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November 25, 1997
Sheung Wan Walking Tour; Reaching the Peak
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| Incense coils, Man Mo Temple |
The Man Hing Lung Guesthouse didn't have any breakfast available, so Susanne and I began the day at a local McDonalds, enjoying a traditional Hong Kong meal of Egg McMuffins and hash browns. I personally would have preferred some cereal or something less fast food-like, but at least McDonalds had the distinction of being perhaps the only eating establishment in Hong Kong where local prices were comparable to US prices. I might not have cared for what I was eating, but at least I could afford it.
The dark storm clouds of the preceding afternoon had been replaced by a sheet of damp, gray fog. Scattered showers were in the forecast for the day, so we brought our umbrellas along with our cameras this morning. Today would be our only full day in Hong Kong, so we decided to take the ferry to the island for a walking tour of Sheung Wan, Hong Kong's old historic district, before catching a ride to the top of Victoria Peak. I didn't have much of a sense whether this constituted a full day's worth of activities or not, so Susanne and I agreed not to make any definitive plans beyond that. But Susanne also had a friend from Denver living in Hong Kong, so tonight we'd try to track her down as well.
The Star Ferry was crowded with mid-morning commuters, all dressed in designer suits and sporting cellular phones. I couldn't imagine taking a ferry back and forth to work each day, but I suppose the down time on a slow boat might be a fine way to decompress after a hard day at the office. We followed the crowd off the ferry across Statue Square, a small park in the center of Hong Kong's financial district. The square once played host to numerous stone effigies of Britain's royal family, but the statues were carted away during the city's World War II Japanese occupation. They were eventually recovered but never reinstalled - British colonialism was on its way out. From here we had a 20 minute walk to Sheung Wan.
Susanne and I conveniently followed the double decker trolley line along De Voueux Road Central as our trail of bread crumbs to Sheung Wan. Apart from the preponderance of Chinese pictograms on billboards and signs, we could have easily been in New York or London as we wandered past Gucci, Fendi, Cartier, Rolex. It seemed every major player in the world of high fashion and shopping had a store along the road, in between entire blocks of international banks and luxury hotels. But down the alleyways to our left we saw a different story: thin passageways packed with market stalls and shoppers. We veered down one of these alleys to get a better look at what was available here: sheets of silk by the yard, Peking duck, vintage clothing, fake designer shoes. There also seemed to be a large number of stalls selling personalized wood block chops: stamps that might print a stylized character for your name, your zodiacal sign, etc. There must have been a chop shop for every two or three stalls along these thin markets. The people of Hong Kong had modern tastes indeed, but they were still very conservative, superstitious people. You never know when just the right chop might come in handy.
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| Hanging baskets in a fruit market, Sheung Wan |
We entered Sheung Wan along Des Voeux Road before cutting left on Sutherland Street. There were no particular landmarks that announced our entry into the district apart from the conspicuous appearance of signs with drawings of sharks and birds' nests. Over the decades, this particular strip of Sheung Wan had grown into a wholesale goods market for restaurants. Herbs and roots of all shapes and sizes could be found in the many shops along these roads. But there are two real reasons why restauranteurs bring big money when they come to this neighborhood, and both of them were soup. Bird nest soup and shark fin soup are sophisticated delicacies in Hong Kong, and diners pay top dollar for the best soups they can get. Along the walls of the shops we could see giant dried shark fins, some as large as a meter in length. These yellowish, leathery strips would then be chopped up and used to make a broth. Similarly, in store windows we found fancy boxes of bird nests, most of which were small enough for you to fit two or three of them in the palm of your hand. Compared to the shark fins I found the notion of using nests in soup a little more difficult to grasp. Apparently each nest contained a bed of nettles collected by certain species of birds in southeast Asia. The birds secrete a glue-like liquid that they use to cement the nettles together. When heated in water, the secretions and the nettles impart a unique (and apparently highly cherished) flavor to the soup.
To much of the world, Hong Kong is known as the Fragrant Harbor, originally due to its steady trade in exotic perfumes. Nowadays that reputation is often pegged to the unfortunate stench of rotting marine life and harbor pollution. But Sheung Wan carried a fragrance of its own, a combination of the numerous ginseng shops, flower vendors, fish markets, and car exhaust. I hadn't really noticed Hong Kong's famous maritime stench during my stay here, perhaps because I'm used to the scent of stagnant sea water from having grown up on an island off the coast of Florida. But Sheung Wan's smell was quite distinct; neither pleasant nor unpleasant, merely unique. There have been certain places I've encountered that have possessed unique and memorable smells: the woody incense of Kathmandu and the melange of roasting sweet potatoes and tobacco of Cairo both come to mind. Sheung Wan, it appeared, might now add itself to this short list. I wonder if I read this again in 10 years if I'll still be able to remember it.
As we left the ginseng district we wound our way up a steep cobblestone road to the competing sounds of temple bells and construction equipment. Two old women sat at the bottom of a series of high steps that appeared to lead to one of the local Taoist shrines, the Pak Shing Temple. I looked up towards the top of the steps and saw the pagoda-like entrance to the small temple. One of the women motioned to us, signaling we should climb up and investigate. Feeling somewhat emboldened by her gesture, I motioned towards my camera to see if they would mind if I took their picture. The old women barked at me in Cantonese, causing me to bow my head in embarrassment. Apparently we could visit their shrine but not take their picture.
We climbed the steps and crossed through a small courtyard. Long yellow spirals of some unknown material hung from the ceiling. There was a picture of similar spirals on the cover of the Lonely Planet book, but we hadn't figured out what they were. Hopefully we could get a better look at some point. The shrine itself was made up of two small chambers, both full of tall candles and offerings. Chinese traditionally believe in ancestor veneration, which often manifests itself in the form of leaving offerings at shrines. In front of each temple alter I could spot a variety of gifts to the dead: fresh oranges, coins, pictures of new grandchildren, even bottles of beer. An older gentleman was sitting below the main altar, chanting in Cantonese while lighting a tall candle. The entire temple wasn't much larger than a small kitchen, so I felt as if we were getting in his way, so we decided to head out. A young man in a suit squeezed past us through the entry way, carrying a large plastic bag. I wondered what he had to offer to his ancestors that day.
Further up the road we reached the beginning of Sheung Wan's antique district. There were few bargains to be had here: most shops had the reputation of carrying either museum-quality pieces or junk, so if you wanted to shop you had to bring a heavy wallet. Susanne and I decided to poke our heads into one shop. It was a dusty mess, with piles of antiques rising up to the ceiling, sometimes even obstructing the thin aisles through the shop. The family owners huddled in the corner, chatting loudly and eating rice washed down by large bowls of shark fin soup. The shop apparently specialized in large pieces, from ceramics and vases to intricately carved wood paneling. With my backpack slung over my right shoulder I felt like a bull in a china shop (a bull in a Chinese shop, perhaps?), so I delicately made my way outside, hoping I wouldn't have to commit my life savings to having accidentally shattered a Ming vase.
The Lonely Planet guide had mentioned a particular coffin shop in this neighborhood that sounded as if it would be of interest. Apparently the shop specialized in a traditional form of rounded coffins each built out of four logs of wood. A few shops down to the left of the antique store I noticed several large wooden trunks outside of a doorway. We briefly peered inside and saw several rows of coffins, all in various stages of assembly. I had hoped for something a little more macabre that a woodworking shop, but there really wasn't much more to it. We decided to continue down the road.
As we paused for a moment at the top of a hill I realized I was covered in sweat. We had hoped that Hong Kong would be a well deserved respite from the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia, but this November it was much warmer than usual, courtesy of El Nino. Just across the road I could see the Man Mo temple, one of the oldest Confucianist temples in Hong Kong, but Susanne and I agreed to head down a long row of steps to a McDonalds first. Man Mo wasn't going anywhere and we really needed to sit down for a few minutes. To the left side of the steps were several rows of antique dealers and souvenir shops. In some stores I'm sure the distinction between heirloom antiques and cheap souvenir reproductions was a fine one indeed, but at least two or three of the shops appeared to be the type that would only buzz you in if you flashed your Gold Card at the door.
Inside the McDonalds we grabbed a couple of Cokes and sat for a while, listening to a strange audio loop that appeared to be promoting a new Happy Meal or something. I had no idea what the actual promotion was about because it was in Cantonese, but we had a difficult time drawing our attention from it because of the accompanying sound effects, straight out of a 1960s Hanna Barbera cartoon. I honestly expected the voiceover guy to shout out "Hey Booboo!" or something. The loop repeated itself a dozen times or so before we decided to get out of there in order to save ourselves from losing our minds. (I can even here it right now as I write this. Make it stop!...)
I didn't realize how steep the climb was back to the Man Mo temple until we attempted to head back the other way. Apparently this was Ladder Street, an appropriate name for such a disturbingly steep ascent. Having finally cooled down in the McDonalds, we didn't want to break out into a sweat again so quickly, so we made the climb in stages, pausing at some of the antique stores on the way up. One shop features a massive Khmer statue of Vishnu, at least seven feet tall. I didn't see the price tag, but it made me think of all of those mutilated statues at the south gate of Angkor Thom, whose heads had been removed and smuggled to Bangkok for sale on the antiques black market.
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| Man Mo temple, Hong Kong |
The Man Mo temple appeared as an undistinct, squat building from the outside. From the pagoda-like design it was obvious this structure was a temple, but compared to the many other houses of worship we had seen during our trip this temple seemed surprisingly unassuming. The inside, though, was far more impressive; a dark, smoky chamber filled with burning candles and incense, with large golden shrines built up along the sides of the room. Man Mo is considered one of the oldest temples on the island, though no one is exactly sure just how old it is; the only thing people can agree on is that it was a thriving temple when the British first arrived on the island. Man Mo is dedicated to the worship of two deities: the civil god (Man) and the war god (Mo), both of whom were based on real Chinese men. The civil god is believed to be a representation of a successful Chinese statesman from the 3rd century BC, while the war god is attributed to Kuanti, a 2nd century AD warrior.
Near the center of the temple I once again found several dozen hanging yellow coils, ranging in size from several inches to several feet long. I decided to give them a closer inspection but as I approached one of the larger coils I was momentarily overcome with think, acidic smoke. My eyes burned as my nose was filled with a powerful, sweet scent. The coils, I now realized, were enormous incense sticks that burned every so slowly, around and around. Incense as sacred, yet ephemeral artwork.
I popped my head outside the temple and noticed it was beginning to drizzle. The main shrine was hot and uncomfortable, so I allowed the drops of rain to land on my face and cool me. The stiff-looking temple guard, perched in a small enclosure, briefly let down his cold visage and smiled, motioning his hand in a gesture of approval. Susanne was taking pictures of the coils inside the temple. I doubted there was enough light to capture the scene, but I hoped for the best.
No trip to Hong Kong is complete without a visit to the top of Victoria Peak, with its stupendous view of the island 1200 feet above the city. As the rains came and went, I knew there was no way we would be treated with a clear view of Hong Kong, but nonetheless felt it was important to make the pilgrimage to the top. We cut back down to Queen's Road Central and headed east towards Central, where we hoped to find the terminus for the tram ride to the top. Queen's Road was packed with business people returning to work after lunch. The crowds were amazing; I was instantly reminded of midtown Manhattan. In the heart of the Admirality business district we passed a large upmarket ginseng store that displayed samples of its various dried herbs and animal parts, each with their peculiar medicinal purposes. While men in business suits purchased large boxes of ginseng, Susanne and I marveled at the display: dried seahorses, powdered cow gallstones, shark fins, even goat testicles. It was a quick introduction to traditional Chinese medicine, though probably not appropriate show-and-tell for the animal rights crowd.
We headed up D'Aguilar Street through Lan Kwai Fong, a dense collection of bars and pubs, largely regarded as an expat's ghetto. Beyond the bars the road the city became quiet as we reached an area between Government House and the zoological park. There really wasn't much to see here and we were feeling pretty sweaty at this point - I could see Susanne was eager to get to the tram. Within a few minutes, after briefly getting lost alongside a busy road, we found the terminus and paid the HK$21 for the round-trip ticket. The tram brought us up at a severe angle, with the crowded streets of Hong Kong passing further and further behind us. I really couldn't see what was ahead of us for there was a large growth of trees and rocks obscuring the view. Eventually the trees thinned out and I could see the Peak - not the peak of Victoria, per se, but the Peak Galleria, an observation deck and shopping mall shaped like a metallic postmodern pagoda. Hong Kong had gone out of its way to capitalize on the number of people who wanted to visit the summit of Victoria Peak by developing the Galleria, despite complaints from traditionalist who said it would be to crass and commercial. Well, it is crass and commercial, as far as everyone seems to be concerned, but it hasn't stopped thousands of people from visiting it every day, including us.
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| A foggy day on the Victoria Peak viewing platform |
After disembarking the tram we climbed up to the observation deck, a large metal and stone slab where hundreds of people can cram at once and admire the view. The first thing I noticed was the fog. No, not fog. Clouds. The peak was completely enshrouded with dark gray stormclouds, whizzing through the air at 20- to 30 miles per hour. Run-of-the-mill fog can be a creepy experience, but this was down right surreal. We were standing in the middle of an actual storm cloud, thick as smoke. My glasses were quickly coated with a layer of moisture. We managed to keep our camera lenses clean as we tried to capture the view of the city below, in between bursts of clouds. I had seen pictures of this view of Hong Kong and had always thought that they were taken with wide-angle lenses - the buildings always seemed so distorted around the edges. Now, as I stood above the countless highrises below, I realized that these pictures needed no trick lenses, for the sheer angle of looking down upon the city caused a distortion of the senses. We're so used to seeing cityscapes from head-on, it's a bit unnerving to experience one from above. Clouds or no clouds, this was truly one of the greatest city views in the world.
I could have easily spent hours here gazing down upon Hong Kong, enveloped in flowing sheets of black and gray mist, but Susanne and I were both a little worn by this point. We retreated to a cozy restaurant where I hoped we could relax for a while, but we were soon scared off by the menu - HK$100 iced tea, HK$300 sandwiches. I had hoped we could get through the rest of our trip without having to cash any more traveler's cheques, and there was no way we'd want to blow 75 bucks just for the pleasure of eating on top of Victoria Peak. We returned to the main Galleria and found a small cafe that had croissants and coffee for HK$30 - much more reasonable in my book. I read a copy of the South China Post while Susanne attempted to call her friend Jennifer and see if she was available for dinner that night. After leaving a message on Jennifer's machine, we decided to return to our room and rest. If Jennifer were available we'd hang out with her. Otherwise there were some free musical events at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, just down the street from our guesthouse.
Back in Kowloon, Susanne managed to get ahold of Jennifer, who had plans for later in the evening but was available for dinner. We met her inside the Peninsula Hotel at 7pm. Susanne had introduced me to Jennifer two years ago in Denver, when the two of them were working for the Encore cable network. Jennifer jumped on an opportunity to transfer to Hong Kong last year, where she's lived ever since. Once we found each other, Jennifer suggested we first visit Felix, one of Hong Kong's hippest restaurants, which happened to be on the top floor of the hotel. I didn't see what the big deal was, especially if we weren't going to eat there, but Jennifer insisted we check it out.
The restaurant itself was a typical postmodern art deco joint, with lots of neon and marble. "I think you may want to go to the bathroom while we're up here," Jennifer said to us, a devilish smirk on her face. I had no idea why she had dragged us up here, but I agreed to visit the men's room while she and Susanne went the other way. Inside I found a similar marble motif, but I didn't see any toilets. A restroom steward smiled at me and pointed me towards a wide bay window, where I found a row of cylindrical brass objects protruding three feet from the floor. These were the urinals, pressed right up against the window. It was the strangest restroom experience I've ever had, standing right against a bay window, 100 floors above the ground, relieving myself in this little brass contraption that was so small it made me feel like I was whizzing right into Hong Kong harbor itself. Fortunately, there were no tall buildings between me and the water, so no one could peer back and observe me, but the experience was still discomforting to say the least. Back out by the restaurant, Jennifer eagerly awaited my impression of the restroom. "I wish I had taken a picture," I said.
The three of us caught the MTR to Wanshai, where we had dinner at a trendy noodle shop. The restaurant reminded me of Seattle. There were a good range of Asian noodles on the menu, along with french fries, buffalo wings, and all the other staples of Nouveau-Cantonese cuisine. Dinner was a little rushed, but the food was tasty, if not authentic. Since this was our last meal in Hong Kong, I was glad we didn't blow it on just another Pizza Hut.
After dinner, we caught a cab and went to Lan Kwai Fong, Central's pub district. Jennifer was meeting friends here later on, and we were within a short walk to the Star Ferry terminal. The Lan Kwai Fong scene was just beginning to pick up, with large groups of expats in suits standing outside bars with drinks in their hands. But tomorrow was going to be a long day, so common sense got the best of us as we walked up Queen's Road Central to catch the ferry back to Tsim Sha Tsui. We strolled through Statue Square, marveling at the Bank of China building in the background. We tried to get some pictures of the night scene but knew that our film was too slow to capture it well. So once we got back to our hotel we grabbed a roll of 1000-speed film Susanne had been saving and hit the streets.
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| Cornwall Avenue, Kowloon |
Hong Kong is a marvelous place at night, so alive with light and color. We wandered up and down Nathan Road and its surrounding thoroughfares, hoping we could capture Hong Kong nightlife on film. Just around the corner from the guesthouse we found Cornwall Avenue. Susanne wanted to get a picture of her namesake road; its multitude of neon signs made it an easy target. I really wish we could have spent a few more days in Hong Kong, but as we wrapped up our evening, taking those final pictures along Nathan Road, I felt totally at ease, ready to go home. Like Cambodia and Laos, Hong Kong had been good to us; I knew I would miss this place.
Posted by acarvin at 8:49 PM
November 24, 1997
Hong Kong Reunion
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| Susanne contemplates Hong Kong Harbor |
Despite starting our morning departure in the heart of Bangkok's Siam Square area, traffic was surprisingly light, especially by local standards. We managed to reach the airport in less than 45 minutes, just in time for the 6am check-in time. We were both quite excited about our first visit to Hong Kong, but I must admit that the burden of my backpack was beginning to take its toll on my body. To complicate matters, I was now lugging around that wooden folk banjo I had purchased in Chiang Mai. Though the Lisu woman from whom I bought it had been kind enough to wrap in several layers of newspapers and tie it in a plastic bag, I was concerned about its safety in transport. I didn't dare check it at the counter - I barely trusted people with my unbreakable backpack, let alone a delicate instrument - but I was nearly forced to do just that by customs officials, who insisted that the banjo's length exceeded acceptable carry-on standards. Frustrated and impatient, I returned to the Cathay Pacific counter and begged them for a size limit waiver. They took mercy on me and placed a tag around the banjo, granting it safe conduct through customs, to the dismay of the officials who had earlier obstructed its passage. Our next challenge was immigration, usually a simple process, but today we were forced to face the peril of queuing behind a British family that hadn't filled out its departure forms ahead of time. If this had been any other flight, I probably wouldn't have been bothered by the delay, but Susanne and I were clearly ready to get the hell out of Bangkok. As much as we had enjoyed our trip overall, Bangkok just didn't really sit well with us.
We arrived inside the departure hall 45 minutes before boarding. Our gate wasn't officially open yet for some unknown reason, so a group of us stood outside its large glass doors, waiting for an airline representative to let us in. Once we were allowed inside the gate, time passed quickly, and before I knew it we were back in the air again - our ninth flight of the trip - and on our way to Hong Kong.
Once again we had the opportunity to view our progress on an in-flight map displayed on the monitor in front of us. As we crossed over Laos and Vietnam into the South China Sea I realized that this was the beginning of the end. Indeed, we had two full days in Hong Kong to which we could look forward, but our visit there would only be a glorified layover, a stop-gap measure stalling our inevitable return to America, to our homes and our jobs, to our usual routine. Usually I don't get nostalgic about our journeys until we're halfway across the ocean, but for some reason I felt as if the trip were truly over at this point. Perhaps Hong Kong's metropolitan urbanity would be a taste of home, an all-encompassing Chinatown of sorts. No matter what, though, I was truly glad to be away from Bangkok. As much as I like big cities, Bangkok did not work for me. It possessed all that is wrong with the West - smog, traffic, fast food, crime - and all the while seemed to have lost its connection with its history, its culture. Bangkok is indeed a city of the modern world; it's just a shame it's struggling to maintain a lifeline to its past.
Hong Kong, on the other hand, is a city of the modern world because it has no past. Once considered a worthless, desolate island, Hong Kong's earliest claim to fame was as refuge and hiding place for pirates of the South China Sea. The British arrived and claimed the empty landscape for themselves in 1841. In 1898, they signed a treaty with China that would allow them to lease the property until the end of June, 1997 - a term of 99 years. The popular press at the time lambasted the lease as a grievous error - who on earth would want to settle on a barren island, especially when you could enjoy colonial splendor of Shanghai or the exotic, royal atmosphere of Beijing?
Over time, the Hong Kong colony attracted more Europeans, but the city itself had yet to blossom. It took the communist takeover of China in 1947 to force Hong Kong through an awkward puberty into adulthood, as tens of thousands of Chinese citizens fled the mainland and took refuge there. Suddenly, the British found themselves with the last bastion of capitalism in China, and Hong Kong soon emerged as a commercial powerhouse.
Over the last 50 years, Hong Kong became one of the most successful cities in the world; and for the British its last (and most profitable) major colony in the Pacific Rim. But on July 1, 1997, less than six months prior to our visit, Prince Charles officially handed over the island and its surrounding properties to the People's Republic of China. Though many people feared a radical transformation in the city, the Chinese government was smart enough to recognize a cash cow when they saw one. For the next 50 years, Hong Kong will keep its special status as a unique province of China, with its liberal economic policies intact; in 2047, China will have the option to change the policies if they see fit (assuming there's even a communist government to make that change at that point). But for now, the People's Republic and the residents of Hong Kong chant the same mantra: One Nation, Two Systems. Only time will tell how well it will work.
The July 1 handover has taken its economic toll, though; worries over the future of Hong Kong has caused severe fluctuation in the Hang Seng stock market, not to mention fluctuation in the confidence of would-be tourists (in fact, one of the reasons we came to Asia this year was because of great flight bargains through Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific airline). But from everything that I had seen in the press, it sounded as if very little had actually changed in the daily life of Hong Kong. I would soon find out if there was any truth to this claim.
Our flight arrived on time, just before noon. As we descended through the clouds we were treated to a closeup view of the crowded apartment blocks of Kowloon, on the Hong Kong mainland across from Hong Kong Island. I had been told that when landing in Hong Kong you could practically see apartment residents looking at you at eye level; there was literally no exaggeration in this claim. One of the most population-dense cities in the world, Hong Kong has built up its living space wherever there was room, including the land surrounding the airport. A growing number of Hong Kong residents could afford building spacious homes on the side of Victoria Peak, but for the six million Hong Kongers who didn't have $50 million to spare for such breathing space, they have to make do with the cramped vertical highrises that are so prevalent in this city.
Having completed immigration and customs, Susanne and I boarded the A1 shuttle bus to downtown Kowloon. While Hong Kong island is the financial heart of the province, Kowloon is undoubtedly its soul. Everything from concert halls and luxurious hotels to strip clubs and tenements can be found all within a few blocks at the southern tip of Kowloon, an area known as Tsim Sha Tsui. The majority of visitors to Hong Kong stay in Tsim Sha Tsui along Nathan Road, its roaring traffic and neon lights a 24-hour-a-day affair. Susanne and I intended to stay at the Man Hing Lung Guesthouse, a family-run place on the 15th floor of Mirador Arcade. Mirador Arcade is the smaller (and undoubtedly less notorious) neighbor of Chungking Mansions, an monstrous conglomeration of several dozen guesthouses infamous for trash-littered hallways, terrible elevators, and occasional police raids for either illegal immigrants or prostitutes. Happily for us, Mirador Arcade enjoyed a much better reputation - better choice, better value, better safety. We made our reservations there a month in advance, not wanting to take any chances of being homeless upon our arrival. I was very curious to see what the Arcade would be like, especially after hearing numerous (and often hilarious) backpacker horror stories about Chungking Mansions.
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| Hong Kong street scene |
Twenty minutes after leaving the airport we reached Nathan Road. Each side of the road was packed with double-decker buses, taxis, luxury automobiles and hundreds of people. As soon as we climbed out of the bus we were accosted by an Indian man who demanded we follow him to his guesthouse at Chungking Mansions - an obvious scam in search of just the right sucker. He continued to hound us even after I made clear we had reservations elsewhere, so eventually we shoved him aside and marched the half block north to the entrance of Mirador Arcade. Through the archway we found what appeared to be an indoor mall packed with junk souvenir vendors and money exchangers. To our right stood two elevators, one for even floors and the other for odd ones. We waited for the even elevator as a crowd gathered and crammed their way into the odd elevator. Politeness is not a trait common in the Hong Kong archetype; it was shove or be shoved as people pushed their way inside. After seven or eight of them had successfully made their way through the elevator door, the elevator let out a series of loud beeps; apparently its weight limit had been exceeded. The last man to get inside dutifully stepped out and allowed the elevator to proceed upward. At least we now knew how the game was played here.
Soon enough we charged our way into the even elevator with Machievellian precision; the weight of our backpacks alone probably prevented one full person from joining us for the ride up. We climbed out at the sixteenth floor and found ourselves in an open courtyard, with paths running ahead and to the left until they formed a square. The hallways were littered with open cans of paint and splattered drop clothes; dozens of clothes lines hung across the courtyard, one floor after another. As we walked towards our guesthouse I could see what appeared to be sewing shops through several open doorway. Taoist shrines with burning candles and incense stood beside two of the doors, leaving an odd blend of exotic perfumes and wet paint hanging in the humid air.
Inside the Man Hing Lung Guesthouse we were greeted by an older man who told us he had a room for us on the 15th floor, directly below, for HK$300 a night - about $39 in US currency. He insisted that we leave him with one night's deposit, so we secured our bags inside and accompanied his friendly wife to one of the moneychangers downstairs. I didn't feel great about using one of the local shysters for exchanging dollars, but the presence of the guesthouse manager's wife apparently caused the exchanger to give us a reasonable rate. Back upstairs, the older man brought us to our room: a cubicle of five by eight feet, plus a bathroom big enough for standing room only - sitting on the toilet, I'm sure, will be a challenge. The bed was a tad larger than a standard American single. Somehow, we would make due here for two nights. Otherwise, we could choose to spend hundreds of dollars more for a modicum of comfort. But the room was clean, the water was hot, so all things considered we didn't see the need to get uptight about it.
It was now a little past 1pm, so Susanne and I planned out a cursory itinerary for our stay. Tomorrow we would visit Hong Kong Island, walk around its neighborhoods, and ascend the top of Victoria Peak, which undoubtedly possesses one of the most famous city views in the world. Today, though, would be a day of colonial leisure, for we decided to kick things off with high tea at the Peninsula hotel.
I've always had a thing for grand hotels; in Hong Kong, the Peninsula is as grand as they come. Like the Raffles in Singapore, the Peninsula harkens back to a time when only the rich would travel - and would demand the comfort of traveling well. Even with the demise of British colonialism, the Peninsula has successfully maintained its historical ambiance and continues to attract the wealthy. Staying here would have set us back about $300 a night for starters; high tea, therefore, would have to satisfy our fix for elegance and pomposity.
