我被引入指挥官的办公司，他跟我握了手，请我坐下。年过40的指挥官名叫g. k. grung，颇有威严，橄榄色制服上挂满闪闪发亮的金星。他坐在木桌后，先检查了我的护照和签证。他对我的“禁区通行证”特别感兴趣，这个文件授权我行走此路段的最后28公里，这段路位于印度的禁区arunachal pradesh。公路在arunachal的丛林中直上1136公尺高的pangsau隘口(在印度语中的意思为“地狱隘口”)。这里位于印度和缅甸激烈争议的边界上。

　　commander grung looks up. "i'm sorry," he says, "but we have been issued new orders about the road to pangsau pass. no visitors are allowed past this point. unfortunately, this means you." he smiles, then taps his desk with his right forefinger. "there is significant rebel activity here at the moment. the jungles are something of a no-man's-land. we cannot assure your security. therefore, you cannot proceed."

　　grung指挥官抬起头。“很抱歉，”他说：“我们已经接到关于通往pangsau隘口路段的新指示。所有访客都禁止通过此处。很不幸，这也包括你。”他微微一笑，然后用右手食指轻敲桌面。“目前本地叛军活动十分猖獗，丛林已经是战争的前线了。我们无法保证你的安全，因此，你不能再往前了。”

　　i smile back. this is how my journey along the burma road begins: with recollections of old soldiers and a warning backed by machine guns as i get close to india's touchy frontier.

　　我也报以微笑。这就是我的滇缅公路之旅的序幕：有老兵们的回忆;也有在接近印度敏感前线时，荷枪实弹的军人给我的警告。◆

　　for about 75 cents a day—three-quarters of what men make—women in ledo, india, carry coal to railway cars. the city's rail line made it the terminus of one of the most controversial and ambitious engineering feats of world war ii: the building of a military supply road through burma, then held by the japanese. the allied forces who built the road were plagued by monsoons, disease, and enemy fire.

　　印度利多(ledo)的女人把煤扛到火车上，一天工资约75美分——男人所得的三分之一。正因为利多拥有铁路网线，才使这个城市成为二战中最具争议和野心的工程壮举的终点站：穿越日军占领的缅甸，建筑一条军事补给线路。建造此路的盟军军民也因此饱受季风、疾病和敌军炮火所苦。

　　weighed down by human cargo, a truck barrels across a bridge on the old burma road. another driver wasn't as lucky, permanently parking his truck in the creek. in water-logged burma, now known as myanmar, world war ii crews built dozens of bridges, while under constant attack by the japanese. chinese nationalist leader chiang kai-shek estimated the road would be finished in a few months. it took two years.

　　一辆卡车载满了人，驶过老滇缅公路的桥。另一位驾驶员就没这么幸运，他的车永远地陷在了溪沟里。仅在缅甸这个水乡泽国，二战的军民们在日军不断攻击的情况下还是建了几十座桥。中国国民党领袖蒋介石曾估计只要几个月时间就可以筑好滇缅公路，结果它花了两年。

　　women harvesting rice make for a peaceful scene in myanmar's mogaung valley—a sharp contrast to 1944 when u.s. and chinese troops passed through on their way to a bloody battle with the japanese at myitkyina. the japanese were finally vanquished after a ten-week siege that took more than 2,000 lives, including 972 chinese. despite china's losses along the road, gen. joseph "vinegar joe" stilwell, the u.s. commander in asia, criticized chiang kai-shek throughout the war for not fighting the japanese more aggressively. as it turned out, chiang was as worried about communist insurgents under mao zedong as he was about the japanese army.