Sitting on just 29.5 square kilometers (11.39 sq. miles) of land, some of it reclaimed from the Pearl River Delta, Macau has a population of more than 600,000 with a density of more than 18,500 people per square kilometer (48,000 per square mile). Although crowded, its denseness does not seem so much from its small footprint as from its rich and colorful history. The former colony still retains much of its Portuguese and indigenous Cantonese character but has grown more Chinese since its return to China in 1999. As the country’s only destination for legalized gambling, a Portuguese legacy dating back to the 1850s, Macau has become a tourist draw with its growing array of gambling and Las Vegas-style entertainment and conference venues. Nestled amid the grand casinos are neighborhoods steeped in colonial and traditional Chinese heritage. Like its sister across the delta in Hong Kong, Macau is worth highlighting as a semi-autonomous region because of its unique character and heritage.

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Auckland Sky Tower, New Zealand

We spent much of the afternoon on our first day in New Zealand at the Auckland Sky Tower. The tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere rises 328-meters (1,076 feet) over the Auckland skyline. It’s a concrete and composite structure built for Harrah’s Entertainment as part of the SKYCITY casino and event center owned by New Zealand-based SKYCITY Entertainment Group. Although the tower opened in August 1997 to some concern over its potential impact as part of the city’s first (and still only) casino, it has since become a fixture in Auckland.

Aesthetically spartan with a concrete gray façade and conventional design, the tower has nonetheless become an iconic symbol of Auckland. It’s beautiful at night lit up by flood lights with a rotating rainbow of colors.

Visitors enter through the SKYCITY lobby and queue up for the glass elevators that take them up to the Observation Deck on the 51st floor. When we visited at Christmastime, the foyer was bedecked with festive Yuletide decorations and a giant Christmas tree. It was one of the few times during our summer trip Down Under that we were reminded of the holiday.

Riding the elevator to the Sky Tower’s Observation Deck is an adventure in and of itself with the elevator floor made of steel and transparent glass. It’s a long way down but a lot of fun to watch the elevator shaft pass underneath like a theme park ride. For those who are acrophobic, not so much. The Observation Deck’s perimeter with some of the best views of Auckland also has transparent glass underfoot, so watch out!

New Zealand’s only revolving restaurant, Orbit, lies two floors higher, and on the top floor is the SkyDeck, where intrepid visitors can walk on the SkyWalk around the pergola or take the SkyJump, a one-way, bunjee-jump like trip down the tower. We weren’t brave enough to go for it but enjoyed watching others take the plunge.

Perhaps most rewarding are the incredible views of the city from the Auckland Sky Tower. It’s so high that one can see beyond the city limits. If you’re only in Auckland for a short time at the start or end of your trip to New Zealand, the Sky Tower is a great way to see it all.

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