While the culture of high tea isn't what it used to be (even in England) high tea at the Peninsula remains the hip thing to do during an afternoon in Tsim Sha Tsui. It's a quick five minute walk down Nathan Road from Mirador Arcade to the Peninsula; the difference between the two structures could not be more evident. At the Peninsula we are greeted by giant wooden nutcracker soldiers (Christmas starts early in Hong Kong) and a magnificent glass entrance. Inside we find a spacious room decorated in red oriental carpets, antique furniture, brass, marble, opulence. To the left and right dozens of visitors sit at small tables with classic three-tiered high tea sets filled with delicious snacks. A string quartet played Beethoven's Fifth on a balcony in the far left corner of the hall. No wonder the British never wanted to leave this place.
Tea time had just begun a few minutes earlier, so we were lucky enough to get a table without having to queue up, as subsequent guests had to do throughout our stay. A waiter quickly took our order of high tea, with Susanne having Earl Grey while I requested Darjeeling. As the waiter departed, Susanne and I looked around the hall, observing well-dressed guests come and go as Beethoven continued to fill the air. We then looked at each other and immediately burst out laughing - what the hell were we doing here? As much as the two of us revel in mocking the whole colonial globe trotting lifestyle, we both knew that we secretly coveted it. I certainly would never defend the imperialist exploitation perfected by the British empire, but I still admired the occasional elegance they left in their wake. Two years earlier in Luxor, Egypt, we decided to spend a night at the grand Winter Palace, Egypt's answer to the Peninsula. Having survived a nervous night at a Luxor pit-of-despair guesthouse, we rewarded ourselves with a night in comfort, a night where we could play Upper Crust. While none of our nights in Southeast Asia had been so terrifying as to compel us to throw away several hundred dollars for a stay at the Peninsula, we both knew that a relaxing afternoon of high tea would certainly help make up for some of the less desirable moments we had endured in 20 days of travel.
The waiter soon returned with our layered tray of snacks and our teas. It was a nice selection of food, including bite-size salmon sandwiches, pink frosted cakes, shortbreads and chocolates. The tea was good and strong - strong enough for repeated fresh dousings of hot water. As tempting as it was to waste away the entire afternoon here, we knew time was precious in Hong Kong, so eventually we left the splendour of the Peninsula and made our way towards the waterfront for a leisurely stroll.
Down the road from the Peninsula we reached the Star Ferry Terminal, the main crossing point to Hong Kong island for seafaring commuters. The terminal itself blocked much of the view of the island, so we proceeded left beyond the old colonial clock tower to a long paved boardwalk. From here we enjoyed our first view of the new Hong Kong, its scores of magnificent skyscrapers darting upwards just below the cloud enshrouded summit of Victoria Peak. Easily as glorious as Manhattan's skyline, Hong Kong's possesses the added bonus of Victoria Peak and its surrounding foothills. And all of this, built in the last 50 years - I was truly amazed at the capacity for humanity to construct such a testament to the modern world. Hong Kong is indeed a city for the 21st century; even one glance of its infinite skyline would confirm this for skeptic and believer alike.
There were surprisingly few westerners on the boardwalk that afternoon; perhaps the black-as-night storm clouds hovering over Victoria Peak had steered them away today. Along the water we spotted numerous people fishing with a simple rod and string, sometimes alone, sometimes as a family. A large wedding party crowded around a plaza as professional photographers captured the happy bride and groom, with the Hong Kong cityscape as their backdrop. Two old men play a game of backgammon inside a stone stairwell, both guzzling large bottles of lager. For such a massive, crowded city Hong Kong at least had the waterfront to offer its people peace of mind.
The storm over Hong Kong island grew steadily. The city had been blessed with near perfect weather for two months; as luck would have it, showers were forecast for the entire week. But the impending rains did little to dampen our enthusiasm for Hong Kong; we had both waited a long time to visit this city, rain or shine. All we could do was cross our fingers and hope for the best.
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| A junk manouvers stormy Hong Kong waters |
We stood awhile along the boardwalk, observing a traditional Chinese junk amble to the island and back, its sturdy red sails giving it an almost plastic appearance. The afternoon was getting late, so we decided to find the nearest hotel and use their phones to call my friend Susie. Susie and I had gone to school together, from first grade through high school graduation. Not unlike myself, Susie had been possessed by the travel bug and had spent much of college in Paris, where I last saw her in 1991. It was only appropriate that the two of us reunite in Hong Kong, so far away from home. I wasn't totally sure if she was even in Hong Kong, though; last I had heard from her family she was planning to visit Thailand. And since we hadn't the good fortune to bump in to each other somewhere in Southeast Asia, it would take a phone call to verify her whereabouts.
We entered the Regent, one of the many large hotels along the waterfront, and went in search of a payphone. After an extended period of wandering, we found a row of phones but soon discovered we lacked the right combination of coins to make a call. I headed down the hallway into a bar and asked the bartender if he had change for 20 Hong Kong dollars. He gave me a handful of one- and two-dollar coins, but then inquired, "Do you need to use the phone?" When I said yes, he pulled a cellular phone out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me, asking, "it's a local call, right?" I smiled back and nodded, taking the phone to a comfortable stool by the bar.
As luck would have it, Susie was indeed in Hong Kong, and we agreed to meet for dinner at 7pm in front of Chungking Mansions. This gave us ample time to stop at a cybercafe to check email, get back to the guesthouse, shower, and relax for a bit before going out for a night on the town. Susie suggested that we head to the island for dinner with her boyfriend Ian and a friend. I guess we'd be visiting the heart of Hong Kong tonight after all.
Right on schedule, we found Susie in front of the Mansions at 7pm. She looked pretty much the same as she always had; some things never change, I guess. Susie suggested we take the Star Ferry to Wanchai, where we would meet Ian and his friend at a bar and then find a place to get some good Chinese food. Since Hong Kong is largely populated by Cantonese Chinese, I suggested we go for Cantonese cuisine. Susie grimaced and recommended otherwise; Cantonese, she said, was probably too oily for our Western palates, even if we were in an adventuresome mood. Instead she suggested the Peking American restaurant, which despite its name was actually Pekinese and Szechuan style, with no Americanized dishes to be found. It sounded great to us.
For less than three Hong Kong dollars each we boarded the ferry to Wanchai. Each ferry comfortably sat several hundred passengers, though this particular boat had plenty of seats available. The ferry slowly pitched and rolled with the currents as we made the short ten minute journey to the island. The sun had set and the island was illuminated with the glow of neon billboards and architectural backlighting, much of it reflecting and diffracting on the churning waters ahead of us. The skyline drew nearer as Susie and I caught up on each other's whereabouts for the last several years. Susie and Susanne, not surprisingly, got along well, though I always feel bad whenever I conduct a reminiscence marathon with someone from my past while someone from my present must endure it.
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| Hong Kong Harbor at night |
After disembarking the ferry, we started our walk by climbing atop a long cement skyway that linked up numerous buildings several stories above the ground. Susie pointed out with considerable disdain the central immigration office, which had recently denied her an extended visa and was forcing her to return to the US by Christmas. We soon reached Wanchai, a colorful neighborhood known for its trendy nightlife as well as its pricey red light district. We arrived at BB's, a popular expat bar filled with Brits and Australians drinking expensive imported beer. We hung out and enjoyed the scene until Michael arrived first. Michael was a half-Cantonese, half-Italian Australian who specialized in supermodel photography (I swear I'm not making this up). He had just returned from a successful photo shoot in the Philippines. Ian was running a little late, but he eventually caught up with us around 8:30. Ian, a Hong Kong Cantonese, moved to South Australia as a child and had since become an Australian citizen. Both his and Michael's Cantonese heritage made it much easier for them to stay in Hong Kong for extended periods. If you're not Chinese, you need to demonstrate that you have an essential work skill not easily found among the permanent Chinese population. Susie, unfortunately, had been working as a software trainer, and over time, that particular skill had become more common among the locals. Thus, Ian and Michael could stay, while Susie eventually had to go.
After a couple of beers our stomachs started to rumble so we walked a few blocks to the Peking American restaurant. Its one dining hall was already quite crowded with an even mix of Asians and Westerners. Somehow, though, we managed a large round table without reservations. As we settled in with some tea and a couple of large bottles of beer, Ian asked us what we'd like to eat. Having no idea what the house specialties would be, we strongly suggested that he play it by ear and order for us. He spoke to the waiter in Cantonese, which only added to the suspense, but he promised us that we didn't have to worry about getting platters full of Crispy Serpent Head or Fried Lard with Blood (again, I'm not making these things up). Apparently on previous occasions Susie had eaten with Ian's family, who delighted in ordering Cantonese favorites that would turn even the strongest American stomach inside out. Since then, Susie has forced Ian to promise not to subject her or her friends to such stressful culinary abuse again.
The first course to arrive was the soup, a basic hot and sour that our tastebuds recognized as both familiar and safe. The rest of the meal arrived as a series of individual courses - not in any particular order, just in terms of what came out of the kitchen next. There were no western illusions of serving every entree simultaneously; as is true in other parts of Asia, Hong Kongers eat family style, so each entree should offer a little something for everyone at the table no matter what time it arrives.
The first entree was a bit of a stumper for us: a plate of large lettuce leaves, a dish of some dark, ground up meal that was generally unidentifiable, and a bowl of dark liquid that appeared to be hoisin sauce. I was right with the hoisin sauce and the lettuce leaves were a no brainer, but the main plate was a mystery to me. Ian explained we were about to eat ground pigeon mixed with peanuts, soy sauce and garlic paste. The proper method of eating was scooping a couple of pigeon/peanut spoonfuls into the center of a piece of lettuce, drizzling it with hoisin sauce, and finally folding it like a tortilla wrap for eating. Susanne and I were shocked at how much we liked it. There wasn't a discernible meaty taste to it (let alone a pigeon taste) and the peanuts gave each bite a delightful crunch. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of the dish was the combination of hot food and cold lettuce - the Chinese figured this out probably centuries before McDonalds came up with the hot and cold McBLT.
The waiter soon brought out the other dishes, which included a chicken and pepper stir fry, a marvelous platter of seared scallops, each the size of silver dollars, and a plate of what appeared to be slivers of beef jerky. The jerky was actually fine, fried strips of dried meat in a caramelized sauce. Accompanying the strips was a generous pile of palm-sized bread pockets. Ian demonstrated the proper method of stuffing the beef strips into the pocket and eating like a jerky sandwich. The meat itself was delicious but I thought the combination of fried beef and bread was too dry for my taste, so I improvised by stirring dollops of hoisin and seared scallop sauce in order to give it some moisture.
The five of us stuffed ourselves to the breaking point. Susanne and I both thoroughly enjoyed the meal and we commended Ian on his varied selection. It was just after 11pm and I couldn't decide if I was feeling tired yet, but Ian and Susie suggested we get ourselves some cans of shandy and head out to the waterfront. This sounded like a great idea to me, but I naively asked, "Is it ok to have open containers in public?" Our hosts laughed. "Where do you think you are, America?" Ian joked. "I guess not," I replied rather meekly. Hong Kong certainly had its restrictions, but drinking on public property apparently wasn't one of them.
We stopped at a local convenient store and purchased several bottles of shandy. A large basset hound barked at a small group of Chinese who were standing outside having a drink. I thought it was rather strange to see a basset hound in the context of downtown Hong Kong, but I suppose it's a little silly to think that America has a monopoly on stumpy old dogs.
It was a ten minute walk back to the waterfront. A continuous glow of neon helped guide along the road as we passed one skyscraper after another. Even at night, Hong Kong was an intimidating metropolis, but I felt quite at home nonetheless. Susanne too seemed to be in awe just as much as I was; I could tell she was thinking this would be a great place to live for a while.
We reached the Wanchai waterfront and walked around the outer edge of the Hong Kong Exhibition Center, which hosted the official handover ceremony this past summer. I immediately flashed back to the changing of the flags, the lowering of the Union Jack one last time. But Hong Kong had moved on since then: the exhibition center was again just another convention center, its waterfront just another gathering place for a few friends to have a late night drink. We made ourselves comfortable along a metal railing, enjoying a splendid view of two of the island's most famous buildings, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building and Jardine House. The conversation quickly turned to politics as we talked about the fate of Hong Kong as a Chinese province. It was interesting to get the Australian perspective of US-China relations; Ian's friend felt rather strongly that if the US was willing to choose Chinese engagement over containment, it was hypocritical for us to try to contain other countries such as Cuba or even Iran. I didn't necessarily disagree with him in that regard but nevertheless played devil's advocate for the sake of argument.
Midnight had now come and gone, and the last ferry had departed for Kowloon. We'd have to take the subway back to Tsim Sha Tsui. We made the short walk to the subway entrance and descended underground. While the subway was a much faster ride than the ferry, it certainly lacked the ambiance of shuttling across the water, the view of the Hong Kong skyline behind us. We departed Susie and Ian's company at Tsim Sha Tsui station. I'm really glad we had the chance to see each other, even if just for the evening. As we left, I said to her, "Well, I doubt I'll see you in Florida any time soon. Maybe in London or something." "Who knows," she smiled.
Back at Mirador Arcade, we returned to our lilliputian abode at the guesthouse. The low roar of street noise fifteen floors below lulled me to sleep.
Posted by acarvin at 10:44 PM
November 23, 1997
Doi Suthep and the Hmong Village "Poppy Field"
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| Opium poppy in Hmong village garden |
We had another day and a half to kill in Chiang Mai and we planned to spend most of that time relaxing at cafes, doing absolutely nothing at all. We were quite successful much of the time but we did manage to spend a few hours visiting Doi Suthep, a mountain to the west of town. Doi Suthep is best known for a large wat that sits on its eastern slopes. It's one of the holiest shrines in northern Thailand, attracting large crowds for both the temple and the view of Chiang Mai from the top of the mountain.
A few steps outside of our guesthouse we hired a cheery songthaew driver to take us for the 45-minute trip up the mountain and back. As we reached the outskirts of Chiang Mai the road climbed slowly into a series of hairpin turns. Our driver was in no rush; we ambled all the way. Though Doi Suthep is only 1676 meters high the number of winding turns stretches the actual drive uphill to over six miles from the base of the mountain. A continuous stream of touring buses and minivans passed us in both directions. I guess it'd be a bit crowded up top. Our driver dropped us near the steps leading to the temple and told us to meet him down the street when we were ready to go back to Chiang Mai. I asked him if we could also go to a Hmong village on the far side of the mountain but he said no, for he wasn't allowed to drive past the Doi Suthep temple checkpoint. We'd have to hire a second taxi - only a handful of them were allowed to proceed. "Nothing I can do," he said. " It's mafia. Taxi mafia. They control who goes where." Wonderful. I guess we'd worry about visiting the Hmong village later.
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| Doi Suthep temple |
The marble steps of Doi Suthep teemed with tour groups, school children and devout pilgrims - certainly more people than we had seen at any other site in Thailand, save the Royal Palace in Bangkok. We walked up the steps, marveling at the glimmering stone and mirrored tile serpents that slithered down each side of the steps. Susanne tried to get a picture of me near the top of the steps, but a continuous stream of tourists kept getting in the way of the shot. At the summit we reached a large marble platform with a golden temple at its center. I had a brief flashback to the Swayumbunath stupa in Kathmandu - the long climb, the incense, the crowds - yet here I didn't feel that same sense of mystic awe I had felt in Nepal. Doi Suthep, as beautiful a temple it is, is also one large souvenir shop; the Coke signs and enormous amounts of tourist paraphernalia detracted from the supposed sacrality of the temple. Fortunately, inside the temple itself you could get away from the crass capitalism, so as long as you retreat within this marble and gold sanctuary there is fleeting peace. Many visitors lit candles and incense at shrines in the four corners of the temple. A frisky little kitten mounted surprise attacks on peoples' socks as they walked by - I occupied its attention for several minutes by dangling my camera strap above it, which it playful stalked with feverish abandon.
Outside the main temple crowds admired the view of Chiang Mai. Susanne and I paused for a moment and looked. No temples, no rolling hill country - only urban sprawl and distant billboards for Johnny Walker and Pizza Hut. Chiang Mai from above, Chiang Mai from below, it all felt so disappointingly familiar.
We took a brief tram ride down to the bottom of the temple steps, where we hired another songthaew to take us around to the Hmong village and back for 200 baht. We were getting ripped off for sure, but apart from a five mile walk in each direction, this was the only way we'd get to the other side of the mountain. The air was chilly as we drove further up Doi Suthep. We descended after a reaching the summit, winding slowly to the western slope and eventually to the Hmong village, which occupied a prime spot in a valley 4000 feet above Chiang Mai.
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| Hmong woman, Doi Suthep |
I had no illusions about this particular village; there may have been a time when one would have found a pristine Hmong community, untouched by modernity, but now this small town was a thriving spot on the Chiang Mai tourist trail. The songthaew deposited us in front of the village in a large, unpaved parking lot full of motorbikes, minibuses and pickup trucks. I expected to see hordes of Western tourists inside, but there weren't too many people around; perhaps some of those trucks in the parking lot were owned by the Hmong themselves. The village itself occupied a series of rolling hills, with several small streets extending to a steep valley that served as the community's growing fields. It was a lazy afternoon market, with shops selling Hmong clothes, musical instruments, blankets and medicinal herbs as their keeps napped in the corner while listening to Thai pop music.
As we wound through the village I noticed a cardboard sign with the message "Hmong opium" and an arrow pointing to the left, back towards the hill-sloped gardens. Hmm. The Hmong, like other Thai hilltribes, are allowed by law to cultivate a small amount of opium poppies for their own use, but it was technically illegal to sell it to the outside world. What on earth could they be advertising here? We decided to investigate. A man sat under a shaded gate with a roll of ticket stubs and a small metal box. He pointed to a sign that said "ten baht entry," so we paid him the small sum to enter the gardens. We really had no idea if they were growing opium openly, but assuming they were, it made great sense to charge admission. I guess if you can't legally sell the stuff, you can make some money allowing westerners to gawk at it, growing out of the ground like any other weed. Whether or not these Hmong knew of the current heroin chic in America made no difference, I guess; as long as hippy trekkers came to town asking about poppy fields, why not make them pay 10 baht to see it? Besides, it's safer than allowing a bunch of stoners trek through the backcountry of the Golden Triangle, looking for it themselves. Burmese bandits or Karen rebels would probably blow them to kingdom come before they ever even saw their first poppy.
The fact that there were opium poppies to be found in this enormous garden made little difference to us, though, for the setting was lush and picturesque. A burst of colors, the valley was both a flower garden as well as a functional farm featuring fruit trees, corn, marijuana and soybeans. The fields sloped down the valley as a series of steps, with each earthen platform featuring a different combination of crops. We followed crescent-shaped footpaths through the gardens, winding back and forth along each tier. A large wooden waterwheel turned near the bottom of the gardens, spinning ever so slowly from the trickle of a mountain stream that cut through the heart of the valley. The tribe had their own little piece of paradise on the side of this mountain.
Andy and Susanne mug for pictures in the Hmong garden
The air was thick with a syrupy sweet scent from the thousands of flowers blooming along the terraces. Yet we hadn't seen any poppy plants. We descended further into the garden until we reached the bottom, just above a tool shed. Here, I noticed three or four lonely long-stemmed flowers with bulbous heads and beautiful purple petals. Opium poppies. These delicate, humble blooms were the scourge of millions of addicts around the world. They just didn't seem to fit the job description very well. I took a couple of pictures of the flowers and managed to save a pair of petals pressed in my Lonely Planet book.
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| Hmong carpet maker, Doi Suthep |
We eventually made our way out of the village to the other side of the mountain, where our ever smiling songthaew driving was waiting for us. Back at the hotel, we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon before spending our final evening at the Chiang Mai night market. On this particular evening I showed up with a particular goal in mind - I hadn't purchased any souvenirs in Thailand and was determined to find something acceptable in this vast bazaar. But as had been the case in previous visits here, I didn't see anything that struck my fancy; there was a lot of flea market junk, a lot of cheap clothing, but nothing that stood out and screamed "Thailand!" in my face.
Dejected, I suggested we return to the hotel. As we cut through the back of the market we stumbled upon an artist's cooperative made up of hilltribe families. I noticed a Lisu woman had several sets of placemats for sale, each embroidered in the tribe's distinct style of concentric oval loops. They appeared to be a great value but I didn't care for the colors she had available that night. When she said she didn't have any in green, a woman at an adjacent table said "Come here! Come here!" as her young daughter pulled out a huge cardboard box full of placemats of different colors. I quickly found four matching mats and negotiated a price of 125 baht, about three dollars, for the set. As I began to search for spare change, the woman who had displayed the first set of placemats came by with another set of four green mats. Apparently she had just found the set and now wanted me to buy from her instead of the little girl. The girl looked at me, wondering what I would do next. It seemed so petty to make them compete over a measly few bucks, so I apologized as politely as possible to the first woman and completed my transaction with the girl and her mother.
Elsewhere in the co-op, an Akha woman displayed a fine selection of wooden goods, including a four-stringed Thai banjo. It wasn't of professional quality - I'm sure there's no way the instrument would ever stay in tune - but it was the first item at the market to get my attention. I asked the woman how much she wanted for it and she said 700 baht. 17 dollars wasn't bad, but I'd have to lug this thing around for the rest of the week. I initially declined the offer, but she then began to pester me, saying "Very good, I need money, buy yes buy yes...." I started to think that if she just shut up for a minute I'd consider buying it. Eventually I said I'd take it for 200 baht. To my surprise, she then said 250 - six dollars. Having cut the price by two thirds, it suddenly seemed like a fine deal. The Akha woman wrapped it in several layers of newspaper, tying knots around its neck to hold the paper in place. It wasn't exactly a stellar packing job, but it would have to do for the moment. I now had my prize.
The next day was a total write-off as we waited for the 4pm overnight express train to take us back to Bangkok. Susanne and I bought postcards and hung out in a bakery by the eastern gate of the city. Before grabbing our bags at the hotel, we said goodbye to its two resident mascots, the old blind mastiff and his curly haired poodle mutt friend. They barely acknowledged us, for nap time was too precious in the heat of the afternoon. At the train station I purchased a bag of buns and a bottle of water. Hopefully this would be enough food to keep us full for the trip, since I had heard that Thai train food was expensive and dull. Unfortunately, because I couldn't read Thai I neglected to notice that I had purchased pork buns accidentally. I tried to eat one but the sight of the pork filling was enough to make me a vegetarian for life. We ended up ordering a mediocre meal of fried rice and pineapple slices for the bargain price of seven dollars. We should have slept on empty stomachs instead.
Back in Bangkok, we had another day to kill before heading out the next morning to Hong Kong. We checked into the Reno Hotel, a Vietnam War-era establishment that catered to low-end business travelers. It left much to be desired, but then again, so did Bangkok. I had really enjoyed my first day in Bangkok, with the temples, the palace, and especially the Thai boxing. But apart from these isolated highlights, Bangkok was a city without a soul. There was little for us to do apart from waste away a local shopping mall, where an ever growing mass of teenagers in designer jeans and sunglasses shopped for platform shoes. Our authentic Thai experience was not to be - at least not today - so we went hog wild with our western crassness, hanging out at the local Hard Rock Cafe before hitting a movie theatre for a showing of Air Force One. (The film, at least, had one unusual moment when the entire audience stood up in honor of the king while the theatre played a brief montage of royal photographs, all to the tune of the royal anthem which the king composed himself.) Watching Harrison Ford bash the hell out of Gary Oldman and his commie thugs gave us the craving for meat, so we ate at McDonalds before crashing at the Reno for the night. Apparently Bangkok had taken its toll on our sense of adventure.
Posted by acarvin at 9:29 PM
November 19, 1997
Three Wats and a Massage
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| Dragon head, Wat Chiang Man |
We spent the morning at three of Chiang Mai's oldest and best known wats: Chiang Man, Phra Singh and Chedi Luang. Normally I would expound on the virtues of each individual wat, their personalities, etc., but today I felt distinctly underwhelmed by them. I think this lack of enthusiasm had less to do with the wats themselves than my recent experience with wats in Laos. Luang Prabang's wats all gave off a living presence; they were serene, yet full of activity by monks and young novices. The city of Luang Prabang itself also served as a natural complement to these monasteries. Its wats were living, breathing neighborhoods that flowed naturally with the slow pace and friendliness of the community.
In Chiang Mai, wats are always encircled by vulture-like tuk-tuks whose drivers hounded you in aggravating succession. A 7-Eleven store or a go-go bar might share the block across the street from the monks' living quarters. The wats of Chiang Mai were past tense, anachronistic monuments instead of present-day members of the Chiang Mai family. They were out of place, awkward. Perhaps if I had visited Chiang Mai soon after our arrival in Bangkok I would have appreciated their beauty and magnificence, which architecturally speaking they all possess. But having experienced the grace and vitality of Luang Prabang and its wats, Chiang Mai seems all but a smoggy, traffic-clogged open-air museum.
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| Wat Chiang Man |
Mind you, I don't want to come down too hard on this city - I mean, it's a great place to unwind for a few days. But Chiang Mai seems so service-oriented, so tourist-centric, its long history and culture has been superseded by the desire to cater to the throngs of Americans, Australians, Japanese and British tourists who come here. I don't want to sound naive, but Chiang Mai is a bit of a disappointment. Or perhaps we had reached our saturation point for Buddhist monasteries - that must play a certain role in how I'm feeling at this moment. We've been out-watted. Time for a good old fashioned Thai massage.
Susanne had included Thai massage on her short list of must-do's in Southeast Asia, so we made an appointment with the Rinkaew Povech spa to pick us up at the hotel and take us to their resort on the outskirts of the city. This plan gave Susanne a couple of hours to shower and nap, while it gave me the time to run two important errands: buying train tickets to Bangkok and arranging a hill tribe trek. I caught a tuk-tuk to the train station, about two kilometers from the hotel. The jerk of a driver spent the entire ride pestering me about going to see ceramic shops first. Despite my insistent refusals, he wouldn't stop asking me, so I ordered him to stop the tuk-tuk. "Train station now, or I walk and pay you zero baht." "No problem, no problem," he said. Just outside of the train station he stopped the tuk-tuk and said I should get out here. "You walk, I wait for you and then we go to shops," he said, displaying mystifying chutzpah. The cheapskate wouldn't even drive into the station itself - he wanted to avoid going through a police checkpoint. I paid him 10 baht less than we agreed upon initially and walked away. He began to yell at me, so I turned around and pointed to the police kiosk. The driver grumbled something to himself and climbed back into his tuk-tuk to take a nap. I quickly booked passage on the overnight express train for Bangkok leaving Chiang Mai Saturday afternoon at 4:40pm, arriving 6am. This gave us more than enough time to relax in Chiang Mai for a few days.
Next stop: Panda Trekking and Tours. Susanne and I had stopped at Panda along with several other trekking agencies to find a one day walk through some of the northern hilltribe villages. Practically every outfit offered the exact same packages, but for whatever reason I sensed that this particular company had its act together. They were also certified by Thailand's state tourism regulating authority, which certainly didn't hurt. We decided to take a five-tribe package which would bring us through small villages around Phrae, two hours outside of Chiang Mai. We had initially discussed flying to Mae Hong Son to visit the famous "long neck" Padong Karen tribes, but this tour gave us more variety for our baht. Seven hundred baht per person, around $15 dollars, would get us transportation, lunch, a guide who happened to be a member of the Lisu tribe, and the chance to visit Lisu, Akha, Lahu, Karen and Palong villages. And since we wouldn't have to spent the night at a village, that would give us even more time to unwind in Chiang Mai, which was our main reason for being here in the first place.
I got back to the hotel with just enough time to shower before our 3pm ride to the resort picked us up. I should probably note that traditional Thai massage, our massage of choice, has nothing to do with the infamous Thai massage parlors of Bangkok's Patpong district. Traditional massage is a primary element of traditional Thai medicine, which bears some similarity to Chinese medicine and India's Ayurvedic medicine. Basically, massage is used to either relax a patient or solve a particular medical ailment through accupressure techniques. For our purposes, though, we'd stick to the relaxation side of the therapy.
Massages cost 200 baht an hour, about five dollars, so we purchased tickets for 90-minute sessions. We were led to a dimly lit cubicle with two mattresses on the floor. Susanne and I both put on a pair of baggy pajamas that were loose enough for a good massage job yet eliminated the need for your masseuse to touch your skin directly. I found it quite hard to relax initially, for the pantaloon pajamas made me look like some 19th century maharaja or some Gilbert and Sullivan pirate character. Susanne and I laughed hysterically for some time until my masseuse walked in, a squat Thai woman who bore a strange resemblance to Rosanne Barr. She was quite serious about getting started, gesturing me to lie down on the bed. I tried to explain to her that we both wanted massages for our back and feet, but she stared blankly at me. I repeated my request, pointing at my back and feet. She shook her head and made the same motion for me to lie down face up on the mattress. I got the message. Don't tell me how to do my job. This was to be her show and I was in no place to dictate the terms of the program.
Another woman entered the room and ordered Susanne to get on her back as well. They sat below our feet and began to twist, crush, rub, press, knead and squeeze their ways across our bodies. I had expected the message to be a lot of complex hand movements but my masseuse used her fingers, knuckles, elbows, knees and heels to exert incredible pressure all over me. For example, while massaging my calf, Rosanne ground her knuckles in a rolling motion - I thought I was going to get a cramp. But for the shin muscles, which are much harder and denser tissue, she held my leg in place with one of her legs while thrusting her elbow in a wave-like fashion. I didn't know whether to scream or sigh in relaxation. The entire massage was really just full-body accupressure therapy. Some times she would press her whole body weight into my back and then hold it for 10 seconds. As she worked her way up my feet, hands, legs, arms, back, neck and head, Rosanne would talk in Thai with Susanne's masseuse. From their tone and their snickering it sounded like they were both ripping on their husbands or something. Yet they managed to shoot the breeze while twisting and shoving every muscle group on our bodies in the allotted 90 minutes.
Early on in the massage I tried to pay attention to her technique, just in case I ever wanted to attempt it myself. But sometimes when the pain was so exquisite I was unable to think of anyone on whom I would want to inflict this ancient Thai torture. At the 90 minute mark, Rosanne gave my head a triplet of light karate chops, a movement she used to end each muscle group massage. I was quite relaxed, as I had hoped, but yet I was exhausted, sore and limp. Was this the intended result, or was my farang body just not used to such refined traditional attention? It's hard to say.
Walking back to the van my body was a dead weight, my mind blank. Susanne and I tried to discuss what we thought of the whole bit, but I didn't have much to say. Hell, I didn't have much to say about anything. Tabula rasa. There's something very Buddhist about being clear of mind and body, so in that sense my traditional Thai massage treatment was an unqualified success. But the accompanying sores and bruises had me wondering out loud as to how we'd feel the next day during our three hours of hill walking. Until then, I guess, I'd enjoy the agony of utter blankness.
We ate dinner at Pizza Hut, a sign that we were already pining for the flavours and relative hygiene of American cuisine. The streets outside were crowded with shoppers, for we were eating in the heart of the night bazaar. Stall after stall tempted us with t-shirts, faux leather luggage, fake Rolexes, Hello Kitty backpacks, African masks, Tibetan thangka paintings and hundreds of other items I could have easily gotten elsewhere. I was actually surprised at the limited amount of distinctly Thai items available at the bazaar. Sure, you could get elephant paperweights and Singha Beer t-shirts, but most of the available products were generic items you could get at a US fleamarket. Perhaps most disappointing was the lack of selection for hilltribe-related souvenirs. I didn't have any specific purchases in mind, but if I did buy hilltribe goods, I'd at least like to buy them from actual hilltribe vendors. Perhaps it was just a matter of finding them - this was a big market.
At one point we stumbled upon a row of seedy bars, all on one side of a thin, dark underground hallway. There was practically no light apart from the neon and black lights that were prerequisite, and each joint seemed to have their resident prostitute sitting at the bar trying to entice prospective customers. Business did not seem very good, apart from a couple of backpackers playing Nintendo with one of the hookers. A bar at the far end of the strip was playing Hendrix. Foxy Lady. Susanne and I looked at each other and said, "Saigon. Shit.", as if the words themselves were flowing out of Martin Sheen's mouth in Apocalypse Now. Further along, the music switched to the Police and that damn "I'm a Barbie Girl" song. On this particular evening, the Chiang Mai go-go scene just didn't seem as hip as the night market. We returned to the streets to browse the bazaar, soak in the atmosphere and head back to the hotel for a good night's rest before a long day trekking in hilltribe country.
Posted by acarvin at 9:24 PM
November 18, 1997
Chiang Mai Bound
It's Tuesday morning, less than a week before leaving Thailand for Hong Kong. The last two weeks have been somewhat frantic, moving around every couple of days. So we've decided to head to Chiang Mai, the unofficial capital of northern Thailand, and use it as our base for the rest of the week. Maybe we'd take a trek for a day or two, maybe not. As long as we weren't on the move with our backpacks every 48 hours, I'd be happy.
A little after 9am we checked out of the Golden Triangle Inn and walked to the bus station down the road. I purchased two first class tickets to Chiang Mai, a four-hour trip for about $2.50 each. The only trouble was that the bus didn't leave until 11am so we returned to the hotel and worked on our journals in the cafe. Eventually we returned to the station and boarded the bus. Air conditioning was a major bonus on this particular trip, since half of the road was under construction and unpaved, causing a billowing cloud of dust and debris wherever the bus went. But air con couldn't save us from the bumps and bounces. I'd never felt so carsick before that day, but each bump brought me one step closer to puking on the poor monk sitting in front of me. I'd hate to ruin those saffron robes of his. I managed to focus my attention on the people in the bus, allowing my nausea to recede. Susanne, however, looked quite uncomfortable and kept her head tucked down between her knees. I'd have to go shopping for Dramamine in Chiang Mai, I guess.
2:30pm, we pulled into Chiang Mai Arcade Station on the northwest outskirts of town. The moment we disembarked the bus we were propositioned by a horde of touts for a taxi ride. I asked one woman how much to the Galare Guesthouse, a midrange hotel near the Ping River. She said 50 baht, about $1.25. We got into her songthaew, a Nissan pickup, and we were on our way.
Chiang Mai has the reputation of being a big Thai city without all the troubles of Bangkok. Traffic was steady, but not an obstacle to our progress - a significant plus over Bangkok in my book. We drove by several large hotels, a bright yellow superstore of some kind, several Shell and Exxon stations, even a big white church. This was Thailand? I had my doubts. Susanne turned to me at some point and said, "We're in Fort Lauderdale." Quite possibly, it seemed. Perhaps Chiang Mai was a darling of westerners because it was the West, plain and simple. We'd soon find out.
The Galare Guesthouse is actually a pleasant hotel with a riverside view, a nice garden, teak bungalows and two resident canines: an English terrier and a large, crazy-eyed boxer that seemed to enjoy nothing more than sleeping in places where guests might accidentally trip over him. Susanne wanted to chill out at the hotel, so I spent an hour walking around, trying to get a feel for the place. First impression: there are no Thais in Chiang Mai. Seventy-five percent of the people I see are westerners. Deadheads in tie-dyes. Snowbirds with Gucci bags and excessive makeup. Partygoers in muscle shirts and bikini tops. My God, Susanne was right - this was Fort Lauderdale! All of the businesses here are either tourist oriented or automotive. Trekking tours. Mechanic's garage. Money Exchange. Auto Body Repair. Pizza Hut. Muffler Shop. I concluded only two types of people were allowed to enter Chiang Mai: tourists, and people who drive tourists around.
A few blocks from the hotel vendors were setting up stalls for the daily night market, perhaps the largest night market in Thailand. Stall after stall, row after row, I could see fake leather goods, fake watches, fake antiques, fake Nikes. Alarm clocks, socks, statues of naked African women. It must get better than this, I thought. Back at the hotel, I got Susanne and we wandered the neighborhood until sunset. The night market continued to gain strength but it was still early - perhaps getting dinner would kill enough time for things to rev up. Susanne wanted to splurge on a good meal that night, so we ate at Piccolo Roma, an Italian restaurant just around the corner from our hotel. To my greatest surprise, it was a wonderfully authentic Italian restaurant experience, from the Pavarotti on the stereo to the chef coming out of the kitchen to take our order personally. We both ordered onion soup; I then had gnocci al pesto while Susanne got a stuffed pasta platter. Fresh, hot, thoroughly delicious.
We sat next to a Norwegian couple: the wife was in Asia on business while her husband, a professor of insect biology, was on sabbatical and traveling along just to enjoy himself. We chatted about our Thailand experiences as well as the ecology of the country and Thailand's inability to protect it. They were going to Burma the next day, and when we told them of all of the tiger and clouded leopard skins we had seen, the husband went off on the lack of realistic protective measures to stop the extinction of these cats. Sensing he would sympathize, I briefly brought up Norway's whaling policy, which they both agreed was barbaric and totally unnecessary for such a wealthy western nation. The husband's specialty was beetles, and he had spent a great deal of time in Costa Rica. We asked if he had seen any good bugs here in Thailand, and he pulled out a live beetle out of his pocket, kept safely in a polished wooden box. Yep, he was a beetle biologist alright.
After dinner, we decided to have a stroll through the night market. There were surprisingly few people out and about, which made sense a few minutes later as rain showers began to pelt down on us. The rains felt good hitting my face - it was easily 90 degrees outside, even after dark, so the cool waters were a pleasant relief. Market vendors scurried around in a humorous panic, pulling their goods under tarps, further into the tents. Most of the market was covered with these large tents, so it was interesting to walk along the inside as rain dripped from roof drains, the sound of the storm pounding away outside.
As the rains came down, Chiang Mai finally transformed from Fort Lauderdale to Thailand for a few hours. I don't know if that makes much sense, but the sound of the rain, the dampness of the air and the smell of the ozone all served as powerful reminders that were indeed in Southeast Asia. As hard as Chiang Mai tries to seem western to Westerners, the rain exposes it for what it is, a Thai town getting healthy a dousing during the late monsoon. Though the rain lasted only an hour or two, it was my favorite moment in Chiang Mai. The rains slowed activities to a crawl. No more crowds, no more hard bargaining. Just another Asian city in a warm evening shower.
Posted by acarvin at 10:51 PM
November 17, 1997
Daytrip to Burma; The Chiang Rai Night Market
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| Tiger and snow leopard skins, Thakhilek market |
A tuk-tuk brought us a kilometer down the road to the Golden Triangle Inn. The Inn had received high praise in some of the travel guides and it seemed like a lovely place, with lush gardens and blocks of teak bungalows. And at 600 baht ($15) a night, including breakfast, it was a really great deal, assuming we could find a vacancy at the place. The front desk told me they had one double available as long as we didn't plan to stay more than three nights. That wouldn't be a problem for us, so we settled into the room and cleaned off the grime from the guesthouse, the bus, a ferry, a sampan
, two speedboats, two samlors
, a jumbo
and a couple of tuk-tuks that we had taken in the last 24 hours. Feeling refreshed and groomed, we headed down to the city bus terminal to spend the afternoon in Burma.
Burma, now referred to as Myanmar by its isolationist military regime, shares a long, sealed border with Thailand, save a handful of crossing points that allow visitors to take daytrips. One such crossing point was at Mae Sai, the northernmost town in Thailand. Mae Sae sits in the heart of the so-called Golden Triangle, the region containing the point on the map where the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos meet. Mae Sae sells itself as a frontier outpost town where Burmese traders ship legal and illegal goods from China to the south while Thai traders do the same with Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian goods going north.
But gone are the days when the Golden Triangle was the legendary epicenter of regional insurgency and violence. Over the decades you could find a variety of rebel armies calling this area home: the Burmese Communist Party; the Shan United Revolutionary Army, the Shan State Army and the Shan State National Army, all associated with the infamous opium warlord Khun Sa; the Kuomintang (KMT), its aging units living in exile following the failed nationalist struggle in China; the Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party and Karen hilltribe separatists fighting for independence from Burma; the Thai Serai (Free Thai), the anti-Japanese resistance movement left over from World War II; the People's Liberation Army of Thailand, one of the few Indochinese communist insurgencies not to make any headway in this part of the world; and the Hmong Resistance, General Vang Pao's reknown anti-communist, CIA-supported counterinsurgence force that was defeated (though not eliminated) by the communist Pathet Lao in the 1970s.
At one time or another, most if not all of these forces exploited revenues raised from the Golden Triangle's prosperous opium and heroin ventures. Many also received support from the CIA, Vietnam, or the Myanmar military, sometimes even playing one covert supporter off the other just to get more cash. The Triangle's most notorious rebel is undoubtedly Khun Sa, the Shan/Chinese opium smuggler and guerrilla leader who spent the better part of the last 40 years making enormous sums of money off processing opium into heroin. Khun Sa occasionally received support from the Burmese military and the CIA when the opportunity presented itself. Today Khun Sa is in semi-retirement on an island off the cost of Burma, but the struggle continues: his successor, Sao Sai Nawng, has successfully merged the Shan United Revolutionary Army with the Shan State Army and the Shan State National Army under the new, yet longwinded title "The Shan State National Organization and Shan State Army," or SSNOSSA. With a reputed strength of nearly 15,000 men, Sao Sai Nawng's SSNOSSA will undoubtedly be a thorn in the side of the Myanmar regime. Apart from these rebels, the Golden Triangle is decidedly mellower today; the communist movements have either fizzled out or become mainstream political parties, and the Hmong forces now focus their energies on diplomatic resistance instead of guerrilla warfare. Only SSNOSSA and the Karen separatists continue to make noise in the Triangle, mostly within the confines of Burma. Mae Sai, once a Who's Who of Indochinese intrigue and conspiracy, has now resigned itself to being a seemingly endless duty-free shop.
A bumpy two-hour bus ride brought us to Mae Sai for 20 baht each. From the bus terminal we caught a songthaew in search of the Thai Immigration Office, where we would supposedly leave our passports and get the paperwork to let us into Burma for the afternoon. Riding the crowded pickup truck, we saw a large billboard sign reading "Thai Immigration Office" with a huge arrow pointing right. We stopped the songthaew, paid the driver and went to the office, only to discover that it had moved a kilometer north; they hadn't the time yet to take down the old sign. Irritated, we waited for another songthaew to take us to the real immigration office - or so we hoped it would be real. Once there, we discovered it was closed for lunch. We crossed the road and sat at an Inter-Suki sukiyaki joint for half an hour, drinking Pepsis and watching a fascinated wait staff wonder why on earth we came there for soda but not sukiyaki.
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| Myanmar border crossing |
At 1pm we entered the immigration office (finally), which sent us across the street again to a copy place to xerox our passports before heading to the border point, one kilometer north. The border immigration officers, it turned out, required neither the xeroxes nor the need to hold onto our passports. We each paid 200 baht and crossed the bridge into Thakhilek, a prosperous Burmese border town. A sign over the bridge welcomed us into the "Union of Myanmar." Several beggars waited for us in No Man's Land, standing in the middle of the bridge - how on earth did they get permission to do that? They harassed us as we crossed but soon lost interest in us when they saw we were ignoring them. At the opposite end of the bridge, a greasy Burmese immigration officer stamped our passports, inspecting each page one at a time. His arms were covered in cheap graphite tattoos and he was sweating through his khaki uniform under his arms and along his collar. As we stood there, he stared at us with the grin of a boy who'd been up to no good. Our right to enter this country rested in his hands. Eventually, he looked at us and said in a stilted English, "Thank you - have a nice visit," before waving us on to the streets of Thakhilek.
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| Snow leopard skins, Thakhilek market |
Beyond the bridge I could see a large Burmese pagoda to our left; upon closer inspection I realized it was actually a duty free shop. Burmese tuk-tuk drivers hounded us for rides, one after another, like camel guides at the pyramids of Giza. There wasn't much going on in Thakhilek apart from the markets and its many itinerant shoppers, so we spent the early afternoon wandering the maze of stalls just to see what's hot in a busy Asian border town like this one. Many of the shops specialized in teak goods - mirror frames, masks, Buddha images, drink coasters. Nice wood, but mirror frames weren't exactly a portable souvenir. Deeper into the market, though, the commodities got distinctly seedier, with illicit goods hanging besides household appliances and flea market junk. In any given shop you could easily find opium scales (smuggler's desktop scales - not your run-of-the-mill addict's pocket scales), Mr. Microphones, pornographic videos, wristwatches, decorated monkey skulls, fake leather jackets, men's underwear, animal skins. Lots of animal skins. In the course of the afternoon we easily saw about a dozen tiger and snow leopard skins. The skins of these increasingly rare cats are contraband in Thailand in the US, but here in Burma they were all available for the right price. The commercialized carnage continued with leopard skulls, tiger heads, canines, claws mounted into ashtrays and cup holders. Even the legitimate shops sold an incredible variety of pulverized animal parts for medicinal purposes, all in bags labeled in Chinese, most of them sporting a cartoon picture of a tiger on the front.
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| Wandering the Thakhilek market. Note the peacock feathers for sale. |
It all felt so immoral, so tragic that endangered animals like the tiger and snow leopard would be killed and sold alongside beauty cream and fake Calvin Klein dress socks, just like any other item for purchase. I know I can't judge a nation by its border towns - Juarez is not Mexico, Niagara Falls is not Canada. Yet Thakhilek left a terrible taste in my mouth, already soured by stories of the despotic Myanmar military regime. While I had talked with many travelers about their wonderful experiences in Burma and the ever-giving kindness of the Burmese people, Thakhilek was just one of those examples of a country putting its worst foot forward. Someday, I'm sure, I'll visit Burma and get to see its beautiful pagodas and people, but for now, until this Myanmar business and its backward dictatorship get brushed aside by the struggling democratic opposition, I'll just have to wait.
Back in Thailand, just across the border, a group of hilltribe girls were posing for tourists in their traditional costumes. While I hate having to pay for photographs, the sun was shining and the light was good, so we figured it might be worth a few baht just in case. The girls crowded around us saying "Group picture - 20 baht!" - not exactly what we had in mind. We offered them 20 baht for several individual pictures instead of the group shot. They accepted, but this development caused arguing over who would get to pose and thus get to keep the money. None of the girls would smile, so at the time it seemed a bit frustrating. (Now that we've developed the pictures, though, you can judge for yourself if it was worth it:)
As we waited for a ride back to the bus station, I realized something else that hadn't occurred to me while we were in Burma: the high number of vendors selling prunes. Pitted prunes. Unpitted prunes. Sunsweet Lemon Essence prunes. Prune juice. Prune jam. Prune extract. And when we jumped into a songthaewwe were joined by two Thai men who were both sporting bags of prunes, more prunes and a couple of cans of raisins. Was there some kind of laxative tax in Thailand? Was regularity considered a luxury or a sign of status among the Thai people? I was tempted to ask them straight up: "Why all the prunes, guys? Not feeling very regular this year?," but I couldn't think of how to say it with a straight face. I would just have to wonder. But if I had only known that dried plums were such a prize in Thailand I would have brought a second backpack with me for smuggling purposes. Better send a letter to the Sunsweet folks and ask for a finder's fee.
Back in Chiang Rai we had dinner at a Thai diner - chicken soup, minced chicken and rice. Pretty unextroadinary stuff overall. We saw an elephant outside the restaurant but couldn't figure out exactly what it was doing. Delivering goods perhaps. We then decided to visit the night market just to check out the local action. As we entered the bazaar I found a great red Gumby tie for two dollars. Susanne wanted to buy an embroidered elephant baseball cap for herself and her sister. The initial asking price was 100 baht each, but we managed to bargain down to 40 baht. They probably cost only a dime to make, but a buck for a baseball cap was decent in my book.
There were several older women in Akha tribal costumes, black caps covered in silver coins on threads with a large flat plate of silver over the back of the head. One of the Akha sold opium paraphernalia - pipes, scales, etc. I noticed she had some dried poppy flowers as well, so I decided to inspect them. For dead flowers they were very pretty but I didn't think I wanted to deal with the customs hassle, to say the least. She also sold small T-shaped scalpels. I picked one up and asked in Thai, "For opium?" The old Akha picked it up and moved the metal in a scraping motion, nodding her head in affirmation. This was the tool used to nick the poppy bud, causing the opium resin to flow out and harden for collection. Next to the scalpel were several nondescript leather boxes. "Nee arai?" I asked - "What is this?" She opened it and showed me a smaller box inside. Oh, I thought, a dull version of Russian matryoshka dolls, boxes within boxes. I put the box down, but she quickly handed it back to me and motioned for me to open the rest of it. Inside, I found yet another box, but inside this one there was a dark, gummy substance wrapped in foil. Uh oh. The Akha had a large smile on her face. "Fin, chai mai?" I asked. Was this really opium? "Chai," she nodded, "fin dee mahk mahk." Very good opium, apparently. I didn't know how to say the Thai equivalent of "No thanks, lady," (Mai khop, khun Akha, perhaps?), so I shook my head and smiled, politely placing the box on her carpet. "Mai pen rai," she said, laughing. "It doesn't matter." Interesting how the local drug dealers were so grandmotherly, I thought.
But my image of playful elderly opium hawkers was shattered within 30 seconds when a thin, shady looking fellow grabbed me hard by the arm and shoved another handful of foil in my face. "You want? Yes? I know you want." "No," I responded, "Go away. Pai!" He gave me the evil eye and walked away, staring at me as he backed into the shadows and vanished in the crowd.
I rejoined Susanne and we walked through the back of the market where numerous artisans displayed carvings, paintings and handicrafts. An old couple from the Yao tribe sat next to a pile of woven blankets. Susanne found a large yellow blanket with an elephant pattern on it. "How much?" I asked. "See loi baht," the Yao woman said. 400 baht, about 10 dollars. Even if this blanket had been machine made, which I somewhat suspected, it was worth ten bucks, and Susanne clearly liked it. But just to test my bargaining skills I offered 200: "Phaeng pai, khap. Song loi baht." The couple laughed. 200 baht was a joke and they knew it. "Very good, very good," the woman said. "Yao made. Saam loi baht." So now we were down to 300 baht. I tried for 250 but got nowhere as her husband chimed in, "Yao made. Help Yao. Very good." At 300 baht, it was only eight dollars. Susanne gave me a look that said "Stop messing with these people. They need the money." "OK, no problem," I said. "Saam loi baht - OK." Susanne had her blanket. Now we could go to sleep.
Posted by acarvin at 10:27 PM
November 16, 1997
Riding the Mekong Express
I had long looked forward to the day when we would travel up the Mekong into Thailand. Perhaps I had seen Apocalypse Now and Aguirre: Wrath of God a few too many times, but I've always been fascinated by river adventures. The Mekong carries such great historic and geographic imagery - to use it as our highway through northern Laos seemed like it would be a great thrill. Sometimes, though, I've found that I can be a bit romantic about these things; perhaps I'd live to regret it. We'd find out later today.
Andy braves the Mekong at 50 mph Susanne and I bought our last loaves of banana bread from the bakery - our meals for the long ride - and then met our boatman at the docks by Wat Xieng Thong. Boua Geun was supposed to meet us here as well, but we and the boatman were both early, so he wasn't anywhere to be found. Oh well; we'd still send him those books he wanted.
At the speedboat pier I purchased two tickets and checked in with the local police - standard operating procedure in Lao PDR. There were six of us plus our speedboat driver heading north that day, including a tall and dour Frenchman and some Lao nationals. The boat was about 20 feet long and no more than four feet wide. We sat two by two in little wood cubby holes barely big enough for our legs. The Lao men, having grown up in a culture accustomed to squatting, looked quite comfortable in their boxes, while Susanne, the Frenchman and I grimaced each time we feebly shifted our legs to avoid having them fall asleep. The first hour of the seven-hour journey was a real rush - riding through the water at 70 kph with no seatbelt, protected only by a crash helmet. Sitting as we were, mostly in pairs of two, all of us in helmets, I felt as if we were a bobsled crew touring Disney's Jungle Cruise ride in a speedboat. The image was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying.
Ninety minutes into the trip we stopped briefly at a police checkpoint, where a Lao officer chatted with our driver while smoking a large homemade cigar that smelled distinctly like pot. A local villager missing half of his teeth, smelling of cow manure and smoking the largest joint I've ever seen, came up to the boat and thumbed for a ride upriver to the next village. Because the seat to my right was unoccupied, he climbed in next to me, putting his smouldering zeppelin between his toes to keep it away from the wind. As soon as we took off it became obvious that this poor little fellow had never traveled in a speedboat before. His mouth locked in a huge smirk as if he were riding his first rollercoaster, while matted layers of hair flew up over the back of his head, dangling horizontally in front of the Frenchman's grumpy face.
After a minute or two, the villager began to grin like a madman, not unlike that famous picture of Charles Manson. I offered him the extra helmet that sat in front of Susanne, which he put over his unbelievably small head. He unwisely flipped the visor up and down until he raised it so high that the wind pressure snapped it backwards and nearly took his head off. Once he settled into this new element, the villager then realized that the visor would deaden the wind enough for him to smoke that joint of his, so he removed the cigar from between his toes and began to puff at it under the helmet. I struggled to maintain a straight face as the smoke filled the inside of his headgear and billowed out the sides. When we reached the village 10 minutes later, he took off the helmet, looked at me and said "Thank you" in slow but precise English. He then offered me his rank, blackened joint. I politely shook my head back and forth, gesturing with my hands to my helmet in the hopes it would mean something to him. The villager smiled again, jumped off the boat and threw the cigar into the Mekong - I guess it had served its purpose. He then walked up the beach and vanished from view into a lush thicket of trees.
Halfway between Luang Prabang and Pakbeng, our lunchtime stop, we picked up three new passengers. Two of the men carried Chiang Mai University faculty briefcases, so I figured they were along for the duration. That also meant we were overloaded by at least three too many bodies; the water sprayed heavily as we cruised up the Mekong. Susanne and I were seated up front where the spray wasn't too bad but the bumps were like someone swinging a mallet into your ass every other minute.
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| View of the Mekong from Pakbeng |
In three hours we reached Pakbeng, a river outpost town where we would pause for lunch and change into a new boat. The outpost was a glorified wooden shack that floated precariously on the northeast bank of the river. Inside the shack several Lao families crowded together with their children and chickens, slurping down bowls of hot noodles and breastfeeding their babies. A pair of Australian backpackers and an Israeli couple sat somewhat uncomfortably at a picnic table, waiting for their ride south to Luang Prabang. Susanne and I ate our banana bread while the Israelis ordered their own bowls of noodles with fresh cilantro and bean sprouts floating on top - brave souls, I thought. The shack had an outhouse to the side, its toilet being a missing plank of wood in the center of the floor. Happy I could finally relieve myself, I wasn't bothered pondering the fact that there was nothing separating me from the flowing Mekong below except this square foot hole in the floor. Back out on deck, a Lao military officer got off another boat carrying what appeared to be an overgrown guinea pig on a rope. He left with the furry beast before we could get a close look, but Susanne concluded it was a river rat, despite my insistence on having discovered the previously unknown Mekong wombat.
Susanne rides the waves At 1pm Susanne and I were herded onto another boat, this time to all the way in the back, just in front of the driver and his 120 decibel motor. The ride was smoother from back here, but there was even less room and our extremities were getting drenched by the spray. I almost forgot to notice that we were traveling through some of the most breathtaking river country in the world. By 2:15pm or so, we stopped at a no-name Lao village for fuel and another police checkpoint. The gas station was an aging houseboat with glass gas pumps installed on the port side. When we pulled ashore two passengers got off from the front of the boat, so we motioned to the driver to see if we could again sit up front. He smiled and then removed the back board for the very front seat, thus allowing us to sit up front with twice as much leg room. I was really touched by this gesture, but I also began to imagine he saw us as just some damn American tourists always wanting the creature comforts of home. I couldn't tell if he was being sincerely generous or just humoring us, but either way we had a comfortable ride for the rest of the trip.
Time began to fly and before I knew it we were pulling into Huay Xai around 3:30pm, the sun waning low over the Thai side of the river. We caught a jumbo through Huay Xai, a very attractive little river town, to the border post, which comprised of an "immigration officer" in a BeerLao t-shirt who was sitting around having a drink with friends. He cheerfully stamped out our passports and sent us to a sampan ferry for the two minute crossing to the Thai city of Chiang Khong.
Back in Thailand for the last time on our journey, we caught two separate samlors - one-seater bicycle rickshaws - to the bus station, where we waited with a group of novice monks for the three-hour ride to Chiang Rai. There was a fresh food market nearby, so I bought some angel cake and listened to "The Best of The Scorpions" blasting from a PA system. Two Thai men sat on a bench, mouthing the words to "Rock You Like a Hurricane." The bus left promptly at 5pm but the bus ride felt much longer than three hours as we stopped every few minutes to pick up new passengers. Apart from two or three middle-aged women on board, Susanne and I were the oldest passengers, the rest being schoolkids. The un-airconditioned bus looked very much like an American school bus, so as more and more teenagers climbed aboard I felt distinctly as if we were going on a field trip. "Bring your permission slip from home?" I asked Susanne. If not, she'd have an 18-hour ride to Bangkok before a 20-hour flight to America to pick it up from Mom and Dad.
In Chiang Rai we checked into Mae Hong Son Guesthouse, highly recommended by Lonely Planet. The room smelled like mold, the bed was a slab of concrete, the walls thin as paper. Yes, for 100 baht a night, it was cheap, but who cares about managing to spend less than three bucks when you can't sleep a wink all night? This would be the last time we'd listen to Lonely Planet when it came to "budget guesthouses." From now on, we'd upgrade to midrange accommodations - spending $12 a night would at least give us some comfort.
Posted by acarvin at 8:42 PM
November 15, 1997
The Pak Ou Caves; Finding Our Missing Monk Friend
Susanne and I had a 9am rendezvous this morning with the middle aged boatman we met during our first visit to Wat Xieng Thong. Destination: the Pak Ou caves. We got up early enough to pause at the bakery for our morning breakfast before meeting him just before 9 o'clock.
Buddha statues, Pak Ou Caves We climbed down the stone steps to the river bank where he and his wife maneuvered their 12-seat, 30 foot sampan
into position with their oars gliding them through the muddy water. We stepped into the boat and headed north, cruising through the waters as a heavy fog loitered over the surrounding mountains. I loved the fresh breeze hitting my face but the rush of cruising peacefully up the Mekong faded as I realized I was not padded with sufficient layers of clothes to keep warm. Susanne, ever more practical than I am, pulled her pocket anorak and sweater out of her backpack and enjoyed a comfortable ride upriver. Meanwhile, I shivered and hoped for the sun to break through the clouds and warm my chilled bones.
We motored through the morning waters for over 90 minutes when I noticed a large sheer cliff hanging ahead of us. As we got closer the cliff got higher and higher, probably upwards of 1000 feet. But before we reached the base of the cliff the boatman slowed the motor, for I had neglected to notice the mouth of the Pak Ou caves on the left bank of the Mekong. From the boat I could now see the gaping entrance of the limestone cave, with polished white steps leading up from the riverbank. Inside the cave were shadowy, almost alien figures, staring out at me from the distance. These faces were but a few of the many Buddha statues that made Pak Ou famous.
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| Entrance to the Pak Ou Caves |
For centuries, the Pak Ou caves - the lower Tham Ting cave and the upper Tham Phum cave - were sacred sites to local animist tribes. But when northern Laos converted to Buddhism by the 14th century, the caves too were converted, and by the mid 1600s the kings of Lane Xang were making pilgrimages here to pay respect to the thousands of Buddha images inside. These royal pilgrimages continued each year until 1975. Despite the loss of royal patronage, Tham Ting and Tham Phum remain an important sacred shrine in Lao Buddhism.
Buddha statue, Pak Ou Caves
We jumped out of the boat on to a floating bamboo platform that allowed us to step to dry land. We then paid the resident attendant the 500 kip entrance fee and climbed the stairs to Tham Ting. The caved echoed with the sounds of swallows that made their home deep inside, far away from where we'd be allowed to enter. Buddha statues of all shapes and sizes occupied the cavern, many covered in candle wax, facing the open mouth of the cave. It was an unusual blend of the geological and the mystical - an eons-old cave with its primeval timelessness, the eternal gaze of the Buddhas contemplating the universe and all of its complexities - I could see how a monk could spend months here if he wanted to.
There was a long climb of steps to reach the Tham Phum cave. Though not as visually stunning as Tham Ting, Tham Phum is more subtle, more surreal. An old teak gate welcomed us at the cave's entrance. Once inside, all was dark save a few small candles scattered about the cave. As we walked the 200 feet into the cave, we soon needed the aid of the small flashlight I had packed. First time in three trips I had actually used it, actually. From the light of my torch we could see several hundred Buddha images ranging from just a few inches tall to more than life size. Each Buddha was a surprise lurking in the darkness, popping into view like a ghoul in a haunted house. There was nothing particularly ghoulish about the statues themselves, but their shadows danced on the high cave walls, the rhythm of their motion determined by the baton movements of my flashlight. Shadows from a single Buddha statue multiplied when other visitors targeted their lights at it, causing random afterimages on the wall - a ghost of a ghost of a Buddha, if you will. The cave conjured images of Halloweens past - not exactly what I had expected from such a holy Buddhist shrine. Perhaps some of this was meant to show that even the Buddha could have had a sense of humor. Who knows.
We paused for a Coke and a rest room stop before returning to the boat. Our boatman steered the craft closer to the cliff on the eastern shore. Beyond the cliff was the mouth of the Nam Ou river, which joins the Mekong at this intersection. I imagined trekkers from Colorado scaling the face of the cliff as part of some REI-sponsored expedition - perish the thought. The boat then doubled back south down the Mekong. Our final scheduled stop was a Lao village known as Ban Xiang Hai, the Jar Maker Village. For generations, villagers here created the jars used for storing Lao-Lao, a popular, semi-illicit moonshine made with fermented rice. Archaeologists apparently have found shards of jars dating back nearly 2000 years, suggesting that these folks really knew what they were doing when it came to jars. Lately, though, the locals have started to buy ready-made jars from elsewhere and focused on brewing and bottling Lao-Lao instead.
Lao Girl, Jar Maker's Village
We were met on the beach by eight or nine young children, all eager to pose for pictures for the right amount of kip. They were the only children we encountered in all of Laos who demanded tips for their cuteness. When we realized they wanted money, we stopped taking pictures because we didn't think it was appropriate for kids to be touting for a quick kip in this manner. Above the beach and in the village we found numerous stilt houses opened up and selling souvenirs of all types. A large group of French tourists were herded around like cattle, many of them handing out 1000 kip notes to the kids for no apparent reason. This is how it all begins, I thought. It starts as a village that opens itself up to visitors to help sell some goods, but it ends up becoming just another tourist trap fully dependent on farang visitors with handouts.
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| Want to see more pictures of the Jar Maker's Village? Visit The Children of Southeast Asia |
I steered around the tour group and followed our boatman, who brought me to a friend's hut that offered free samples of Lao-Lao. He handed me a shot glass of the clear liquid and said in French it was "le distillant de riz blanc fermentee." I swallowed the moonshine, let out a resonant, tubercular cough and replied, "Le distillant de petrol, peutetre!" He laughed and offered me a second shot, which I declined politely as my eyes glazed over. The boatman then handed me another glass, this one containing a syrupy red liquid with the consistency of cough medicine. "Fermentee riz noir et sucre," he explained. I struggled to remember the name of the traditional rice wine popular in northern Laos. "Lao khao... Lao khao...," I started to say. "Oui, Lao khao kam," he replied. "Dee lai lai!" I swallowed the shot and immediately thought of cough syrup again. Actually, it wasn't that bad, but the wine left a stale rice aftertaste that almost had me longing for another shot of Lao-Lao. The boatman's friend offered me a bottle, which I could take home for only 2000 kip. Tempting, but I decided to cherish the memory instead.
The ancient Lao spirit Pu No
I paced through the village with the boatman, watching all of the French tourists crowd around one souvenir stall after another. "Beaucoup Farangset," I said to him in a weird French/Lao melange that for the moment came naturally to me in his presence. "Mai dee lai." "Not good for you, peutetre," he said back in Franglais, "mais tres bon pour les villages." This was an argument I knew I didn't want to get into, especially with a man who spoke at least three languages better than I spoke one. "D'accord, okay," I replied, and left it at that.
Once the French had cleared out, I stopped at a stall run by two teenage Lao girls. They were selling a variety of knick-knacks including small wooden statues of Pu No, one of the pre-Buddhist pagan spirits associated with the founding of Luang Prabang. Pu No had a big, round cartoon face with a huge mane of rope dreadlocks that covered its entire body - sort of an animist Lao Oscar the Grouch. One of the girls asked for 7,000 kip, and I soon got her down to 5,000 for one of them. I bet it would look good on my desk at work.
Our boatman on the Mekong
As we returned to the boat, I asked our guide if he knew what it would cost to catch a speedboat for the 300km ride up the Mekong to Huay Xai, at the Lao-Thai border. He didn't know the answer offhand but he agreed to take us to the speedboat landing north of town to find out how much it would cost. Twenty minutes or so into our ride we pulled along side the speedboat docks. I expected he would let me climb out of the boat and up the earthen steps to talk with the speedboat drivers atop the cliff. Instead he yelled out to them in Lao and had a brief exchange with several other boatmen at the top of the cliff. "When do you want to go?" he asked me. "Tomorrow," I said. "Meueun," he yelled up to the boatmen. They shouted back and forth for a few moments until he turned to us and said, "OK, tomorrow I take you here at 8am, you pay 30,000 kip per person, you go to Huay Xai in six hours. OK?" That was less than $18 each - fair enough. We agreed to be there at 8am the next day, and the boatman would give us a ride back to the speedboat pier.
Back at the docks by Wat Xieng Thong, we disembarked and paid the boatman 30,000 kip for the tour - 25,000 for the ride plus a 5,000 kip tip. He thanked us and returned to his boat, reminding us to be there the next morning. I figured we'd get some lunch soon but first we decided to visit the wat to see if we could find our young monk friend. Before we got halfway across the wat, he reappeared from a small building with a big smile on his face. "I'm sorry for the other night," he said. "I was not feeling well so I did not go to the concert." So he had stood us up, just as we had thought we had done the same to him. I felt a lot better. We told him my story of sinking into the mud that night, and we all laughed about how none of us had bothered to show up at the concert. "Did you see me last night?" he then asked. "I tried to say I was sorry then but you did not understand me." Apparently he was the monk in the orange hat. Again, we embarrassingly covered ourselves by saying, quite honestly, that we didn't recognize him with the hat and his freshly shaven head. He seemed to be sympathetic to our excuse.
We sat with him for 30 minutes or so, talking about America and his life at the wat. He had a brother and sister, but he doubted his brother would become a novice as well. In two years he planned to go to university in Vientiane to study law and Buddhism. He also wanted to study abroad, so he asked us if we had any English books he could read. Apart from our travel guides we weren't carrying any other books, so I offered to send him an English grammar book and some conversation tapes from America. He gave me his address - finally, a chance to see his name on paper:
Group Portrait: Susanne, Boua Geun and Andy Novice Boua Geun, Wat Xieng Thong. Luang Prabang, Lao PDR.How we got Wong out of Boua Geun I have no idea. But at least we now knew his name.Our stomachs were growling so we bid Boua Geun goodbye, promising to drop by at least once before leaving Luang Prabang. Next stop, the bakery. During this particular visit, I discovered the simple pleasures of homemade muesli with yogurt, fresh coconut shavings, pineapple, papaya and banana. I wanted to kick myself for all of those days wasted on banana bread.
We promised ourselves a lazy afternoon so we chilled out at the hotel for a couple of hours. We returned briefly to Wat Xieng Thong in a feeble attempt to sketch pictures of the main sim, but we found the architecture too complex and the sun's heat too ruthless. Boua Geun reappeared and applauded us for the effort. He soon returned to his studies, so we decided to head off and get dinner.
Another evening at the Villa Santi. It began on a clumsy note as I knocked a salt shaker and a box of toothpicks off the table and down from the balcony to the grass below. No injuries. For dinner, we again ordered spring rolls and the mushroom soup, and split an entree of minced chicken with basil for our main course - the first boneless white meat chicken of our entire trip. We bumped into Keith, the 45-year-old New Yorker we had met at the bakery yesterday. We invited him to join us, and we spent the better part of the evening listening to him tell tales of go-go bars and Thai boxing shows in Chiang Mai, smoking bad opium with hill tribes, and why American marijuana was better than its southeast Asian counterparts. Clearly here was a man with a mission in Laos, a man who had taken us as fellow pharmacological aficionados. Maybe not, but his stories were still quite funny.
Singing a song for Grandma
Want to see more of the Patty Cake Kids?
Visit The Children of Southeast AsiaAfter dinner we decided to walk back to the hotel, hoping to say goodbye to those two cute kids we had played with the night before. Like clockwork, we found them resting on a small table in front of grandma's shop, half asleep. The little girl was pretty groggy and kept drifting back to sleep, but the boy got up and gave my leg a big hug, slapping my hands when I held my palms out. I tried it again, and this time he fell forward, putting his entire weight on my hands, closing his eyes. Definitely nappy time for this little one. Grandma smiled and told him to wave bye-bye as we left. "Bye-bye!" he said in English, "Bye-bye!" A fitting farewell for a city of children we had gotten to know so well.
Posted by acarvin at 10:22 PM
November 14, 1997
Lao Bicycle Tour
Boy with bicycle, Wat Aham, Luang Prabang
Today was Wat Dayin Luang Prabang - not that anyone had declared it as such, of course. As I mentioned earlier, Susanne had worried at Angkor that she wouldn't see enough monks. Luang Prabang, with its 32 monasteries, I assured her, would essentially be One Big Monk. And today was the day we would go out in search of that Monk.
Breakfast at the hotel wasn't very satisfying - the sliced baguettes were so stale they scratched the roof of my mouth. At 8:30am a heavy fog hung over Luang Prabang, with only the river valley visible in full. Until the sun situation improved, picture taking would be a questionable task. I suggested we visit the royal palace, which was open precisely from 8:30am to 10:30am each day - two hours the Lao government would allow its people a peak into its glorious, yet all-too-recent monarchical past.
Hmong woman, Luang Prabang
I received a permission slip from the hotel for 1000 kip; without it, we wouldn't be allowed into the palace. We then walked down the street to the palace, past a row of Hmong women selling patches of woven fabric. From the side the palace looked like a flat, one-story college campus building. But as we crossed to the front of the palace, it began to show off the regal splendour that I had expected. A wat-like spire reached upward from its center as marbled steps led way to the entrance, where we were requested payment of another 1000 kip each, the stowage of our bags and cameras, and the removal our shoes.Before actually going through the front door of the palace, we were ushered off to the far right side, where we could see a collection of royal Buddha images through an iron gate. Among these relics sat the Pha Bang, the 83 centimeter solid gold Buddha that gives Luang Prabang its name: the City of the Great Pha Bang. According to legend, the Pha Bang is almost 2000 years old, having made its way over the centuries from its birthplace in Sri Lanka to Laos, where it was given to Fa Ngum, the Lao warrior who used his connections in the Khmer empire to wrestle northern Laos from the Thai kingdom of La Na (Lanna). With the Pha Bang is his possession, Fa Ngum declared himself the first king of Lane Xang Hom Khao, A Million Elephants and a White Parasol. Along with the famed Emerald Buddha, the Pha Bang served as the legitimator of Lao sovereignty. Over the years, though, the Thai empire managed to capture both the Emerald Buddha and the Pha Bang. Though Siam kept the Emerald Buddha for themselves, King Rama IV returned the Pha Bang to Luang Prabang in the 1860s, where it has remained ever since.
Or has it? Many Lao believe that the Pha Bang on display is actually a gold plated replica, while the original statue is kept in Vientiane or (even worse) Moscow. Lao officials deny this, of course. The Great Pha Bang was truly a marvelous statue, but in all honesty, if I hadn't known the history behind it, I might have easily overlooked it. The Pha Bang's unusual display on the outside right of the museum and its lack of fanfare was a far cry from the near-idolatrous homage paid to the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok, or even the simple dignity of the Gold and Emerald Buddhas in Phnom Penh's Silver Pagoda. This Buddha inspired no holy awe. I wondered if that's exactly what the current communist government intended.
Susanne and I entered the royal audience chamber, with its splendid tile murals and grand throne. The other rooms of the house, equally regal in their arrangement, were more scaled back, at times seeming utilitarian. The King's and Queen's bedrooms appeared as they were left in 1975 - empty rooms apart from basic sets of teak beds, chairs, and tables. A small dining room was decorated in a 1950s art deco style - more tasteful than Graceland, but a distance Asian cousin nonetheless. The final rooms displayed gifts from other nations to the Lao PDR, including a moon rock given by President Nixon. According to the Lonely Planet guide, gifts were labeled as being either from socialist or capitalist nations, but since all of these labels were in Lao I couldn't tell the difference.
We stepped outside and put our shoes on. The sky was opening up, the fog beginning to clear. Susanne and I were both a bit hungry due to our poor breakfast, so we walked to a bakery on Luang Prabang's main road. It was crowded with farangs eating muesli and baguettes, so we got comfortable and enjoyed an order of banana bread and coffee. We talked about renting motor scooters that day, but next door the asking price was $20 a bike, much more than we wanted to spend. On the other side of the bakery a bicycle shop rented bikes at 2000 kip a day - about $1.20. We rented two of them and went on our merry way.
We didn't have a particular itinerary for our bicycle tour so we started by heading up to the tip of the peninsula and then to the left along the quiet boulevard along the Mekong. There was a slight decline in the road so we coasted along as other bicyclists and the occasional motor scooter rider passed us in the other direction. The road curved away from the Mekong eventually, so our view was no longer as pleasant. Upon reaching the perimeter of town we cut left, past the town's lone Shell station and the Malee Lao Food restaurant where we had eaten the night before.
There wasn't much of interest in this part of town, so we took another left and soon reached the quaint wooden bridge over the Nam Khan that we had crossed yesterday. Because it was a single lane bridge, we waited for a stoplight to signal our turn to cross the river. I looked to the right as we rode over the bridge and saw a wat perched over a hill beyond the river. We parked our bikes on the far side of the bridge and doubled back by foot to get a better view. If it weren't for the wat I could have pictured this bridge, stream and valley scene to be at home in New Hampshire rather than Lao PDR.
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| Wat Tao Hai |
Schoolgirl, Wat Tao Hai
Listen to Lao kids playing with RealAudio!I knew there were some minor wats on this side of the bridge, so we continued past a market and hung a right along a dirt road until we reached Wat Tao Hai. We found a small sim
decorated with scenes from the Buddha's life, apparently designed by children judging from the painting style. Inside the monastery buildings surrounding the sim several young novices peered out at us and smiled, mouthing the words "Sabai dee." I thought it was pretty cool I could actually read lips in Lao, even if it only was one phrase that every visitor here knew. Susanne got a nice picture at the back of the sim with her wide angle lens while I walked back around it, where I met several young kids on their way to school beyond the monastery. I gave them my best Lao small talk - hello, how are you, what is your name, how old are you, I'm from America - and they giggled with each feeble attempt. Meanwhile, I noticed Susanne was now sitting next to a novice, about 16 years old, which I thought was odd since novices and monks aren't allowed to come in direct contact with women. I went over and said hello, just to see what was up. The novice spoke a little English, but I surmised he was most interested in sitting so close to a young American woman. Several of his novice friends sat on a porch nearby, watching intently to see how close he would get. Susanne didn't seem to mind; it was harmless enough.
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| Susanne and her eager young friend... | ...And their curious audience |
We returned to our bikes after pausing to say hello to some more children who were on their way to school. Then we headed back down the dirt path, over the main road and onward down another semi-paved road where more wats awaited us. After 200 yards or so we reached a fork in the road by a small wat. Our Lonely Planet map didn't show a fork at this particular point, so we took a guess and went right. Numerous schoolchildren passed us on foot, yelling "Hello!" in English. There was a very small wat at the end of the street, but we figured we had gone in the wrong direction, so we turned around and continued past the earlier fork in the road.
There was a residential neighborhood with houses ranging from small shacks to shiny teak cottages with fresh flowers on every window sill. Scores of butterflies hovered over rows of rose bushes. So many butterflies in this country, I thought; I had never seen anything like this before. Land of one million elephants? Land of one million butterflies seemed much more appropriate.
Just beyond another wooden bridge we found Wat Sa-At, a minor monastery with a beautiful view of Luang Prabang and the Nam Khan river. Three old monks sat in a wooden hut, apparently in the midst of a reading, but they paused to smile at us and say hello. I sat for a while on a bench near the river, contemplating the serenity of the scene before me. It was now around 12:30pm and the heat of the mid day would soon be upon us, so we decided to return to the center of town. But a young novice approached us and said hello, then asked if we spoke any Lao. Naively, I responded with "Phom phoot phasaah Thai nitnoi, khap" - "I know a little Thai." The young novice grinned and called out something in Lao to a friend, but I knew exactly he was saying: "Hey, come over here! This farang
says he speaks Thai!" His friend, another novice, approached us and said to me, "Sawatdee khap, khun phoot phasaah Thai, chai mai khap?" I timidly responded, "Phoot Phasaah nitnoi, mai mahk, khap" - "I speak a little, not very well, though." We then began a difficult dialogue (difficult for both of us, I imagine):
"Khun cheu arai khap?"
"Phom cheu Andy, khap."
"Khun Andy, khun maa chaak tee nai khap?"
"Maa chaak Washington DC, khap. Pen khon American."
"Khun chohp PahtLao, chai mai?"
"Huh?"
"PahtLao. Khun.. Chohp... PahtLao... chai mai?"
I was stumped by this one, and responding "huh?" again and again probably didn't give him the answer he wanted. The novice repeated it one more time, smiling patiently and gesturing to the air around him with his hand. "Oh!" I exclaimed. "Do I like Laos?" Woops, I should have expected that question. "Chohp khap! Phom chohp Pathet Lao mahk mahk!" Both he and the other novice understood my response and grinned, nodding their heads approvingly. With each new question, though, my comprehension got worse. I knew he was asking me how long we had been in Laos, when we planned to leave and the like, but I didn't know how to say the answers in Thai, apart from throwing out a few numbers. So I started to spew out a laundry list of simple Thai sentences, just enough to cover any potential questions he might still want to ask. He smiled as I talked, nodding in comprehension with each comment. Eventually we said goodbye ("Shohk dee!"), as I gave a quiet sigh of relief that I had survived my first real dialogue in Thai - a chat with a nice young Lao who didn't speak a word of English. I just wondered if I'd ever get a similar opportunity in Thailand. Perhaps I should have studied Lao instead.
A Monk in his prayer chamber, Wat Aham
Susanne and I returned to our bikes and crossed back over the wooden bridge to the Luang Prabang peninsula. We caught some shade at another minor wat and then continued right to Wat Wisunalat, locally known as Thaat Makmo - the Watermelon Stupa.Originally constructed in the early 1500s, Thaat Makmo was one of the oldest wats in Luang Prabang. Though its sim is nothing unusual, Wisunalat is best known for the large stupa in front of it, a hemispherical structure built in 1513 that looks like a half of a watermelon jutting out of a white stone base. Just next to the stupa was Wat Aham, a quiet monastery best known for two large Bodhi trees and its former role as the residence of the Sangkhalat, the Supreme Patriarch of Lao Buddhism. Outside of the sim an old monk showed us around and into the sim, where he offered to sell us "wats in a bottle" - glass bottles with wooden sims inside, not unlike a ship in a bottle. He then sat in a small gilded booth, barely bigger than he was, and invited us to take pictures. We smiled, took some shots and thanked him, eventually leaving the sim as he remained quite comfortably inside his booth. As we crossed through the compound, a group of boys played with a bicycle. They laughed and mugged for pictures enthusiastically.
Back at our own bikes, I looked up the road and saw a splendid view of Phu Si, the 100 meter hill that sits at the center of the Luang Prabang peninsula. At its summit I could see Thaat Chomsi, the 80 foot stupa that dates back to the early 1800s. I had a momentary flashback to the stupa of Swayumbunath near Kathmandu, its mystical eyes peering out in four directions from its hilltop perch. There were no eyes looking down at me from the top of Phu Si, but yet I felt the same serenity here that I had last felt in the Kathmandu Valley. Luang Prabang was truly a special place.
We dropped off the bicycles at the shop around 1pm and grabbed some more banana bread at the bakery. There were two Americans inside - a man from New York and a woman who happened to be from DC - as well as a tall, mysterious Englishwoman. The man was on a round-the-world meditative trek, while the American woman had taken six months off from the World Bank to travel across Asia. I'm not exactly sure what the Brit's itinerary was, though she did talk about how she thought bald men were very attractive. Susanne and I finished our snack, so we retreated to our air-conditioned room at the Hotel Phousi for a couple of hours - we were sweaty and in dire need of showers at this point.
Lao cloth seller, Luang Prabang By mid afternoon we decided to visit the two wats just behind the hotel, Wat Ho Siang and Wat That. A group of novices horsed around near Wat That's drum house, tossing a ball at each other and occasionally banging on some large cymbals. Susanne was looking a bit tuckered out - she had been suffering from insomnia for a few nights - so we decided to take it easy for the rest of the afternoon and focus our efforts on souvenir hunting. Most of the shops carried similar items - carved teak, cymbals and gongs, opium scales, and above all, a wide selection of beautifully embroidered textiles, a specialty of many of the local hilltribes. The workmanship was both complex and delicate, yet most pieces sold for less than 10,000 kip - about seven dollars. Susanne wanted to buy some cloth even though we couldn't figured out what to do with linen shaped in a 2"x7" rectangle. Hang it, I guess. At one shop run by a severely hunched over old woman, Susanne found a gorgeous red woven cloth for 6000 kip - four dollars. The old woman even appeared ready to settle for 5000 kip until her husband arrived, at which point she steadfastly stuck to 6000 kip. Either way it was a great bargain, so Susanne bought the cloth.
Down the road we could hear drumming from Wat Mai, one of the largest wats in town. Novice monks were hammering out a fast rhythm in the drum house, using the main drum, two gongs and some large cymbals. Some tourists crowded around the drum house trying to get pictures, and the monks managed to ignore them. We eventually joined in the intrusion and got some nice pictures up close. We then headed further down the street in search of my own souvenirs. I settled on a piece of carved varnished teak - a profile of a menacing Lao demon.
At 5pm we opted for an early dinner at the Villa Santi, commonly known as the Villa de la Princesse. This 120-year-old colonial mansion was the home of Crown Princess Khampa, the highest ranking member of the Lao royal family to survive the Pathet Lao takeover in 1975. The villa was confiscated in 1976 but returned to the princess in the early 1990s. She has since renovated the place into a luxury inn and Lao-French restaurant, whose chef is the daughter of the last King's private chef. The inside of the villa glistened with varnished teak, but we opted to sit on the balcony overlooking the town.
Susanne and I decided to splurge that night, ordering our meal course by course. We started with bowls of soup - a buttery vegetable soup called Soupe de la Princesse, which was too oily for my taste, and a marvelous onion and wild mushroom soup. The mushrooms, I realized, were those delicate pasta-like fans I had enjoyed the night before in my soup at Malee's restaurant. Next, we ordered a plate of seven small spring rolls, each packed with cellophane noodles and ground meat. The soup and spring rolls could have been a meal in itself but we continued with entrees of a lemongrass stuffed chicken baked in banana leaves - white meat, finally! - and traditional Lao sausage which tasted not unlike a hearty German sausage, though I dared not ponder its ingredients. Steaming hot rice complimented the entrees - the waiter would scoop fresh heaps of the stuff each time we came close to cleaning the plate. Feeling as if we would burst, we arrogantly pushed forth, ordering a dessert of fresh pineapple and papaya and the best creme caramel I've ever had. Fully engorged, we slumped over in satisfaction, smiling in earnest. It was the most expensive meal of our trip - a little over 20,000 kip total, around 12 dollars. We promised ourselves we'd be back tomorrow.
We enjoyed a slow walk back to the hotel, passing the many wats and streetside shops we had come to know so well. Out in front of the old woman's shop where Susanne had purchased her cloth, her two grandchildren played with one of the neighbor's children. We had seen these two kids before - a two-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl - in our previous walks, and even managed to get some pictures of them. This time, though, upon seeing us they charged along side, putting their hands together in a prayer-like wai and said "Sabai dee!" in a quick and cute way that only a small child could. I greeted them back and they repeated the gesture. "Sabai dee!" they yelled. This went back and forth as the boy explored my camera and even gave me a small vanilla cookie, about the size of a dime.
A quick game of patty cake
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I then jokingly held out my hand, palm up, and said "Gimme five," to which Susanne responded by slapping her hand onto mine. I did the same to her and we repeated the process as the two kids gazed in wondrous fascination. I then put out my hand to the boy and said "gimme five" to him. He stared back blankly for a second, but his sister, apparently a quick study, slapped down her hand into mine. Getting her to turn her hand over in reciprocation took some coaxing but she soon got the hang of it. Eventually the little boy caught on and slapped my hand while letting out a joyful "Gaa!" noise. The kids now had their first taste of inane American culture. Within a few minutes, the little girl had graduated to doing both hands at once, while the boy did his best to keep up. Their mother and grandmother sat by and laughed as we played together, but I could see it was getting well past their bedtime - ours too, for that matter. So we waved bye-bye to them, and the little boy gave us a valedictory "Sabai dee" as we parted.Not far from the hotel, three monks walked past us from behind. They all said "sabai dee" and "excuse me," but one of them, a tall, headshaven young man with a huge orange knit cap sitting on the top of his head, said "Excuse me for yesterday" as he walked on by. At first I attributed his comment to developing English skills but I then wondered if he could be the novice who had invited us to the concert. There was no way I would have recognized him in the orange cap and freshly shaven head. I hoped he had simply misspoken.
Another group of novices caught up with us from behind. One of them, a lanky fellow with a confident smile and an easygoing gait, strode right next to us and said, "So where are you going?" which is a common form of hello in Thai and Lao (not unlike "How's it going?"). "Hotel Phousi," I said. "Long day." "We're going to a concert. All the local monks will be there," he replied proudly, as if he were in charge of community events himself. We chatted with him and eventually asked if we could go to the concert, but he pointedly said "No." He paused for a moment and then continued, "Village people only. Special religious festival." It was a Buddhist full moon event and it probably would have been inappropriate for nonbelievers to stroll in with cameras in hand. That's OK. We talked about his shaved head for a while. "Shaved today, for the full moon," he said. Apparently the novices would shave their heads again for each full moon. The tall novice had a street-wise air to him that I hadn't noticed in any of the other young Lao men we had met. Clearly this kid was the leader of the pack. We parted company across the road, just by the hotel gate. "Good luck," he said to us, smiling. "Shohk dee," I replied, translating it back into Lao. "Shohk dee!" he laughed. "Very good, very good..." He waved goodbye and walked down the road, his band of younger novices trailing by several footsteps.
Susanne and I returned to the hotel and got ready for bed. As I shut off the lights, I thought of the little boy and his sister shouting "Sabai dee" to us. I went to sleep with a smile on my face.
Posted by acarvin at 8:12 PM
November 13, 1997
Luang Prabang Pilgrimage
After grabbing a baguette at the Scandinavian bakery down the road, we checked out of the Lao Paris Hotel and caught a jumbo
Andy at Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang to Wattay Airport, about 15 minutes away. Wattay reminded me of a small community airport that had been closed for a few years and then reopened without warning. It was in bad need of a shave. After some searching we found a check-in counter: a wooden table with a sign above saying Luang Prabang. I gave an official our tickets, but after a few minutes of him fondling the papers, he told me they were only good for the 11am flight. So for four hours we waited, observing a Swedish tour group munching on crackers and Lao women hoisting carry-ons of live chickens and eels in wicker baskets, slithering around like Jim Henson animatronic swamp creatures.
At 11:15 we boarded a rickety Soviet-era Tupelov prop plane that read "Lao Aviation" in stencil block letters on the side. There was barely enough room for a dwarf's legs to fit behind each seat and the only in-flight reading was a blank air sickness bag. The plane managed to get off the ground without falling to pieces, and soon we were on our way to northern Laos and the city of Luang Prabang, the former royal capital and the spiritual center of Lao Buddhism. Susanne dozed most of the flight as I stared out the window, observing the Lao landscape as it transformed from Florida flatland to Scottish moor country to karst mountains from a Chinese watercolor scene. The texture of the land was stunning, with shards of rock and forested hillocks rising farther and farther upward. We then descended through the hills - we must be near Luang Prabang, I thought. The plane touched down with a violent certainty and I was ecstatic to get off of that Cold War antique. We paused briefly for immigration - all foreigners must register with the local police every city they visit - and then hired a jumbo to take us to the Hotel Phousi, an affordable three-star in the middle of town.
We crossed a quaint old wooden bridge wide enough only for one-way traffic and curved through the local market area, busy with more shoppers and vendors than one might expect in a town of only 16,000 residents. We soon reached our hotel, a turn-of-the-century villa that served as the French secretariat during colonial times. The jumbo drove through a wrought iron gate and past a tranquil garden cafe until we reached the hotel doors. A French family ate sandwiches in the teakwood verandah as we entered and checked into our room. The Hotel Phousi certainly seemed like a fine place to relax for a few days.
A monk leans against a songthaew by the Mekong
Luang Prabang is known mainly for its royal heritage and its many monasteries - over 30 wats, at least 20 of them maintained since pre-colonial times. Every street, every alley seemed to possess an intangibly regal and old-world character. Older children bicycled to and fro while younger kids played tag along the side of the road. Street vendors sold soup and noodles to passing customers (probably their neighbors). Everything had a small town feel to it; people would smile and say "Sabai dee" to us when we walked by. It was early afternoon and the sun had just passed its peak - I'd guess it was about 90 degrees outside. But that didn't deter us as we strolled the boulevard along the Mekong for the first time. About 15 feet to our left, just off the edge of the street, the earth took a steep 100 foot drop down to the river valley floor. Along the beach families tended crops in small, neatly aligned vegetable gardens as boatman plied the shoreline in their motorized sampans.
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The historic part of Luang Prabang is a thin peninsula surrounded on three sides by water: the Mekong and the Nam Khan (a minor tributary) cover the city's left and right banks respectively, meeting at a promontory point at the northeastern tip of the city. The Nam Khan side of the peninsula is lined mostly with farm plots, but here along the Mekong side there are small riverside cafes and intimate guesthouses with flower-covered terraces. There's a silversmith shop with its doors wide open - a handful of apprentices delicately pound out their precious crafts. I later read in the Lonely Planet book that the shop's owner was once the royal silversmith, but with the abolition of the monarchy, he's had to find new patronage with the royal family in Thailand.
Despite the outward friendliness and laid back atmosphere, I still sensed a sadness here - a residual sadness left over from the destruction of the royal family 22 years ago. For over 600 years this city was associated with the Lao monarchy, from the early days of the Luang Prabang fiefdom to the unified Laos of French colonial times. Even through most of this century, the Lao monarchy received strong public support. But soon after the Pathet Lao's consolidation of power in 1975 the communists abolished the royal court, despite promises to keep the new Lao People's Democratic Republic as a constitutional monarchy. The royal family was labeled as traitors and eventually assigned to "re-education camps" near the Plaines des Jarres along the border with Vietnam. It is believed that the king and queen died some time in the mid 1980s of starvation, malnutrition and neglect, banished to a damp cave for their final years. No one knows exactly what happened to them - they just evaporated from official public memory, without any outcry or questioning from the international community. So now some two decades after the death of the monarchy, Luang Prabang remains a town of prosperity and vitality, yet with an essential piece of its soul left for dead in some unknown northern cave.
Despite this tragic, unspoken history, Luang Prabang certainly overcomes the past by putting its best foot forward. We turned right - away from the Mekong - and found Wat Nong Sikhonmeuang glistening gold in the sunlight. It's a minor wat by Luang Prabang standards, not to mention a young one - originally built in 1729, rebuilt in 1804 after being sacked by the Thais in 1774. But it's our first wat here and the sun reflecting so powerfully off of the west side of the sim made this small wat seem so grand.
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| Wat Nong Sikhonmeuang |
As we continued past Wat Nong Sikhonmeuang I noticed a group of kids playing in the open doorway of a house. I quietly approached them, trying to get a candid photograph. But one of the boys looked up at me and blew my cover, causing the girls to giggle and scurry behind the door, peeking their heads out from behind the teak wood frame as if to tease me and my camera. I playfully charged them, holding my camera to my face. Again they laughed and let out a giggling scream, running behind a wooden pole. The boys taunted the girls for not being brave enough to mug for the camera; eventually, some of the girls relented. An older man, perhaps one of their grandfathers, stood inside a garage just across the street, smoking his pipe and laughing while gesturing at the kids to pose for a picture. I got a few decent shots and thanked the kids: "Khop Jai, lai lai," thank you very much. "Sabai dee," they shouted back. I figured we had stumbled onto an unusually gregarious bunch of Lao children, but as we walked the streets of Luang Prabang Susanne and I concluded that outgoingness and joie de vivre was par for the course for the people of this lovely town. I could tell I was going to fall in love with this place.
A novice shaves his head, Wat Saen
A block up the road we reached Wat Saen, the 100,000 Wat, so named for the 100,000 kip endowment that helped found it in 1718. Wat Saen had been refurbished in the late 1950s so it felt quite contemporary, with its many small sims looking freshly gilded, each sporting fine bronze Buddha statues inside. Behind an open-air boat house, two young novice monks at a water pump washed themselves in the warmth of the afternoon sun. Their heads appeared freshly shaven. Susanne approached them slowly - clearly this was a private moment for them, but oh, what a photo op. Then one of the novices noticed her, smiled and said, "Shiny hair" - a reference to Susanne's blondeness or their baldness, who's to say. Susanne smiled back and soon they were introducing themselves to each other. I had stood back for much of the conversation - I wasn't as bold of a photojournalist as she was - but when I saw them talking, I joined in the conversation and introduced myself. We talked for a bit and then left them to their washing. They, like many of the other young novices of Luang Prabang, were eager to practice their English. We didn't get beyond the basic smalltalk with these two but they could say more in English than I could ever say in Lao, so I was quite impressed.Near the end of the peninsula we found the southeast gate to Wat Xieng Thong, the most venerated wat in Luang Prabang. Built around 1560 by King Saisetthathirat, Xieng Thong remained under royal patronage for the next 415 years. Its main sim is also one of the finest examples of the Luang Prabang style of architecture. Unlike the sims
of Vientiane, which tend to be built tall and thin, Luang Prabang's sims are low to the ground, with two layers of sweeping tiled roofs on each side, giving it the shape of a stubby triangle from the front. The Luang Prabang style is one of the only living remnants of Laos' golden age kingdom of Lane Xang - the Land of One Million Elephants - that reigned proudly from the 16th to 18th centuries. Unlike other wats we had seen, which tended to be centered around the sim, Wat Xieng Thong was an ensemble of 12 minor stupas
, small temples, the sim itself, and a carriage house that held the processional carts used for royal funerals. While other wats crowded many buildings in whatever space was available, Xieng Thong had room to spread out and fall into place naturally like a Japanese garden, with ample space left to accentuate each building.
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| Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang |
The main sim of Xieng Thong shone with the light of a thousand little suns as small tiles of colored mirrors enveloped the western wall, forming a mural of a large tree, two peacocks and numerous mystical figures. We stood around in the heat marveling the wat and its mural when a novice leaned out of the window across from the sim and said hello. He asked us where we were from and how long we had been in Laos. He introduced himself as well, but with his accent I had a hard time telling what his name was. Bu-Wong of Bu-Zhuong, perhaps. I felt bad, but didn't want to pester him to repeat it so many times.
He was 17 years old and from northern Sanyabuli province. "Not far from China," he said. Despite his thick Lao accent - he couldn't pronounce Susanne's name very well- his English vocabulary and grammar were quite good. He said he had only studied English for a few months, which I found shocking, but I guess that a bright young guy could pick up a lot in two or three months of intensive study. He then invited us to a concert at Wat That Luang that night, which caught us off guard, but we eagerly accepted, despite having no idea what the concert would be like or about. He told us to meet him in front of the monastery at 8pm, which I thought would work well since I wanted to try a particular Lao restaurant not far from there. We talked a little while longer and then said goodbye, looking forward to see him at the concert that night.
Our new friend at Wat Xieng Thong
Schoolgirls playing along the Mekong
On the northern side of Xieng Thong we found a high row of stone steps leading down to the Mekong river. I walked down to the shore, where a group of four teenage girls in blue school uniforms sat on a sand bar and tossed rocks into the water. One of them turned and saw me. She quickly pulled her friends into a huddle and started to whisper and giggle. One of them started to talk rather loudly, saying "mon cheri, je t'aime," and then "Oh yes, I love you, yes," while the others laughed hysterically. They looked back at me to see if I was embarrassed. I blew them a kiss instead. They screamed in surprise and started to laugh even more. A minute or two later some boys pulled up on a large sampan. The entire group then climbed up to the road and headed into town.Back up top I found Susanne, who was sitting on a marble banister admiring the view. A thin, middle aged Lao man approached us and asked me in perfect French, "Parlez-vous Francais, monsieur?" "Un peu," I responded, "mais je prefere Anglais. "If you prefer English, that's fine," he said, switching languages with ease. "Would you like to go to Pak Ou caves? 25,000 kip." That was about 15 dollars, not an unreasonable price. Younger boatmen had pestered us before about visiting these famous Buddhist shrines 25 miles upriver, but I liked this man's laid back nature, so we accepted his offer. 9am Saturday sounded good at the time, so we planned to meet him then.
Back along the boulevard along the Mekong we stopped at a small wooden cafe for a short rest. We ordered some Cokes and enjoyed the view over the river, watching sampans going by and naked children joyously prancing at the water's edge as the sun sank lower in the southwestern sky. One of the waitresses was having a few drinks with two men. The three of them had already put away six one-liter bottles of BeerLao, the national drink, and they seemed deeply engrossed in discussing the day's gossip. I stepped down to the balcony to admire the view over the river. Every time I looked back at the table, I caught sight of one of the two Lao men in the corner of my eye. He was smiling brightly at me, as if to say "I'm so glad you're enjoying my home town." In all of my travels I'd never felt that kind of genuinely welcoming presence before, and it made me feel all the more comfortable in this distant, unknown land.
After polishing off our Cokes we returned to the hotel for a much needed shower and change of clothes. Everything we had to wear smelled terribly so we committed to doing laundry the next day, no matter the inconvenience of having to buy some t-shirts just so we'd have some clean clothes to wear. We then caught a jumbo to Malee Lao Food, a friendly Lao restaurant just southwest of the old town. Even though it was an open air restaurant, the tables and walls were free of pests, not including the ever present geckos that we always regarded as signs of good luck. In the back corner of the restaurant Malee's children huddled around a television watching a Chinese import soap opera Kung Fu adventure flick. I felt like we were eating in Malee's Living Room, but that was okay.
Susanne and I split a large bottle of BeerLao - surprisingly tasty and refreshing, we thought - as we snacked on a couple of small bananas while waiting for the main course. For dinner we had a plate of ginger chicken, thick chunks of ginger and bony dark meat chicken that was flavorful but somewhat disappointing; chicken laab, a Lao specialty of ground meat, watercress and mint, lightly sauteed but practically raw- very good but risky from a gastrointestinal point of view; and sticky rice, the ever present, super glutinous Lao rice served in steam baskets. I noshed on the laab and peeled off fingerfuls of rice, rolling it into a ball with one hand and dipping it into the entrees, as is the Lao custom, while Susanne pragmatically used her fork with much more success. We also ordered a backup of tam yam gai, spicy chicken soup with lemongrass that's usually a safe bet. This time the soup contained a pasta-like substance that fanned out in the shape of a poppy flower - I couldn't tell if it was a plant, a piece of chicken skin, or what - but it was really delicious.
After dinner we walked down the road to the That Luang monastery to find Bo-Wong or whatever his name was - boy, I really felt bad about not knowing his name. Maybe I'd find a polite way to ask him again or even write it down for us. It was dark and the monastery was hidden deep behind a large field which we approached cautiously. As we navigated the compound I felt my left foot sink deep into the ground - I had stepped into a swamp- and my hiking boots, socks and my only pair of clean trousers were enveloped in thick, warm, gooey mud. "Jesus Christ!" I hissed, almost ready to throw my camera into the ground. I saw a monk rinsing his plastic sandals and feet under a water pump. He looked at me and gave me a classic Asian giggle of embarrassment, shaking his head back and forth. In that singular moment of clarity, I understood the wisdom of wearing sandals instead of Nikes. The monk continued to smile in humorous disappointment. I could feel my socks drip with warm dampness - there was no way I could handle a concert in this condition.
Upset over my troubles, we caught a jumbo back to the hotel. I washed off my shoes and trousers in the shower, hoping that the brave hotel laundry staff could repair the damage done. And I hoped that our young monk friend would forgive us for standing him up, if we could only find him the next day. And if I could only remember his name...
Posted by acarvin at 10:21 PM
November 12, 1997
Visiting Vientiane
I awoke around 7am with the calls of roosters from across the road. Downstairs, no one was up except Joey the brown boxer and his little poodle friend. The two of them pounced on me as soon as I sat down. Alan came out of his bedroom 30 minutes later, wearing only a sarong around his waste. I saw several Thais walking down the road wearing a similar sarong get-up, but in Alan's case, to me he was just a guy in a towel. He pulled out the visa paperwork for us to fill out. We paid him the fee for the visa and caught a tuk-tuk
Lao monk, That Luang Festival, Vientiane to the Nong Khai bus terminal at 8am. We soon climbed into a minibus to take us over the Friendship Bridge, which spans the Mekong River separating Thailand and Laos. After stopping at a Thai border checkpoint to get our passports stamped, we crossed the bridge into the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The road's pavement shifted from flat and smooth to cracked asphalt as we reached the Lao side of the bridge. At the Lao immigration checkpoint a travel agent who worked for Alan took our papers and passports through the various steps required for entering this small, isolated communist country. Susanne and I leaned against a railing and waited. Once our passports received the proper stamps and papers, we climbed into a jumbo
- the Lao version of a tuk-tuk - and began the 30-minute ride to the capital city of Vientiane.
As we approached Vientiane, I expected the light flow of traffic to increase, but even inside the city limits there weren't that many vehicles about. Vientiane has a population of less than 150,000 people, so it manages to retain a sleepy, colonial atmosphere. The roads were terribly dusty, but besides that it seemed like we were coming to a fairly pleasant place. People smiled at us as they rode by on motorcycles and jumbos. I could see the Mekong through some trees on my left as we approached our day's residence, the Lao Paris Hotel. From the outside, the Lao Paris looked like any other poorly whitewashed guesthouse. Inside, though, we found a sparkling wooden lodge covered in freshly polished teak paneling. It felt like a Swiss mountain resort. The man at the check-in desk gave us a nice room with a/c, a refrigerator, and the hottest shower in Laos for $20, though I could pay in Thai baht or Lao kip if I preferred. We dropped off our bags, changed some money into kip (at 1704 kip per dollar, about 700 kip better than the last exchange rate I had heard in the US) and headed out for a walk through the city.
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| Wat Si Saket, Vientiane |
Guardian of the Wat Si Saket Guestbook Our first stop was Wat Si Saket, a rustic old monastery across from the presidential palace, about 10 minutes from the hotel. Wat Si Saket has stood since 1818, making it the oldest wat
in the entire city. Most of Vientiane's buildings and temples were razed by the Thais during their 1828 sacking of the capital but they spared Si Saket because it was built in a Bangkok style, which they apparently appreciated. There were a couple of German tourists inside the wat, but apart from them we had the entire monastery to ourselves. Its inner courtyard contained scores of sitting Buddha statues as well as several thousand thumb-sized Buddha amulets set in niches along the wall. A Chinese tour group, all sporting light blue pajamas, entered the monastery and walked the perimeter of the wat's sim
, stopping for pictures and lighting incense along the way. A small cat dozed below a wooden table with an open guest book on top. I thought it was ironic that the cat had chosen to sleep under the one place where each visitor was expected to sign in. I guess they don't get many visitors around here. Didn't look like anyone minded, either. This was Laos - you're welcome to visit, just don't mind us while we nap.
One of the many Buddha images of Vientiane
Across the street, just to the left of the presidential palace, we entered Wat Pha Kaew, formerly Vientiane's royal monastery. The wat was built in the mid-16th century and for several generations it held the ever-wandering Emerald Buddha statue that has resided in Thailand since 1779. In 1828 the temple was destroyed by the Thais and it wasn't rebuilt until the late 1930s. Particular attention was paid to the carving of its rococo walls, which were still in excellent condition. As with Wat Si Saket, you could argue that Wat Pha Kaew was in need of a thorough dusting and a paint job, but in all honesty, I enjoyed its antique character. While the wats of Bangkok were exquisite they also exuded a Disneyesque quality - every stupa, every garden, every roof was immaculate, bright and polished. Here in Vientiane, I could sense an aged presence in these wats. They were no longer the fresh young temples they once may have been, yet they still possessed a wise, reserved dignity that seemed to be lacking elsewhere. Like the Lao people, the wats didn't feel a need to be flamboyant or over-the-top. Simplicity was the key here.Two monks with instant cameras posed for each other in front of the main sim. We took off our shoes and mounted the temple platform. Several dozen bronze sitting Buddhas dating back as far as the 15th century stood guard around the platform, facing away from the inner sim. Sun reflected off of the eyes of the Buddhas, many of which were fashioned with semi-precious stones. The Chinese tourists we had seen at Wat Si Saket then arrived, and they made their way clockwise along the platform. As they reached each sitting Buddha they performed a wai - the traditional greeting of respect, their hands in a prayer position and their torso leaning forward modestly.
It was now around lunchtime and all the wats would be closed until 2pm, so we walked down Thanon Fa Ngum, Vientiane's boulevard along the Mekong. We stopped for an hour at the Mixay Cafe, a popular outdoor restaurant with shady trees, a good view, and refreshingly cool breeze from the river. We split a couple of rice dishes, one fried and the other a basket of sticky rice, the translucent gelatinous rice popular among the Lao. Susanne looked a bit tired and worn from the hectic pace of Cambodia and our long travel day, so we returned to the hotel so she could nap and I could shower. The bathroom looked recently tiled and the water was scalding hot - I could have stayed there all afternoon.
Around 2pm we walked to Talaat Sao, the morning market, which actually remains open until 6pm each day. Susanne was suffering from chronic indigestion so we found a pharmacy beyond the eastern side of the market and bought some plastic pouches of Maalox. We then caught a five minute jumbo ride to Pha That Luang, Laos' greatest monumental treasure. First built in 1565, That Luang is a 150-foot golden stupa
surrounded by several dozen gilded spires, and for centuries has served as a major pilgrimage site for Lao Buddhists. And since the time of independence from France, That Luang has represented Lao nationalism and unity - its image can be seen on much of the currency today.
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| That Luang, Vientiane |
This particular week also happened to be the annual That Luang festival, when Buddhist monks from all over southeast Asia gather at the stupa to celebrate the November full moon and the completion of the annual monsoon rains. On the evening of the full moon, about two nights from now, there will be a sacred procession by all of the monks, followed by an evening of fireworks and all-out revelry. Until then, the stupa will play host to a convention of sorts, where hundreds of monks of all ages camp out in the surrounding courtyard. It reminded me of the annual convergence of Boy Scouts on Washington DC, except in Laos the boys wore saffron robes instead of khaki uniforms and socks pulled up to their knees. There's a carnival-like atmosphere outside, where vendors have set up an entire market of goods and amusements.
Three novice monks visiting That Luang, Vientiane That Luang gives off a blinding reflection as the sun bounces off its golden surface, regilded in 1995 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Pathet Lao's proclamation of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. We paid our 200 kip entrance fee (about 12 cents) and entered the main courtyard. Loudspeakers beamed the voice of a Lao gentleman speaking in a continuous drone. At first I thought it was a monk's chant or perhaps communist propaganda, but then I heard him pause and give out a hearty belly laugh, as if he had just told us a joke or something. The more I listened, the more the man sounded like he was a radio DJ giving an on-location broadcast, though I still have no idea what on earth he was talking about.
The four stairwells that led up to the higher platforms of the stupa were obstructed by shrines of flowers and candles which grew steadily as more visitors arrived with offerings. But because the platforms were closed off, our only view of the stupa had to be from ground level. We walked clockwise around the stupa in the hot afternoon sun. Hundreds of novice monks were camping out in the shade along the perimeter of the inner courtyard. Some of the young boys tried to catch some ZZZ's while the others played cards, brushed their teeth, read a book, or horsed around with friends. Some stared at us; I began to feel rather obtrusive. If this were a convention of sorts, it seemed like I was stalking the hotel hallways prying through open doors. "So you wanted to take pictures of monks," I said to Susanne. " Here's your lucky chance." Actually, it wasn't the finest opportunity since the monks were all preoccupied with the festival. A few of the adolescent novices paused and let us take their pictures, but most of them had a "can't you see I'm busy?" look on their faces. Perhaps it was best to leave them alone instead.
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| Novices having fun at the That Luang Festival |
I sat in a shady corner of the courtyard, enjoying the breeze and the grand view of stupa as monks and novices walked about. Susanne vanished around the other side of the stupa, probably to take some pictures. We soaked up the atmosphere for a while and eventually headed outside to visit the market. Loudspeakers played Lao pop music while vendors fried Chinese donuts and invited young novices to play a game of ring toss: get the ring around a bottle of Pepsi, get the bottle of Pepsi. We caught a jumbo back to the hotel, where we tried to write in our journals downstairs, but the hotel TV was blasting MTV at full volume, making it impossible to concentrate. The room didn't have a proper writing desk so we walked down the street to a brand new four-star hotel. We sat in its cafe drinking coffee and Sprite as we wrote for at least two hours. The cafe's PA system quietly played the greatest hits of Zamfir on the pan flute, on which he covers hits by the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, and showtune standards. Somehow we managed to focus on our journals despite breaking out into fits of laughter at the beginning of almost every song.
Back at the hotel we had a late dinner of lemongrass soup, rice and "Lao Baked Chicken," a plate of cut up chicken bones, each holding a gram or two of meat. I stopped trying to pick at it when I realized I was holding a complete chicken foot in my hand. At least the soup was tasty.
Posted by acarvin at 8:38 PM
November 11, 1997
A Travel Day: Cambodia to Thailand to the Meeting Place
There's not too much to report today. The next stop on our itinerary is Vientiane, the capital of Laos, but there are no flights directly from Phnom Penh until Friday. So we must take a circuitous route - from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, to Bangkok and Udon Thani, all by air; then, a minibus to the Thai border town of Nong Khai. We'd spend the night there before crossing into Laos and making the short drive to Vientiane.
Pochentong Airport, Phnom Penh The flights all went smoothly, though the four-hour layovers got old rather quickly. But the day got a bit more interesting when we drove into Nong Khai at 8pm. We were heading to The Meeting Place, a bar and guesthouse run by an Aussie expat named Alan Patterson. Alan arranges visas for Laos, so I had emailed him ahead of time in order to have our paperwork ready when we got there. The Meeting Place was a dusty old teak house with a large bar downstairs and bedrooms upstairs. Near the bar we found Alan and his Thai wife, an Aussie couple who had stopped by for dinner, and a toothless, very drunk Brit named Joe. Joe was hitting on the Aussie woman, but her husband ignored it almost as well as she did. A large brown boxer sat on the floor next to a much smaller chestnut poodle.
Alan's wife offered us accommodations upstairs in a large, cobwebbed room with two hard beds, a rusty fan and screened windows that barely kept out the mosquitoes. At 150 baht - about four dollars - it was better than wandering around Nong Khai in search of a better place. I returned downstairs as the Aussie couple was heading out. That meant Joe, the cockney drunk, would have only us to talk to. He immediately began to teach Susanne some Thai by demonstrating how he would hit on a Thai woman. I was a bit concerned about this guy at first, but it was pretty obvious that old Joe was totally harmless. "Iz shee ya woife?" he asked me. "Yes," I lied, hoping this would have some implications. "I'm jus' goin'ta show 'er 'ow I'd 'it on a Pretty Thai Lady," he said, his head swaying around while he tried to sustain eye contact with me. "I jus' don't wannta get punched in me noze by you forrit." "I won't punch you," I responded, "but maybe she will." Joe then took Susanne by the hand and said in an innocent voice, "Khun cheu arai? Khun cheu arai?" Susanne looked at me for translation. "What's your name, he asked." "Oh... Susanne."
This went back and forth as Joe asked Susanne about where she was from and if she liked Thailand. Despite our attempts to convince him we were ready to go to bed, Joe insisted on telling his life story, which went something like this. He was 61 years old and hated living in Britain. A long time ago, his wife died, so he and a friend left the UK to wander South America for many years. One day back in England, his friend suggested they move to Thailand and open a bar. Joe wanted to go back to Peru instead. So they decided to settle it with a game of cards. Joe lost, so he suggested they try a coin toss instead. He lost again. Darts. Lost. Snooker. Lost. So they moved to Thailand, bought a bar and married two local girls.
Joe was doing well and was happy with his young wife, but his friend drank constantly and fooled around with prostitutes, so they ran out of money and the bar went bust. Joe and his wife moved on and made several attempts at starting a sod business. "I tried North English grass, Kentucky bluegrass, you name it," he said. "But none of the grass would grow. You know why? 'Cause it doesn't fuckin' grow in Thailand, that's why!" Once he realized his strategic error, Joe started a rubber tree farm. He's kept at it, and now he has around 3000 trees. I couldn't exactly picture this guy growing rubber for a living, but at least his story was colorful enough for 15 minutes' worth of entertainment.
Just as we got ready to head up for bed, a middle aged man with a crewcut, tatooed arms and fatigues began to bang on the locked gate. "Where's Alan? That Aussie bastard," he hissed at us. "Wake him up. Tell him it's Bob from Canada. He owes me a thousand baht." Joe started hollering "Alan! Alan!" prompting Alan to holler back through his bedroom door and eventually get out of bed. Joe then turned to Bob and said, "Bob from Canada, were you in the military?" Bob scowled back, "Fuck no!," as if it should be obvious by his fatigues and tats that he's a dyed-in-the-wool civilian. We took this as our cue to go to bed, so we headed upstairs and crashed in our house of cobwebs. The dogs barked and howled most of the night.
ps - Susanne does a great write-up of our encounter with Joe.
Posted by acarvin at 11:26 PM
November 10, 1997
Saying Goodbye to Angkor
Lunch was again at the Bayon Restaurant. We hadn't had any breakfast that morning, so we attacked several plates of baguettes and jam with ravenous abandon. During our extended break, we returned to the central market to buy souvenirs. Susanne picked up two papier mache masks like the ones used the previous afternoon by the Khmer dancers. The masks were wrapped and boxed for safekeeping, but I worried they wouldn't make it in our backpacks. At $3 a mask, Susanne said, it was worth trying. I thought about buying a wooden ornamental pipe, but every pipe I found had Chinese characters on them - not very Khmer if you ask me. I got a bit frustrated that every item on sale looked like it was made in Hong Kong, and I really wanted to bring home something that would say "Cambodia" to me when I thought about it. I bought a small wooden boat modeled after the boats used in the Bonn Tuk Oum festival, but I still wasn't completely satisfied. I'd look more later, I guess.
Andy and some new friends at sunset, Phnom Bakheng
Da, our young guide to Banteay Kdei
At 2pm we met up with Rang and returned to Angkor's Big Circuit. We started with Banteay Kdei, a large 12th century Buddhist temple. Several girls were selling t-shirts outside and we suggested to them that we might buy one after we visited the temple if they stopped hounding us. They backed off and sat down, waiting impatiently for our return. We were joined by two boys, one of whom couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, the other perhaps 12 or 14. We weren't looking for a guide, but the older boy began to spout interesting facts about Jayavarman VII and the use of avian Garuda images on Buddhist temples. We invited them along. I asked them how old they were, and the older boy said he was 16. "No way," I said, "12, 14, right?" To this he responded "No, sir. 16 years old. We Cambodians are much smaller than you." True, whenever we had asked others how old they were, we always seemed to guess five years too young. Maybe it was true - Cambodians certainly are smaller, so maybe that makes them look younger as well. I also wondered if malnutrition made a difference, but I didn't ask. I'd have to check with some Khmer friends back home. We also asked the younger boy, whose name was Da, how old he was. "Seventeen?" he said with some doubt.
Da and his friend lounging at Sras Srang
Banteay Kdei was devoid of visitors so we admired its carvings and its ancient moat in peaceful solitude. The moat now looked like a pond in a city park, complete with crickets and floating lotus. The t-shirt girls then reappeared, and after haggling down to $3 a shirt we bought a couple of them. Before driving off, we crossed the road to Sras Srang, a 12th century reservoir with a short terrace and several nice statues. The two boys horsed around on one of the statues by the water's edge. We soon said goodbye and returned to Rang's car.We then paid a brief visit to Prasat Kravan - five brick towers from the 10th century. They were restored in the 1960s to the point that they almost felt like replicas of what the original towers might have looked like. I didn't care for the freshness of the brick; it just didn't seem like they fit into the rest of Angkor. The site also had an inordinate number of kids for such a small temple. About 25 children jumped rope, played tag and messed around on the temple platform. Some of the kids were selling charcoal rubbings so I approached the youngest of them asked to see some. He couldn't have been more than five or six, but he rolled out his pictures and said, "10 dollars, mister." I found a beautiful image of a royal court scene, so I pointed to it and said "five dollars." The little boy turned to some older children and conferred with them in Khmer, holding his hand in front of his lips so I couldn't see what he was saying. He then turned back to me and said, "six dollars." I figured the older kids would have told him to press for eight dollars, but who was I to argue? I counted out my singles one by one and made the deal with him. We were both quite happy.
A tree-entwined passageway, Ta Prohm
For the next temple, we headed to Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is a popular destination here for it's the only large temple at Angkor that is still fully encroached by jungle. So a visit to Ta Prohm isn't too far removed from what the French explorers of the 19th century would have found here. At the entrance to the site, a young man offered to be our guide. At first we weren't interested but then I remembered that the LP guide suggested to get one of the local kids to show you around, since they knew all the great photogenic spots. So we ran back after him and agreed to hire him for part of the afternoon. His name was Meas and he was 18. Again, I would have said 15, but I kept my mouth shut. As we approached the temple a high pitch shrieking sound emanated from the forest. It was like a far alarm going off in a stairwell - I didn't think nature made noises this loud. We asked Meas what the sound was but he didn't know the English word for the particular animal that was making all the noise. After playing a brief game of charades and hand gestures we concluded the noise was coming from hundreds of small frogs.
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| Susanne and Meas contemplating Ta Prohm |
Ta Prohm was an Indiana Jones adventure brought to life, or perhaps the Disney World Jungle Cruise. Either metaphor would have been appropriate: towers of stone twisted by tree roots, some hundreds of years old; bas reliefs distorted by seven centuries of lichens and moss. We climbed through the rubble, marveling at the Tolkeinesque sight of these gargantuan trees had taken root and spread over the temple walls, producing some of the most famous and recognizable images of Angkor. The further we ventured into the temple, the older and grander the trees seemed to grow. At the center of the temple courtyard, Meas scampered higher and higher in his flip flops as we tried to keep up. The next thing I realized we were perched high atop a shattered temple wall, 30 feet or more from the ground. I was too awestruck by the view to be terrified of a misstep. The forest was alive with the chirps and calls of birds, monkeys, more frogs. It was an uncanny, otherworldly experience. Cautiously we returned to solid earth and backtracked to the entrance of the temple to meet up with Rang.
Lee, Phaeng and Hing
Want to see more of the Sunset Gang?
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or Listen to them Play with RealAudio!It was getting close to 4:30pm and we still had the Ta Keo temple on our itinerary, but we were both beat and eager to get to Phnom Bakheng for sunset. Rang took us by Ta Keo for a brief look, and we stepped outside for a few minutes to appreciate it. But Phnom Bakheng beckoned us, so we purchased some bottled water and headed to the foot of the hill. We slowly climbed the 300-foot mound, its gravel path providing less than adequate footing. Eventually we reached the top, the highest point at Angkor. Four kids had followed us up the hill and we soon struck up a conversation with them. There was one girl named Suan and three boys: Lee, Phaeng and Hing. They spoke little English but were very giggly and outgoing. Suan tried to help me up the temple steps by grabbing my hand, which actually made my balance on these aging steps all the more difficult. But I didn't want to spoil the moment.
Up top, we could see Angkor Wat in the distance, but without a telephoto lens or binoculars it was hard to get a clear view of it. Facing west, though, the sun descended over the waters of the Tonle Sap, reflecting reddish hues across the temple terrace. The kids were having a merry time playing tag and they mugged for countless photos, which we couldn't resist. We had our own little photo shoot going on with these youngsters, taking at least a roll of film's worth of pictures. There was also a Khmer family, sitting on the rocks with their cameras and cans of Coke. They had two little girls who were sneaking peeks at me and Susanne. I smiled at them and said "Johm riab sua." After some motherly encouragement, the smaller of the two girls ran towards me, bowed her head with her hands pressed together by her chin and yelled "Johm riab sua!" back to me. Her parents laughed approvingly. I reciprocated the bow and then said to her in Khmer, "Aw kohn charan. Sabai te?" to which she responded with another enthusiastic "Johm riab sua!" I quickly grabbed my Cambodia guide and looked up the phrases for "What is your name?" and "My name is Andy." I struggled terribly; Khmer is so difficult for westerners to pronounced. I kept on trying to get the words for "my name is" - khnyom chhmeu, if I remember correctly - but they didn't roll of the tongue the way I had hoped. Nevertheless, the girl played along with my conversation until she got a case of the shy bug and ran back to her daddy. It was my first and last productive conversation in Khmer.
Two Khmer sisters, Phnom Bakheng I sat on the terrace peacefully as the sun set over Angkor. For me, this was closure for Cambodia. The last three days had gone exceptionally well; I really was going to miss this country and its beautiful people. Susanne also seemed quite content at this fleeting moment. As the sun vanished below the horizon, we made our way slowly down the hill's gravel slope. The four kids were now joined by two others as they led the way down. At the bottom of the hill, though, they all turned to me and said "now you pay - one dollar to each." I was so disappointed. I tried offering them the handful of riels I had left and the last two dollars left in my pocket. They pouted and continued to demand more money. This really ticked me off, because it was clear they were having a good time up there, and to expect a dollar for each and every one of them was stretching it for me. Susanne seemed to feel sincerely bad about not having enough money on hand, but after seeing their testy reaction, I decided it was tough luck for them. They'd get more money from tourists after school tomorrow.
Rang took us back to Siem Reap and drove us around on a wild goose chase to find some baguettes for the next morning. None of the bakeries were open but we managed to find a food stall with a brick oven and fresh bread. They only accepted riels, so Rang ran across the street, got a couple dollars changed for us, and made the purchase of four baguettes for 100 riels each. Back at the hotel, we made plans for Rang to take us to the airport the next morning. Meanwhile, I paid him the balance of his fee plus an extra 20 dollar tip. He was worth every penny, as he served as our driver, translator, guide, concierge, and any other position we might have needed to fill. We then returned to our rooms and packed, for tomorrow would be a travel day. It was almost time to leave Cambodia.
Posted by acarvin at 10:16 PM
Angkor Wat Sunrise
Once again our pre-dawn alarm managed to get us up for an early morning adventure. Rang wasn't downstairs with the car just yet, so we stood outside admiring the clear night sky, the fresh air and the marvelous view of Orion and the Pleiadies. By 5:15am, Rang's car pulled up in front of the hotel and we were soon on our way to Angkor. Today would be dedicated mostly to the circle of ruins collectively known as the Big Circuit, but first we had a more pressing agenda: to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat.The number of stars dwindled and the sky turned from black to dark blue as we pulled up in front of Angkor Wat's stone causeway. The sun would rise soon after 6am, so that gave us about half an hour to find a good spot. The causeway was deserted apart from some cows grazing to the left of the first gate. Most people go to the Bayon for sunrise, but I figured that there would still be some folks who would come to Angkor Wat, right? But as we entered the main courtyard and approached the wat, we were still the only visitors inside, save a few local Khmers who were starting their work day at a renovation site.
A grassy area behind a large pond appeared to boast the best view of Angkor Wat, so we placed ourselves there and waited. Within a matter of seconds, flies swarmed around our faces, darting back and forth in front of my eyes. To make matters worse, our bug spray was back at the hotel. Susanne took cover under her anorak while I wrapped my trusty krama scarf around my face and head to keep the pesky beasts at bay. A Spanish couple arrived with their Khmer guide and he commented that I was using my krama "like a real Khmer." He asked me where I bought it, and I told him about the Central Market in Phnom Penh. "Oh, no, no," he exclaimed. "Kramas made in Siem Reap, not Phnom Penh. Buy kramas here from now on. Better for Siem Reap." "Not better for Phnom Penh," I replied, smiling. "Next time," he repeated, "buy in Siem Reap. Very good kramas."
Wide-angle view of the Angkor Wat pond The flies died down as the sky brightened. Several bats swooped over the pond, savoring mouthfuls of bugs with each pass. I rooted for the bats. More tourists entered the courtyard but there were still no more than 15 of us at the time. While we maintained our spot near the pond, the others gathered on the causeway itself, about 100 yards in front of the wat. They were treated with the first rays of sunlight that morning - the stone towers obscured the sun from reaching our pond spot as quickly. Eventually, we were greeted with the yellow beams reflecting off of the shimmering pool in front of us. Sunrise at Angkor Wat. Well worth the wait, even with all of those flies.
Before beginning the Big Circuit, I asked Rang to stop briefly at Angkor Thom's South Gate and the Bayon as well, just for a quick photo shoot. The rising sunlight was spectacular - a thick, bright orange from the morning humidity - I thought it would be a waste to not try to capture it. After a few photos I hopped back into the car and we drove north through Angkor Thom to Preah Khan, which is believed to be a temporary residence for Jayavarman VII. Preah Khan is a large stone temple that remains in good condition, despite the piles of rubble that litter the site. As soon as we entered it, a young boy latched on to us and followed us around. He started to point out things that we already knew - "Preah Khan, very big, very old" so I told him we really weren't in need of a guide. Undeterred, he continued to stalk us, always within a 20 foot range.
Andy by a large tree behind Preah Khan
We climbed through an obstacle course of stone to reach the east side of the temple, where large trees had sprung from the walls of the temple itself. We cut through the center of the complex to a small stupa, about waste high. Bats flew through the corridor, prompting me to wrap my krama around my head. As we exited the temple, the young boy simply walked away without asking for money. That was a first for us at Angkor. He might have just been a bit lonely - we were the only visitors there at that time of day - and we felt bad for ignoring him so much.Rang drove us east to the temple of Preah Neak Pean, but our stay was quite short for the only entrance to the site was flooded from the monsoon. Some local kids offered to push us through the water on their bikes, but the thought of having water and mud spraying all over our clothes caused us to decline their generosity. We moved on to our next stop, Ta Som.
Main Courtyard, Ta Som Ta Som was a minor temple built by Jayavarman VII. No one ever visits it, and the LP guide barely gives it a sentence's mention. But we decided to check it out nonetheless. The path to Ta Som was covered in sand - I felt like we were at the beach. Passing through a stone gate we found a small temple whose insides were a complete mess. Columns overturned, boulders and other debris littered about like a earthquake victim, but the anarchy of the stones made the temple into a venerable jungle gym for our climbing pleasure.
Susanne wanders the hallways of Ta Som
Susanne disappeared amongst the debris in her own little adventure while I wandered to the gate on the far east side. I found a skinny old man who appeared to be the keeper of the temple, and he used a broom a palm fronds to sweep leaves off of the sandy stone path. "Johm riab sua," he'd say to me every time we made eye contact. Hello, hello. He appreciated the company, even for a few minutes. I noticed his homespun cigarette smelled like pot - no wonder he was so happy to be at his job this morning. Susanne soon met me at the east gate, near the old Khmer, having finished her climbing about the ruins. "I thought I'd lost you," she said. "It was really great." "Thanks, I missed you too." She took me into the courtyard and over the obstacle course she herself had just conquered. I had forgotten that climbing on dangerous rocks could be so much fun.
Andy captures an elephant at the Eastern Mebon
We returned to the car and drove through the Eastern Baray, an ancient 14-square kilometer reservoir now used as a giant rice paddy. The only visible remnants of the original structure was the Eastern Mebon, a 10th century temple fashioned with the typically Angkorian five-towered quincunx on a three-tiered platform. The Mebon gave us a great view of the rice paddies, and the temple itself had some elephant statues in excellent condition at each of its four corners. But soon enough, we were ready to move on. Our next stop, Pre Rup, turned out to be a larger replica of the Eastern Mebon, so Susanne sat down in the shade and chatted with a young Khmer girl in a floppy Calvin Klein hat while I climbed around the ruins. It was now just after 10:30am and we were running a little ahead of schedule, so Susanne and I suggested we return to the Bayon.
Avelokitesvara heads, the Bayon
We settled ourselves in front of a particular Avelokitesvara head that was relatively close to eye level, and proceeded to spend the next hour drawing it. The head was just a few feet from that amputee musician who played the Khmer folk cello. We sat there sketching the face, listening to the sound of Cambodian melodies rise through the air. We noticed that the musician had a friend nearby, to whom he would hand any recent donations from tourists - that way, the musician's money bowl always seemed pathetically barren. In the time we sat there, he probably collected five dollars in small bills, not bad money by local standards. Several Khmer teenagers approached us to watch us draw; they smiled when they saw what we were doing. By 11:30 we were both satisfied with our work so we paused for a few more pictures of us standing by the stone face. We then returned to the car and drove back to Siem Reap for our lunchtime break.
Posted by acarvin at 1:31 PM
November 9, 1997
Apsara Sunset
The rest of the day would be dedicated to Angkor Wat, the most famous of the Angkor monuments. Occupying more than two square miles and surrounded by a 500 foot wide moat, Angkor is the pinnacle of classic Khmer architecture. Dedicated to Vishnu and its builder, King Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat served as the king's funerary temple. The temple itself faces west, acknowledging the setting sun and the symbolic passage from life to afterlife.
Novice Monks, Angkor Wat Angkor Wat maximizes its symbolic potential by serving as a physical representation of both time and space. As you walk inward - across the causeway and moat through the main gate, along the internal causeway and up the tiers to the summit - you in turn go back through time, from the present moment to the birth of the universe at the top of Mt. Meru. Similarly, by going inward you cross the rivers and oceans, the land of the continents, the sacred foothills, and (again) the summit of Mt. Meru, the symbolic center of the universe and the source of all life.
Angkor Wat And despite our profane reality of sweat, tourists and children selling flutes and postcards, Angkor Wat delivers a profoundly holy and thoroughly mystical experience. I've got a noticeable bounce in my step as we walk down the causeway to the main gate - I still can't believe I'm actually here. The sun begins to shine brightly as we reach the gate, a shadowy stone arch that obscures the view of the structures beyond it. I'm sure this was the intended effect, for as we cross through the darkness, suddenly the arch opens to reveal the full glory of Angkor Wat itself. Another long causeway terminates at the temple entrance, its column-studded base stretching far to the left and right. Another row of columns cover the second tier of the temple; above these I can see the temple's five towers that make Angkor Wat so recognizable. I wonder how high we can climb inside. As we reached the columned entrance, I am greeted by the first of many old Buddhist nuns inviting me to light some incense. I decline for now - I figured I'd wait til I reach the top. The old nun smiled and said "Sok Sabai." "Aw kohn, Sabai te," I say back - "thank you, be well" - at least I think that's what I said.
Susanne standing in temple courtyard, Angkor Wat Just beyond the entrance I saw dark corridors extending both left and right, running in a square around the central tier. The corridors were shaded on both sides by stone columns that are chiseled so intricately you would swear they were wood and carved with modern molding tools. It's somewhat difficult to walk through the corridor for each compartment is separated by raised stone blocks as high as 18 inches above the ground. Walking became an introductory step aerobics class as we maneuvered our way down the corridor. Well worth it, though. The path took us about 30 minutes to walk all the way around, so we moved up to the second tier: four stupas stand at the corners of the tier, with large courtyards and courtyards-within-courtyards in each quarter of the tier. We decided to cut through to the back and then walk around along the sides. The view of the surrounding landscape is lovely, and we weren't even halfway up. In one corner we found a western couple who appeared to have claimed the sunniest spot in which to sit and enjoy a soda. Susanne noticed that there was a nice view of them from another courtyard window, so she offered to take their camera and get a picture of them. It turned out that one of the two tourists, was from Bethesda, about half an hour from my apartment in Arlington. Small world.
I've already gone through a roll of film at Angkor Wat and we've only been here for about an hour. I'll relent on my snap-happy enthusiasm but also note to myself that I could always buy more film. Besides, I'm not exactly in the neighborhood every day.
Bas relief detail, Angkor Wat We decided to climb up to the third tier, an imposing task considering the steps are thin and rise at about a 75 degree angle. We walked around to the south side and found a set of reinforced steps and a handle rail leading to the top. As we began the climb, a nun at the bottom courtyard said something in Khmer that I took as meaning Be Careful, Kid. Luckily we made it to the top unscathed, albeit severely out of breath and sweaty. As with the two levels below, the third tier is divided by quadrants of courtyards (that were once shimmering water pools) circumscribed by dark columned corridors. In the main corridors extending cardinally from the center of the summit, old nuns sat on the floor and chatted with younger women and a couple of park policemen enjoying a cigarette. The nuns smiled as us and laughed as they asked, "Sok Sabai te?" which I now began to regard as the official form of hello inside Angkor. "Sok sabai, aw kohn cheran, sok sabaiiii...." I replied.
At the very center of the tier were four small shrines, one facing each direction, all containing statues of the Buddha at different stages of life. We paused at the Buddha facing north - a reclining Buddha in the midst of achieving nirvana. We had reached the top of Angkor Wat and I felt it was time to give thanks for our safe journey through Cambodia, so I lit some incense and a candle, leaving a dollar on a silver plate in front of the statue. Hopefully the Enlightened One would appreciate the gesture from a couple of itinerant Judeo-Christian farangs such as ourselves. I also thought about Susan Hadden, the former head of the Alliance for Public Technology, who was killed in an ambush visiting Angkor's Banteay Srei temples two and a half years ago. I'm not sure if any of her friends or colleagues had had the opportunity to visit Cambodia since her tragic death, so honoring her memory with some incense seemed like the right thing to do.
It was about 3:45 pm now and we were supposed to meet Rang at 4:45 in order to climb the hill at Phnom Bakheng, which apparently offers the best view of Angkor Wat at sunset. But as we returned to the base of the temple, we found a group of kids dressed in classical Khmer dancing costumes - girls in golden apsara outfits and boys in colorful harlequin ensembles. In the distance I noticed a minivan and several men carrying xylophones up to the causeway. There was going to be a performance! Susanne and I had been disappointed in our inability to find traditional dance performances during this trip, so we decided to hang out, get a good seat and see what happened next. At first we got a little over-anxious and tried to snap some pictures while the kids prepped for the show. The boys hammed it up for the cameras, but the girls were much more intent on getting ready to dance and ignored our gestures to take a picture of them. Meanwhile a small crew of men set up a red cloth on the causeway - the stage, undoubtedly - and placed their instruments off to the left side of it. Having noticed this, I placed myself strategically at the left corner of the front stage, leaning on an ancient stone pillar next to the gamelan orchestra.Susanne continued to get pictures near the dancers while I held our place. About a dozen chairs were set up in front of the stage and soon they were occupied by a large tour group made up of French and German retirees. I guessed that explained the reason for this "impromptu" performance. I glanced at my watch and saw it was now 4:10pm, half an hour before our rendezvous. Well, Rang might have to wait a bit - this was the chance of a lifetime, to see Khmer dancers in front of Angkor Wat at sunset - there was no way I'd miss this. Besides, we could always climb up Phnom Bakheng for tomorrow's sunset.
Listen to the Petal Dance with RealAudio! By 4:30pm the gamelan orchestra started to warm up, so Susanne returned to our front-row position. Within a minute or two, the musicians broke out full swing into an overture. Fortunately, I had just hit the "record" button on my tape player. Soon the Apsara dancers glided gracefully to the stage, bathed in warm orange hues from the setting sun. I couldn't believe our good fortune for being here at this moment. The dancers demonstrated a traditional flower dance, where bowls of flower petals are balanced in the palm of one hand and eventually tossed in the air as an offering of good luck. Susanne and I went trigger happy, taking almost a roll of pictures each in a few minutes. But we knew that some of these pictures would be classics, so it was worth taking extras just in case they captured a particularly magical moment.
The monkey god Hanuman in a dance from the Reamkin
For more scenes from the performance, visit The Children of Southeast Asia
Listen to the Coconut Dance with RealAudio! We stayed at Angkor Wat for two more dances - a wonderful percussive number where boys and girls skillfully collided coconut shells to a rhythm, and a scene from the Reamkin (the Cambodian interpretation of India's Ramayana epic), a reenactment of the monkey god Hanuman courting a beautiful maiden. The young boy who played Hanuman wore an ornately painted mask, and his movements were incredibly crisp and precise. I ran out of film and audio tape at the end of this performance, so we took this as our cue to meet Rang back at the car. Once again, we found him standing by his Camry with a gleeful grin on his face. Before I could finish apologizing for being late, he said, "Yes, Apsara dancers, I know," and agreed that we could always climb Phnom Bakheng for tomorrow's sunset.
We chilled out at the hotel, writing in our journals on the balcony as dozens of geckos congregated on the ceiling over our heads, waiting for the arrival of the evening mosquitoes. We eventually crossed the street to the Singapore Restaurant for another order of fried rice and some hot Singapore coconut curry chicken. The cafe had a bit of a bug problem, so we spent our meal blowing small flies off the table. More geckos crowded the walls while a TV played Khmer music videos at full volume. The videos reminded me of ones I had seen back in India, though I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not.
We hit the sack at 8pm. Tomorrow we would meet Rang at five in the morning to catch sunrise over Angkor Wat. Despite my high level of anticipation awaiting another glorious day at Angkor, I managed to get a good night's sleep.
Posted by acarvin at 11:43 PM
Arrival at Angkor
4:45am, and it's black as pitch outside, yet we've got no choice but to get out of bed. Our morning flight to Siem Reap had been changed from 7:30 to 6:30, which meant we'd have to ride through the streets of Phnom Penh before sunrise. Just a day or two before, I was nervous about the prospects of a pre-dawn drive through Phnom Penh. Bandits, corrupt cops, hottentots, we'd inevitably be kidnapped and sold for scrap. Now, of course, I realized that this was an absurd overreaction on my part. At 5:30am, the streets of Phnom Penh seemed safer than Washington DC would have been at the same time. Just don't let the cabby take any short cuts down some hidden alleyways, I grimaced.
Avelokitesvara head, the Bayon We rode along the quiet treelined boulevards and reached the airport in about 15 minutes. Susanne and I picked up our boarding passes, paid the $10 departure tax and waited for boarding as two large groups of German and Japanese tourists crowded the departure lounge. They looked well traveled, sporting Saigon and Luang Prabang t-shirts. Susanne talked with a woman from Manchester, England who had spent two months alone wandering the South Pacific, Burma and Vietnam before coming to Cambodia. Meanwhile I worried we'd get hassled because of the size of our backpacks - there was a 10 kilogram per passenger limit on baggage, and I'm sure our packs exceeded the limited, but no one asked us anything except "carry-on bags?"
The sun rose at 6am, not long before we boarded the flight. Before the July coup there were seven flights a day to Siem Reap. Now there were only three, and until the end of the rains last week, they were largely empty. Our flight had about 40 people on board, more than half full. We munched on angel cake muffins and coffee during the brief 35 minute flight. I had hoped for a stunning view of Angkor on the way down, but instead had to settle for rice paddies, stilt houses and the occasional humble wat.
Siem Reap is perhaps the smallest airport I've ever seen, even beating Connecticut's New Haven airport. A few steps inside and we were already at the exit, as two dozen or so frenzied taxi drivers waited outside ready to pounce on unsuspecting tourists. We too would have to choose a driver from amongst this crowd, so we paused for a second, put on our game faces and then opened the door to face the music. All 20 cabbies charged us, shouting "Siem Reap! Siem Reap! Angkor! I will drive!" About six or seven of them pressed into me and pawed at my hands and shirt. It was time to choose, so I decided to grab the smallest guy I could find - that way, if he proved to be a difficult person, I'd look all the more intimidating to him. Maybe. I looked at a small, smiling young man to my left and said, "You! Golden Apsara Guesthouse." He charged forward, as did the other drivers - apparently they could all get a commission from this particular hotel. I asked him how much the ride would cost, to which he responded, "Free ride - courtesy service to Golden Apsara." I suppose his commission would surpass the price of the cab ride. "OK, let's go." We pushed through the crowd, caught a breath of fresh Cambodian country air, and climbed into the little man's Camry. Another young Khmer, this one grinning even more than the first man, closed our doors and got into the driver's seat. We started the short ride into Siem Reap, the only major town around Angkor.
Rang, our driver and guide to Angkor
Interested in hiring Rang next time you're at Angkor?
The driver didn't talk much, but the first man told us a bit about the area. The town had about 70,000 residents but it felt much smaller to me, like a pleasant country village where everyone knew everyone else and exchanged gossip over Tiger beer and Mild Sevens cigarettes at the local garden cafe. The only traffic was the occasional motorscooter or young boy herding the family cattle down the road. The first man asked if we wanted a driver for our stay. "He will drive you - his name is Rang," he said, pointing to the driver, who repeated "Rang," smiling cheerfully. "20 dollars a day." This was the going rate in town, so we agreed to use him as our escort for our stay. We arrived at the hotel, a quaint villa in need of a fresh whitewash, but quite nice by our flexible accommodation standards. The owner, an older gentleman who spoke fluent French but no English, showed us a large room with three beds, ceiling fan, a refrigerator, bathroom and a spotless floor, $20 dollars a day. Fair enough. We gladly dropped our backpacks to the beds.Susanne and I changed clothes and prepared our film supply for the day while Rang arranged our two day passes to Angkor for $40 each (the passes would have been good for a third day if we'd had the time). $40 may seem rather steep compared to practically every other entrance fee in Asia, but considering that here were the greatest archeological ruins on earth and one of the few steady sources of hard currency for this poor country, $40 seemed a small price to pay. Rang returned about 20 minutes later. He still had that large grin on his face, as if her were excited for us, this being our first visit to the famed ruins of Angkor.
From the 9th to the 15th centuries, the Khmer kingdom at Angkor was the most powerful and architecturally prodigious culture in southeast Asia. The Khmers had lived for centuries in this region, which had earlier been known as Funan and Chenla, but they were often dominated by the regional superpowers of the time, namely China to the north and Java to the south. In 802 a Khmer official in the Javanese court returned to his homeland, declared himself the god-king Jayavarman II and decried full independence from Java. Jayavarman II became the first of many god-kings of the Khmer court at Angkor. As god-kings, Jayavarman and his successors commissioned stone temples to themselves as well as to the Hindu god Shiva, often patterning the structures into a three-tiered representation of Mt. Meru, the mythical centerpoint of time and space. By around 880 CE, the monarch Indravarman became the first god-king to construct massive irrigation works that allowed Angkor to expand in size and population.
The next three centuries would see a series of political waves fluctuating between growth and decline. Angkor reached its first peak with the ascension of Suryavarman II in 1112, who expanded the kingdom into Vietnam and Thailand and built the famed Shiva temple of Angkor Wat. Yet the southern Vietnamese state of Champa would not be subjugated. In 1177, the Chams initiated a covert counterattack, quietly sailing up the great lake of central Cambodia, the Tonle Sap. Within a few years, the Chams sacked Angkor and executed the king, but the Khmers immediately regrouped for an attempt to take back Angkor. A cousin of the former king led the charge, retaking Angkor around 1180. He was eventually crowned as Jayavarman VII. For the next four decades, this Jayavarman would reign through Angkor's greatest period.
Jayavarman VII is best known for constructing Angkor Thom, the nine-square-kilometer walled city that would serve as the royal capital for 400 years. Jayavarman VII commissioned the Baphuon Palace as well as the Bayon, famous for its scores of smirking stone faces. On the cultural front, Jayavarman VII officially converted the state religion from Hinduism to Buddhism, though the conversion process had been going on in Khmer communities for some time. Instead of constructing monuments to Shiva and Vishnu, Jayavarman VII glorified images of the Buddha and his incarnation as Avelokitesvara. Jayavarman VII's reign was the pinnacle of Khmer culture, and after his death things began to slip away. By the 15th and 16th centuries the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya was in ascendance, and after several half-hearted attempts at destroying the Khmers they sacked Angkor in 1431 and 1594, eventually ending its term as Khmer capital. The Khmers eventually regrouped in their new capital at Phnom Penh, many miles away to the south of the Tonle Sap, but the glory period of Khmer history was over.
Angkor was not known in the west until it was "discovered" by French explorers in the mid 19th century. They brought home tales of adventure - as well as unbelievable etchings of Angkor itself - back to an eager French public. Through the turn of the century to the 1960's Angkor was a popular spot for globetrotting European Asiaphiles, but civil war in 1970 and the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 made Angkor and surrounding Siem Reap province a rebel hotspot. Khmer Rouge cadre buried thousands of landmines in and around Angkor, occasionally kidnapping and killing tourists as well. As recent as 1995, Dr. Susan Hadden of the Alliance for Public Technology was killed in a bandit ambush near the grand ruins of Banteay Srei, just north of Angkor. I didn't know Dr. Hadden well, but we had emailed each other on numerous occasions in the summer of 1994 while I was constructing my EdWeb website. Her death at Banteay Srei was a chilling reminder that even with the end of the fighting and a strong UN presence, Siem Reap province was still a dangerous place.
With this long history of glory, intrigue and murder in my mind, we were now in a car passing the entry checkpoint into Angkor. The checkpoint consisted of a small roadside kiosk where several bored policemen sat around while a smiling woman checked visitor passes. We drove north until reaching a T in the road. We turned left and continued along a wide body of water that Rang pointed out to us to be the moat of Angkor Wat. The moat was over a mile long on this side and at least 500 feet wide. But on the other side of the water, all I could see was forest, dense and lush from the recent monsoon rains. Somewhere within this verdant island fortress was Angkor Wat. I eagerly awaited my first sight of it.
We hooked a right and hugged the left-hand side of the moat, again heading north. As we approached the moat's western causeway I finally saw the five stupa-like towers of Angkor Wat. Even with this passing glimpse I was awestruck, perhaps less with what I saw and rather because I was so amazed that I was even here in the first place. But before I could have any sort of metaphysical epiphany, we whizzed by Angkor Wat, heading north towards the walled city of Angkor Thom. The greatest temple on earth would have to wait, and I would have to settle with only a teasing taste of it. Angkor Wat vanished behind us, again shrouded by its dense forest cape. I had always envisioned Angkor to be a massive open expanse of monuments, like the pyramids of Giza or the central plain of Chichen Itza in Mexico, but much of Angkor was separated by miles of trees and swamp land. Angkor wasn't a single archeological site - it was an entire city preserved by centuries of outside ignorance of its existence.
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| Angkor Thom south gate |
Soon we reached the south gate of Angkor Thom. A stone causeway took us over a statue-lined moat. At the end of the causeway stood an intimidating stone arch topped with the face of the Avelokitesvara. We paused for a few snapshots but clouds obscured much of the sunlight. We'd have to return for some better pictures later. About a kilometer further down the road the forest turned swampy as the dry earth metamorphosed into frog-infested wetlands. It was in these damp marshes that stood the Bayon, the jewel of Angkor Thom. No one is really sure if the Bayon was a temple or something entirely different, and only recently did archeologists conclude that it was built by Jayavarman VII. Mysteries are the Bayon's specialty, for it is best known for its 54 stone towers topped with over 200 faces of the Avelokitesvara, each visage bearing an enigmatic, patently Buddhist smirk.From a distance the Bayon looked like a jumbled mess - a bunch of ruined towers surrounded by heaps of stone rubble. We exited the taxi on the Bayon's east side and headed up its crumbling causeway. We were hounded by kids and young woman selling flutes, knives, statuettes, drums, water, film and many other things we simply didn't need. They pestered us for about 50 feet and then retreated for the next round of tourists - standard operating procedure for the touts of Angkor. We climbed the steps to the first tier of the Bayon. In each direction were long shadowy pathways decorated with bas reliefs in surprisingly good condition. An old monk manned a small Buddha shrine in one of these corridors and he tried to get visitors to light incense and candles for a small donation. I lit some incense for good luck and left him a few hundred riels - small change but nonetheless appreciated. He smiled and said something like "Sok sabai," which I took for meaning "be well," based on its similarity to Thai.
Khmer children swimming in front of the Bayon
Listen to the fiddler play!
Maneuvering through an obstacle course of tumbled stone Susanne and I climbed a staircase to the second tier, home to the many faces of Avelokitesvara. It was from here that we got our first sense of the magnitude of these faces. Everywhere you looked - in every direction, at every possible angle, it seemed - was this huge, peaceful grin, its eyes closed as if in a state of meditation. Most of the faces were 10 to 20 feet above us, some even higher, so we wandered the Bayon's many passages for a closer look. Around one corner, not far from the steps leading to the central third tier tower, sat a one-footed amputee playing a two-stringed folk instrument held like a cello. His haunting melody echoed through the central Bayon and the quality of his playing seemed to increase with the approach of each visiting tourist. I paused to record some of his performance, as well as to take pictures of a marvelous stone face not far above eye level, adjacent to where the musician sat.
Susanne and I spent the next hour or so climbing each level of the Bayon, marveling its many enigmatic faces. The sun dipped in and out of the clouds, so getting those perfect photos became quite a challenge. We'd have to return here when the sun was bright and warm, we concluded. I purchased a large bottle of water for two dollars (ten times the going price in Bangkok - that's supply and demand for you) and got a few more pictures from the far end of the Bayon's eastern causeway. Susanne and I met Rang at the car and he took us what turned out to be only a few hundred yards to the southern end of a large open field. On the left, just ahead of us, I could see a series of raised terraces decorated with elephant bas reliefs and lion statues. To the right there was a row of eight thin towers similar to the Mayan pyramids at Tikal. We started with the terraces on the left. The first platform, the Baphuon, was once Angkor Thom's city center but was now an empty space save a pyramid in the distance, surrounded by scaffolding and flooding from the recent monsoon.
Statue of the Leper King Further afield stood Phimeanakas, the walled palace of Jayavarman VII, now a series of grass covered terraces. We climbed the wall of the eastern terrace, careful not to sink too deeply in its mud. On the other side of the wall, a long bas relief of an elephant procession stretched for over 100 feet. Susanne had joked before the trip of hoping to see an elephant parade somewhere on the trip - here was her lucky chance. We then reached the Terrace of the Leper King, so known because it is believed that some of the Angkor kings suffered from the disease, though there is no hard proof of this claim. We climbed the top of the terrace to find a nude, sexless statue that has also been a mystery to archaeologists. It's a replica of the real statue, now displayed away from the elements in Phnom Penh. We descended the terrace steps to admire more bas reliefs and then returned to find Rang. He told us we still hadn't really seen Phimeanakas, so we should go back and look. What had we missed?
We cut west through the small temple complex of Tep Pernan, now closed for renovation. Amidst the trees and cows we found a long wall with several children playing on it. There was an arched gate further along the wall, so we cut through and walked up the grassy hill where more children played. Past the hill we saw what we had earlier missed - a tall, three-tiered temple that served as the center of Jayavarman VII's palace.
We admired it for a while before cutting back through the archway. Three young girls, maybe 8 to 12 years old, followed us and tried to sell us flutes. We told them we weren't interested, but apparently they were interested in us. So they stopped trying to sell things to us and instead followed us around just to see where we'd go next. We headed back to the main field past the terraces and crossed the street to check out some of the stone towers we had noticed earlier. These towers, known as Prasat Suor Prat, are part of the Kleang group of ruins. There wasn't much to do here apart from walk around the towers because they were too steep to climb. Those little girls with the flutes continued to follow us, keeping a safe distance so they could giggle and point without retribution. We could hear traditional Cambodian music blaring from speakers behind a thicket of trees, but the closest path to take us around the trees was too far removed for a quick inspection.
Detail of bas-relief, Terrace of the Leper King We returned to Rang and drove back to town for lunch at the Bayon Restaurant, a quaint garden cafe regarded as the best place to dine in Siem Reap. We ordered fried rice and green chicken curry in baby coconut, literally served inside a baby coconut. The English lady from Manchester whom we had met at the airport was there as well, so we invited her to join us. We swapped traveler's tales and I sampled her fish curry in coconut (better than my chicken curry - more peanuts) as well as a pineapple plate for dessert. Rang took us back to the hotel for a 90-minute break. Earlier that morning when he suggested this afternoon siesta, I thought it would be a waste of precious time. In retrospect, it was the best advice we could have followed. Climbing ruins is exhausting work and results in amount of sweat too graphic to acknowledge in writing, so an hour and a half of air conditioning and a cool shower was welcomed relief. Susanne and I found ourselves with some extra time to check out Siem Reap's central market. There wasn't much action there, but we managed to find a shop that sold postcards at six for a dollar. We bought 12 of them and returned to the hotel to relax and meet up with Rang for the afternoon.
Posted by acarvin at 9:23 PM
November 8, 1997
A Day in the Killing Fields
8am, Bangkok's Don Muang International Airport, departure gate 41. I'm sitting at the only gate that has free seats available. To my right an anxious crowd gets ready to board a flight to Singapore. Just beyond them it's mayhem as people vie for standby tickets to Ho Chi Minh City. But here at Gate 41, I've got all the stretching room I need, because through the doors just ahead of me sits a Royal Air Cambodge ATR 72 bound for Phnom Penh. I wonder if we'd be the only people on this flight. Perhaps we were indeed crazy for even wanting to go in the first place.
Closeup of skulls at the killing fields
of Choeung EkBut this was a trip I had to make. Ever since seeing the film 'The Killing Fields' years back I've struggled with answering the difficult question of how on earth an entire nation could literally commit suicide. Suicide. Our world is full of countless histories of atrocity, where one culture vents its wrath on another culture. This century alone, we've witnessed Jews, Armenians, Roma, Bosnians, Tutsis, just to name a few, led to their deaths for reasons no more logical than hate or fear itself. Yet in Cambodia, there was no dominant ethnic group oppressing a minority, no country wiping out its neighbor in the name of nationalism. In Cambodia, Khmers killed other Khmers, first over political struggle, then over social ideology, and finally over bloodlust and paranoia as ends in themselves. This small Asian nation not much larger than the state of Missouri exterminated as many as two million of its own brothers and sisters. Two out of seven Khmers starved or murdered in less than 45 months: April 17, 1975 to January, 1979.
As a Jew I've always struggled with the legacy of the Holocaust, and over time I've begun to understand just how Germany could have committed such an egregious crime against humanity. As abhorrent as the Holocaust was, from a strictly historical and disinterested perspective I can understand the chain of events that led to it. Same thing in Bosnia and Rwanda - terrible events, though not entirely unpredictable. But Cambodia made no sense to me. How any country could perpetrate in my lifetime a crime so hideous as to have 11-year-old boys literally executing their own parents with a blow of a shovel to the back of their heads, all for the "capitalist" crimes of speaking French, wearing glasses, being a teacher, was beyond my scope of understanding. I had to experience Cambodia as a nation, as a people, as a culture, just to begin to understand it.
Right now, I'm flying at 15,000 feet over western Cambodia, on our way to Phnom Penh. It's a beautiful day, and I can see dense forests below. I thought I'd be uneasy at this particular moment, but I'm actually quite excited. Back in Bangkok, our travel agent had made arrangements for a guide to pick us up at the airport and take us around for the day, so we'd never have to worry about being alone. There are about 30 people on our flight - Thais, Khmers, Japanese, Indians, even a few Americans. I had been nervous we'd be on a deserted flight. Why the hell would anyone come to Cambodia unless they had to? Well, it looks like we're not alone. Cambodia possesses one of the most unique cultures and histories in Asia, and to experience this nation, it would seem I'm willing to put my faith in humanity ahead of the obvious risks. I will be on guard for these four days in Cambodia, but I will enjoy it. Damn it, I will enjoy it.
It's 10:30am, and our plane is descending into Phnom Penh. I've filled out my visa application and customs form. There's no turning back now. Like it or not, within the hour I'll be on the ground in Cambodia.
The plane completes a rather bumpy landing in near-perfect weather - 80 degrees, crisp and dry, sunny. Thank goodness for the end of the southeast monsoons earlier this week. Pochentong International Airport is no larger than an American municipal airport. The arrival lounge is clean and orderly, a surprise considering that artillery shells decimated the control tower and radar system four months ago. Inside the terminal we queued through a line of immigration officers who sternly examined our visa applications and passports. At the end of the queue, a young female officer looked up at me and gave me a beautiful Khmer smile, a singular gesture that cut through so much of the residual doubt and weariness in my head.Having paid the $20 dollars cash required for the visa stamp, Susanne and I completed immigration, breezed through customs and made reservations at the tourism desk for a downtown Phnom Penh hotel. The Hawaii Hotel was a three-star located near the Central Market, and at $42 a night it was well above our usual hotel budget. But Cambodia was still near the top of the U.S. State Department Traveler Advisory List: kidnapping and murder of Westerners was not unheard of here, so we decided to ere on the side of caution. First, though, we needed to meet our guide for the day, whom we had hired through the MK Ways travel agency in Bangkok. We were expecting a man to greet us with our names on a placard, but outside we could only find a horde of young and eager taxi drivers, all of whom shouted for our attention. We remained inside the terminal, away from all of the ravenous touts, and waited. After 10 minutes of mild concern, we saw a smiling young man holding a sign bearing our names - it was welcome relief. We introduced ourselves to the guide; his name was Rith (pronounced like the word 'writ') and he was 29 years old - a bit of a shock for he didn't look a day over 21. We informed Rith of our reservations at the Hawaii Hotel, so he gathered our car and driver for the short drive to downtown Phnom Penh.
Susanne crosses the street towards the Central Market Phnom Penh is alive with people. A city of around one million residents, yet I doubt there are any buildings in town that are over four or five stories tall. Motorcycles and scooters whiz by in packs like bicyclists in Beijing. There are so many cars and people moving about, yet I wouldn't go so far as to describe it as traffic, especially after having experienced the hellish gridlock of Bangkok. The moldy whitewash buildings look warn and tired, yet still possess an eerie French Colonial ambiance. A ghost town repopulated, quite literally. I wondered if the streets of Port au Prince or Dakar ever felt like this. Many of the streets are potholed or unpaved, and there are no working traffic lights, yet nearly every car I see is a Toyota Camry, a Honda Accord, or a new model Nissan pickup truck. Here was a city a hair's width away from anarchy, yet its assortment of automobiles were more akin to American suburbia. A first of many paradoxes, undoubtedly.
But beyond the dustiness of the streets and the peeling white paint, Phnom Penh was bright and vivacious as sunbeams shone off turn-of-the-century villas along treelined boulevards. The people here went about their daily business in a cheerful way, despite the decades of suffering and despair. A bicycling boy in a school uniform rides by, ringing the bell on his handlebar to compete amongst the motorscooters. Well dressed teenage girls sharing a cyclo taxi covertly point and giggle at young men while waiting to turn at an intersection. Men talk on cellular phones and scoop heaping spoonfuls of curry and rice into their mouths at a streetside cafe. This is not the Phnom Penh I expected.
Rith dropped us at the hotel and we agreed to regroup in two hours, around 2pm. This would give us time to freshen up and eat lunch, but we hadn't anticipated being out of our guide's protective reach for any length of time that day. At first we contemplated holing up at the hotel, but Susanne and I agreed that it was certainly safe enough to visit the Central Market as long as we looked out for each other and used some common sense. We locked up our valuables in the room and with only our cameras in hand, we walked outside and strolled to the market.
Cyclo taxis, Phnom Penh The sky was bright and blue as men approached us on three-wheeled cyclos, motioning to see if we wanted to hire them for a ride. I'd motion back to say no, and in most cases, they would pedal away, with only one or two of them pestering us for patronage. We had to dodge the traffic to cross 53rd street - no stoplights in town makes this an adventure every time - in order to reach the outer stalls of the Central Market. Rows of fresh flowers and vegetables greeted us on our right, while to the left women squatted over small charcoal fires to tend to roasting peanuts and chestnuts. Many of the stalls were devoted solely to touristy items like t-shirts ("I survived Phnom Penh", "Tintin in Cambodia," "Danger: Landmines"), Angkor paperweights and small Buddha statues, so considering the current dearth of visitors to Phnom Penh, I wasn't at all surprised by the continuous calls in French and English beckoning us to visit their shops. I paused at one stall where a lovely girl, perhaps 10 years old, was selling kramas, those ubiquitous checkered cotton scarves you see Khmers wearing in all types of weather. I was interested in buying a krama, so I asked how much they were. One dollar each for the big ones, three for two dollars for the smaller ones, she said (Cambodia is largely a U.S. cash-only economy thanks to consistent inflation that has brought the Cambodian riel down to 3600 riels per dollar). I wasn't ready to buy anything just yet, so I made a mental note to return here on my way out and told her I'd be back. I guessed from the look on her face that she heard that a lot from Westerners.
At the center of the stalls is a large orange building with a roof of concentric circles thinning out into a pyramid. "An art deco ziggurat," in the words of the Lonely Planet guide. We entered the building and were amazed to find a brilliantly lit arcade of gem sellers, wristwatch dealers, makeup counters and perfume shops. Cambodia's answer to Macy's. But as we wandered awestruck through the aisles, the sobering reality of Cambodia set itself upon us. A young boy, perhaps 12 or 14, ragged, half blind and with a noticeable limp, began to follow us around with his arms outstretched. "Papa, monsieur. Mama, madame. Papa..." he chanted, his blank, sunken eyes staring at us. I tried to ignore him, for I knew that giving alms in such a public place would take the finger out of the dike and release a flood of needy street urchins upon us. So we began a sad, sad game of cat and mouse as we tried to lose him in the maze of stalls. But it was to no avail for he would keep up with every turn, arms outward, "Mama, Papa..." Susanne noticed that he would back off when we neared the policemen sitting around the market entrance. So I visited the counter closest to the police, feigning interest in some jewelry. The poor wretch darted away, fearing retribution from the cops. Meanwhile, I pointed at a piece of ivory sitting in the gem case, asking the saleswoman what it was. She handed it to me as I realized it was a tiger's canine. "Very cheap, monsieur," she said. "You buy, yes?" Embarrassed and a bit saddened that I hadn't recognized what it was, I handed it back to her and declined politely.
Susanne and I returned to the young girl with the collection of kramas. I selected two scarves: a black and white and a red plaid with yellow threads. As I removed two dollars from my pocket, another wave of beggars surrounded us, most of them amputees from landmines. They were the first of many amputees I'd see in my short stay in Cambodia, a country where one out of every 250 people had been maimed by landmine explosions. I handed the two dollars to the girl and thanked her - "Aw kohn," the only Khmer I knew at this point. The beggars got very close to me and pressed at my arms and shoulders. "Monsieur, monsieur," they said in unison. I thought to myself: even if I did give them the couple of dollars in my pocket, it wouldn't change anything. I couldn't save these poor souls even if I tried, so I closed my eyes, swallowed hard and walked away, not looking back. We crossed the road back to the hotel, with me left feeling a little blank and unsure.
The Silver Pagoda, Phnom Penh Rith and our driver met us downstairs at 2pm. Our first destination was the Silver Pagoda. The Pagoda was part of the King's palace compound, but the rest of the palace has remained closed to the public ever since King Sihanouk returned to the throne a few years back. Through the compound gates we found a glorious courtyard bedecked with stone stupas and golden pagodas of all shapes and sizes. This was Phnom Penh at its proudest. The pagoda was built in 1892 by King Norodom, Sihanouk's great grandfather, as the eternal residence of Cambodia's Emerald Buddha, a Baccarat crystal statue modeled after the Emerald Buddha at Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok. The pagoda's main courtyard is used for the interment of royal ashes under its stupas. We circled the Silver Pagoda, marveling at its size and glistening panels. Inside, Rith noted that the floor was constructed entirely of solid silver tiles, over 5000 of them, each weighing more than a kilogram. At the center of the temple was a golden shrine for the Emerald Buddha. In front of it, though, stood a sight even more impressive - a solid gold, life-sized Buddha statue weighing nearly 200 pounds. Beyond my initial shock over its mere existence, I was puzzled as to how on earth this treasure could have survived the destruction of the Khmer Rouge. As Rith explained, the answer was quite simple. The Khmer Rouge had a public image to protect among the international community, despite its attempts to isolate Cambodia from the rest of the world. So they kept the Silver Pagoda as a token conservation effort, just in case foreign dignitaries might want to visit it. Nevertheless, the gold and crystal Buddhas were still quite lucky, for more than half of the other priceless relics kept at the Silver Pagoda were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge.
Rith led us to a tree-enshrouded hill, an earthly representation of the mythological Mt. Meru (the nexus of time and space in Hinduism and Khmer Buddhism). A group of Khmer schoolchildren was playing there and we soon caught their attention. Next thing I knew, we were posing for pictures together, laughing over their bad English and our worse Khmer. Eventually it was time to move on so we returned to the car, were approached once again by an amputeed beggar in military fatigues. The car drove off before he could get very close, though, as he struggled across the road on one crutch.
Our next stop was Tuol Sleng, the infamous S-21 interrogation center of the Khmer Rouge. Before 1975, Tuol Sleng was a typical Phnom Penh high school. From 1975 to 1979, though, it was without a doubt the most horrible place on earth. Within these walls, 17,000 prisoners, including entire families, were incarcerated, interrogated and tortured here, all for the soul purpose of extracting confessions from them before execution. Of the 17,000 inmates who entered Tuol Sleng, only seven people - seven - are known to have survived. The rest of them either died inside or met their fate in the killing fields of Choeung Ek, just outside of town.
Wooden gymnastic beams used by
Khmer Rouge for hanging and tortureMy first impression of Tuol Sleng was its familiarity - it reminded me quite vividly of my own high school in Florida, which was built in a similar outdoor courtyard style. As I looked around I saw my own high school draped in barbed wire, with the gasps, moans and screams of the damned emanating from inside. I was snapped out of this ghoulish daydream when Rith introduced us to Phalla (pronounced "Palla"), a Khmer woman who would be our guide. Phalla appeared to be in her mid 40s and she had a round and freckled complexion with almost Polynesian features. Immediately I wondered what had happened to her during the Khmer Rouge years - she would have been in her mid-twenties at the time, perhaps my age or younger. But I knew this wasn't the moment to ask such things; maybe she would tell us in the course of the tour.
On the far left end of the courtyard, Phalla showed us the graves of the last 14 victims of Tuol Sleng. They were all killed in the days and hours leading up to the successful occupation of Phnom Penh by the Vietnamese in early January of 1979. Condemned internationally as a ruthless invasion, no one in the West could have realized at the time that this occupation was tantamount to the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps by Russian forces during the waning days of World War II. Phalla brought us to a series of stark, grim rooms lit only by meager sunlight, each containing a rusty bed frame, a pair of leg shackles, plastic gas containers for urine and feces, and a large black and white photo of the victim found in that room. Cell by cell, Phalla told us in graphic detail the method of execution applied to these last victims of S-21, their throats slashed with rusty knives, their faces caved in with shovels. Each story seemed more hellish than the one preceding it. We visited five of these rooms, more than enough to visualize the horror that had taken place there. "You do not need to see them all, sir, ma'am," Phalla said to us. "I think you have seen much to understand.... Do you understand?" It wasn't a rhetorical question on her part - Phalla repeatedly asked us if we could understand her English, which was actually quite good. But each time she asked "Do you understand?" I could only hear the deeper question, "Do you see what happened here? Do you see what happened to us?" All I could do was nod my head and say "Yes," my eyes fixed on hers as if my soul depended on it.
Tuol Sleng's Security Regulations We continued the tour by entering a complex of prison cells, cubical enclosures made of thin brick and mud plaster walls. Phalla pointed out that even a child would have the strength to knock down these walls - the plaster creaked as she pressed it with one hand - yet the prisoners of Tuol Sleng were so weak and exhausted from torture and malnutrition they rarely attempted a breakout. No will to escape. I squeezed between two of the walls to get a prisoner's perspective. I'd estimate the space was three feet wide and five feet long - not enough room to sleep flat on the floor. The air was thick and filled with dust, a million specks of dirt illuminated by horizontal rows of sunlight. Ten seconds in the cell was enough for me - claustrophobia set in as I squeezed through the wall to freedom.
The prison cells were followed by empty rooms that featured row after row of black and white portraits of prisoners. The Khmer Rouge photographed each inmate before sending them off to death by bludgeoning at Choeung Ek. The walls stared back at me: face after face of children, the elderly, mothers and babies, the beaten, the doomed. Many of them had thick metal shackles around their necks. Others had their heads propped upwards by sharp clamps, for they lacked the strength to sit up. But their faces spoke volumes. Some of them looked confused or frightened. A few even looked angry. But most of them, above all else, looked totally hopeless. Hopeless from having accepted the fact that they were the walking dead, with no chance of reprieve.
As we crossed over part of the courtyard to the next complex of buildings, I noticed some boys playing volleyball directly behind the rooms with all the inmate photographs. Volleyball! I couldn't believe my eyes. But then I thought about it and realized that Tuol Sleng, as horrific a place it is, is only one set of buildings in a country that has seen countless atrocities in countless places. If every single place in Cambodia that had seen such atrocities were cordoned off from returning to the mundane pleasures of normal life, there might be no plot of land large enough left in the country for a few boys to play a simple game of volleyball. And by playing this game on this very spot, they seemed to be reclaiming Tuol Sleng for themselves: "Damn the Khmer Rouge and what they did to us!" I wondered if these boys ever thought about it - none of them was even old enough to have lived during the Khmer Rouge regime.
The next several rooms continued to display more photographs, including postmortem portraits of those who died in custody of excessive torture, as well as pictures of the living conditions in the mass detention cells upstairs where hundreds of people were shackled to barren floors, huddled together 24 hours a day. The meticulousness of these murderers! Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge were obsessed with record keeping. But unlike the Nazis, who merely kept a running tally of the dead, the Khmer Rouge managed to take a picture of every prisoner that came through Tuol Sleng. 17,000 photographs, 17,000 dead. I stared at the faces of the condemned and read the documents charting those who had confessed, those who died in custody, those who committed suicide, and those who were transferred to the killing fields for "processing." Suddenly I realized how the Khmer Rouge - a fighting force of ignorant, prepubescent country boys led by a well-educated cadre of former monks and teachers - could commit these crimes against humanity. The Khmer Rouge didn't hate their fellow Khmers, at least not in the common emotional sense. Hate is too draining of an emotion to sustain for so many years. No, for the Khmer Rouge to kill or starve two million of their own people, they were warped by years of war and brainwashing to no longer care. To no longer recognize the value of an individual, the value of a human life. And by no longer caring, the Khmer Rouge stopped seeing their victims as people, members of families. The Cambodian people were objectified, commodified until they were seen only as tools of the Khmer Rouge machine, and when a particular tool malfunctioned or refused to work properly, it was coldly discarded, without compassion or notice.
I have read reports of incidents where Cambodians killed certain individuals, gutted them, and roasted their livers on sticks before sharing it as a communal meal. There was a time when I would think of the image and it would shock me. But now, as I stand here at Tuol Sleng, I am no longer shocked, for now I understand. The Khmer Rouge successfully reduced all Cambodians, if not the human condition itself, to nothing but raw meat. And Khmer society was consumed because of it. What a calamitous waste.
As Susanne and I stared at the pictures on the wall, Phalla began to say more about her own experiences during the Khmer Rouge years. She was from Phnom Penh, not far from Tuol Sleng. When the Khmer Rouge arrived on April 17, 1975, the people of Phnom Penh celebrated, for they thought rebel occupation of the capital meant the end of the five-year-long civil war. But within hours, the Khmer Rouge started to evacuate the entire population of Phnom Penh into the countryside, where the people would serve on collective farms. April 17, 1975 was Day Zero for the new Cambodia - Democratic Kampuchea as they called it. Everything before that moment was now meaningless.
Phalla and her family were evacuated and forced to work in the fields. Over the course of four years, she and her kin were moved like cattle across the country from one farm to another. And despite the success of their farming, hundreds of thousands of people starved to death, for the crops were all destined to feed Khmer Rouge forces in their continuing struggle against Vietnam. If you were caught eating your own crops, you faced summary execution - though more often than not, you'd first be brought outside of the camp to an empty field so no one would hear you scream.
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| Pen Phalla, Tuol Sleng guide and Khmer Rouge survivor |
"There were times when I wanted to kill myself," Phalla admitted. "I was sent on a boat from Battambang and I wanted to jump off and commit suicide. I wanted to jump in the water. But then I thought of my daughter, and I could not jump. I could not commit suicide." In most cases, the Khmer Rouge made it very difficult for Cambodians to kill themselves. They took away their kramas so they wouldn't hang themselves. Prisoners had to eat their daily rice ration with their hands, lest they hack at their wrists with the dull edge of a spoon or the points of a fork.
The last room contained a map of Cambodia displaying the major collective farm camps as well as the forced migration routes that crisscrossed the countryside. The map, about 15 feet square, was made almost entirely of human skulls. Phalla began to speak.
"My husband was killed with a bamboo stick. My daughter starved because I had no food for her. My mother and father were killed with shovels near Battambang. My sister, her husband and children were killed with knives in Kratie. My aunt, uncle and their family drowned while trying to flee into Vietnam. It is very sad."
Susanne and I were speechless. What could we say? Phalla stood there with a closed-lipped, bittersweet smile on her face - I could see she was reminiscing about earlier, happier times. Perhaps she was thinking about her dead child - if she were still alive, I bet she would have been about my age, perhaps a bit younger. I wanted to give her a hug, do something, but all I could manage was to bow my head and stare at the floor in silence. I had expected Tuol Sleng to be a grim place, but I assumed that my experience there would be on par with a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. I could not have been more wrong. While the Holocaust Museum is a powerful, fitting reminder that allows current generations to bear witness to the Holocaust, it is but a museum and nothing more. Tuol Sleng is a living instrument of genocide. It served as the base for some of the worst atrocities we have known this century. And to be told the tale of Tuol Sleng by a survivor of the killing - this courageous, persevering survivor - made me feel somewhat small.
Choeung Ek memorial pagoda We parted company with Phalla and Tuol Sleng and began the 30 minute drive to the killing fields of Choeung Ek. While Tuol Sleng served as the place where 17,000 Cambodians were condemned to death, Choeung Ek is their final resting place. Here, amongst the rice paddies and water buffalo, Khmer Rouge soldiers carried out the orders from Tuol Sleng, bludgeoning thousands of people to death with shovels and hoes, burying them in mass unmarked graves. In 1980, 8985 bodies were exhumed here, with the remaining 8000 corpses left in situ. Today, a small pagoda stands at Choeung Ek to commemorate the dead. 8000 of their skulls sit inside as evidence, arranged in stacks according to age and sex.
We arrived at Choeung Ek just before sundown. The drive took longer than planned because the main road had been washed out during the monsoons. Children flew kites along the rice paddies while cattle and chicken wandered the streets like a village in India. We were the only people at Choeung Ek that evening, save some local children who were playing in a tree not far from the entrance. We approached the pagoda and ascended it from the front. Directly inside sat row after row of human skulls, each tier labeled for gender and age. Male: 10-14 years. Female: 15-21 years. This was the end result of Cambodia's failed four-year flirtation with communism. No justice for the workers, no liberation of the village farmer. Only a pile of skulls.
Though the remains were protected on three sides by a thick pane of glass, the stacks of skulls in front of us were open to the elements. I got closer and closer, staring at the cold, off-white bones. For reasons I still cannot understand, I had the urge to reach out and touch them, but I resisted. I circled the pagoda as the fiery red and orange hues of the setting sun reflected off its protective glass. Behind the pagoda I found a series of earthen pits - the remnants of the mass graves. I walked between the rows of pits and mounds, then crouched to the ground, wanting to get a closer look. I ran my hand through the soil, and as if reaching from the grave, a long, thin, white bone protruded out of the ground. I stared at it for a few seconds and touched it, possibly to prove to myself that it was real. I heard Susanne and Rith coming in my direction, so I did the only thing that seemed right: I gently pushed the bone fragment back into the ground and covered it with soil, hoping that I had disturbed its eternal rest for only a brief moment.We returned to Phnom Penh in silence. What do you say when you've just borne witness to genocide? The streets teemed with activity as hundreds of motorscooters, bicycles and Toyotas passed by. Every now and then I'd see a large tent extending from an open-air restaurant as well dressed Khmers stood around and chatted over champagne. Ah yes, it was wedding season, Rith had mentioned earlier. Rith broke the icy silence by asking when we were flying on to Angkor. The next morning, I said. The smalltalk continued haltingly as we drove to the hotel. There was only so much to say. And to think that we were only here to experience this for a single day. Rith and his fellow Khmers would relive the memory every day for the rest of their lives.
Rith dropped us off at the hotel and wished us a safe journey to Angkor. We thanked him for his kindness and help - Susanne and I probably wouldn't have had the courage to visit Phnom Penh on our own. We then departed, returning to the Hawaii Hotel with an empty stomach and a heavy heart. We had hoped to get an early night's sleep, but Susanne and I talked much of the evening about the tragedy of Cambodia and its legacy. We had come here to Phnom Penh to learn about the Cambodian auto-genocide and to work our way to Angkor, but what we really found here was the courageous spirit of the Cambodian people. Whether the tragedy is indeed over for Cambodia remains to be seen - Hun Sen's violent coup this July and the extrajudicial killings that followed it hearken back to a time most Khmers thought had long passed. But it was clear to me today in the eyes, the words and the smiles of the Khmers we met that the brave Cambodian people will survive, no matter the odds.
Posted by acarvin at 10:43 PM
November 7, 1997
Bang Pa-In Palace and the Ruins of Ayutthaya
Susanne and I got up at 6am and ate breakfast downstairs at the Guesthouse Cafe. It was cool and damp outside - I think it might have rained a bit during the night. Today we'd catch a 7am minibus that would take us on a day trip to the ruins of Ayutthaya, the Thai capital from 1359 to 1767. The tour cost 450 baht per person - about 11 dollars each - and it included visits to two of the major ruins, lunch, a short boat ride, and a stop at the 19th century royal retreat, the Bang Pa-In Palace. A minibus drove up a few minutes past seven, so we climbed in with our daypacks, cameras, and plenty of film.
Buddha Statue, Wat Yai Chai Mongkol The minibus drove us two minutes down to Khao San Road, at which point we were booted out and told to wait for the real minibus. Apparently this bus was just a local pickup service that brings us to the motor pool to wait for our actual ride. We met an Australian college student who was going on the Ayutthaya tour as well. He had been traveling around northern Thailand for a couple of weeks and was just about to wrap up his visit. Within a few minutes, another minibus pulled up, this one cramped with people. The driver opened up the door and shouted "Ayutthaya bus!" The three of us managed to squeeze inside, although there were really only one two seats available. Susanne and I lucked out with the small space near the back of the bus, while the Australian backpacker had to share a single seat with our guide for the day. Lucky for him they were both very thin people.
We drove north for two hours through the morning rush hour traffic and into open highway country. As I did when I arrived in Thailand, I began to have flashbacks of my old home in Florida: expressways, self-pump gas stations, Home Depots and other megastores, strip malls. Even the greenery looked the same, though here they had miles of rice paddies instead of swamp land and savanna. The air conditioning in the van didn't work too well - we'd have phases of cold air, warm air, then cold again. I think the freon only kicked in when the driver had his foot on the gas. On several occasions, we'd exit the highway, do a U-turn, and drive back in the other direction. Several of the passengers started to snicker the third or fourth time this happened. On the fifth occasion, I tried to pay attention to the exits along the highway - it seemed that in this case, you had to be going west in order to catch the next exit. I guess placing exits on both sides of a divided highway wasn't necessarily standard operating procedure here.
We drove through a small town for a few miles before reaching the gates of Bang Pa-In Palace. The current palace was built by Rama V in the 1870s after he paid a visit to the courts of Great Britain and Versailles. Because of his interest in European architecture, much of the palace grounds were modeled on what the king had seen during his travels. The palace itself was immaculate - perfectly manicured lawns, topiaries, weeping willows - I felt I was walking behind the Contemporary Resort Hotel at Disney World. We briefly visited a large Chinese mansion and a lighthouse, but on the whole, our stop at Bang Pa-In was notably unmemorable. Besides, I was eager to eager to see the ruins of Ayutthaya. Ever since visiting the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza as a kid, I've been enthralled with all things archeological: it was the main reason Susanne and I visited the Nabataean ruins of Petra in Jordan two years ago, and it undoubtedly contributed to our decision to go to Cambodia and its famed city of Angkor. Thailand's most famous archeological sites, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya, were both former capitals of the nation before the monarchy moved the government to Bangkok around 200 years ago. We weren't sure if we'd have time on this trip to visit Sukhothai, six hours to the north, but it was hard to pass up Ayutthaya considering its relative proximity to Bangkok.
The Ayutthaya archeological park is scattered amongst the modern city of Ayutthaya. Most visitors need to hire a taxi to take them around from site to site, which was one of the primary reasons we decided to catch a minibus tour, since in the end a tour would probably cost the same as going up to Ayutthaya on our own. As we drove through modern Ayutthaya, a medium size town, I could see centuries-old stone stupas in the distance. We approached one of the stupas, then drove right past it - it was now the center of a roundabout. Modern Ayutthaya was littered with such random plots of history.
A few minutes later, we reached Wat Yai Chai Mongkol, our first stop in town. The wat dates back to the mid-14th century, when Thai king U Thong constructed a small monastery here for personal meditation. Over the centuries, the wat was expanded to included a massive stone stupa that rises some 200 feet into the air. The stupa is surrounded by over a hundred stone Buddha statues, each one of them wrapped in shiny saffron robes, as is the custom in much of southeast Asia.
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| Buddha statues, Wat Yai Chai Mongkol, Ayutthaya |
The group scattered in all directions once we exited the minibus. Susanne and I walked along the side of the wat past a large stone reclining Buddha. Behind it a large crowd of people entered the ancient wooden sim, an unassuming temple that was easily overshadowed by the tall stone stupa looming behind it. Pilgrims kneeled before a bronze Buddha inside the sim, while others lit oil lamps installed along one side of the temple. There was a large ceremonial gong here - boy, I was tempted to ring it. I assumed it would be a serious faux pas for a farang such as myself to stroll on over and bang a sacred gong, so I turned and walked away. Then behind me I heard a loud baritone crash - the Thai guide for a French tour group has just hit the gong and was inviting members of her group to give it a shot. Now that the ice was broken, I waited my turn and eventually got hold of the felt covered hammer used to ring this grand old instrument. I gave it a whack in the center and the gong emitted a pleasant ring, much softer than I expected. That tour guide must have really given it all she had, I guess.
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| Boulevard of Buddhas, Wat Yai Chai Mongkol, Ayutthaya |
We walked through to the back of the sim and out the other side, where a long row of stone Buddhas hugged the outer pathway of the main stupa. As far as stupas go, this one was impressive. It lacked the colorful mysticism of the stupas of Kathmandu, but I was still quite impressed, probably because of the monstrous stone cold nature of the thing. I climbed its steep steps to an upper platform that afforded a nice view of the scores of Buddha statues below, but I wasn't high enough to see any of the other archeological sites in the distance - too many modern buildings obscured the view. At the center of the stupa, far above the ground, I found crowds checking out a dark stone chamber that wreaked of bat guano. I couldn't see what all the people were looking at, but when I got inside I heard the sound of squeaking bats, undoubtedly annoyed from all of the attention. I pinched my nose and climbed back down to get some pictures of statues around the back of the stupa.Eventually our group reassembled near the minibus out by the parking lot. Susanne became fascinated with a large rooster that was strutting around the entrance of the park - I don't remember how long she stood there waiting to get a picture of it in mid- cockle doodle doo, but she certainly seemed pleased when the moment finally came.
After a quiet ride in the van, we stopped for lunch at a cozy garden restaurant. We sat right next to one of the canals that surround the perimeter of Ayutthaya and shared a tasty meal of sauteed vegetables, spring rolls, some kind of mild chicken soup, and fried chicken with basil and cauliflower. Susanne didn't trust the food at all and stuck with a plate of hot rice, but I took my chances and tried a bit of everything. I'm sure the food would be OK - besides, I'm vaccinated for hepatitis A and taking multiple daily doses of Pepto Bismol. Up to this point in the minibus tour, none of the group had really talked to each other, apart from their own little cliques. But now people began to open up. We soon learned more about the group: a young Malaysian man who now lived in Australia, a Tamil woman born in Texas but residing in Singapore, four Brits, two Swiss women and the aforementioned young Australian. The Brits, who all appeared like hearty backpacking veterans, kept to themselves the entire time, but the rest of us had a nice conversation about where we all had been, previous travel adventures and the like. Nai, the cheery Malaysian Australian man, possessed a wicked sense of humor and a blunt approach to chit chat. When the two Swiss woman introduced themselves, he immediately quipped, "Oh Switzerland, yes. I hear it's very lovely, but it has a really high suicide rate, right? Nothing better to do, I guess." I think this caught the Swiss off-guard, but no one took offense. Nai seemed to have a scathing comment about all of our home countries at some point.
We closed lunch with some coffee and fresh fruit, including sliced banana, pineapple, and some odd hot pink fruit that tasted (to me, at least) like cheese popcorn. None of us could figure out what it was. Eventually we asked the wait staff and were told that it was papaya - I don't think I ever would have guessed that's what papaya tasted like. At first I really didn't care for it, but after five or six bites it started to grow on me. I figured papaya trees grow everywhere around this part of Asia, so chances are I'd be stuck eating it elsewhere in the trip. Might as well learn to like the stuff.
Back on the bus, we made a quick drive to Vihara Phra Mongkol Bopit, an historic temple popular with Buddhist pilgrims. Inside its sim sits an incredible bronze Buddha statue, one of the largest in southeast Asia. I stood at its pedestal looking upward - I really don't know how tall it was, but I'd guess it was at least 60 feet. It was too dark inside to get a good picture; I wish I had bought a postcard from one of the monks inside. The sim was one of the first built in Ayutthaya, but it was razed to the ground when the Burmese sacked the city in 1767. It took almost 200 years for the Thais to restore the temple to its original splendour, but most visitors today would agree it was well worth the wait.
Our last stop of the day was Wat Phra Si Sanphet, three soaring Ceylonese stupas that stand near the ruins of the royal palace. I was glad they saved the best for last - these stupas were probably the most spectacular ruins in Ayutthaya. Wat Phra Si Sanphet is now a large park, surrounded by numerous trees and thick, flowing grass. We'd have almost two hours to climb among the ruins here, so the group took off in all directions as if we were kids who had just stumbled upon an ancient playground.
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| The giant stupas of Wat Phra Si Sanphet, Ayutthaya |
I strolled along the park, amazed at the size and grandeur of the stone stupas. This was the Ayutthaya I had expected. Susanne and I climbed one of the many granite platforms that occupy the space between each stupa. We were approached by a teenaged girl and her mother, who was carrying a large umbrella to keep the sun away. They said hello and asked us where we were from. I immediately took this as an opportunity to try out my Thai - "Phom Cheu Andy, cheu Susanne." The mother and daughter smiled and introduced themselves as well; unfortunately, my ears weren't totally attuned to Thai speech so I had a hard time getting their names. I smiled and responded by asking where they were from: "Khun maa chaak thee nai?" "Maa chaak Lopburi," the girl said. I think Lopburi is north of here, but I had no idea how to ask that in Thai. They then asked us in English if we would pose for a picture, which we did gladly. Thais seemed to enjoy getting pictures of us as much as we liked getting pictures of them, so it was only fair for us to be good sports about it.
We circled the back of the stupas and found a grove of trees to catch some desperately needed shade. Susanne chatted with an English couple that apparently lived somewhere in the US now, though I didn't hear enough of the conversation to find out where. I then noticed a group of uniformed Thai schoolkids who were staring at us across the field. I made eye contact with them and several of the girls giggled. Susanne and I decided to go over and say hello. "Sawatdee khap," I said. "Phom cheu Andy. Cheu Susanne. Pen khon American." One of the smaller boys stepped forward and introduced himself as well. Soon the entire group took their turns saying hello, some using English, some speaking Thai. Susanne motioned to her camera to see if they'd let us take a picture of them. The kids immediately huddled together for a nice group photo.
Across the street I could see Wat Changlom, a tall stone prang that looked like a peeled cucumber. Wat Changlom wasn't officially on today's itinerary, but there it was, so Susanne and I decided to head over for a quick visit. As we crossed through a field of grass to reach the prang, a young girl came running towards us, smiling yet with an odd sense of urgency. I thought she was coming over to say hello. Once she reached us, she pointed to a small kiosk back by the side of the road and said, "20 baht please." It hadn't occurred to us that there would be a separate entrance fee for this wat. So we walked over to the kiosk, somewhat embarrassed, and paid the little girl's mother the 40 baht for the two of us. I quietly apologized to the woman. "Kohthoht Khap," - excuse me, I said. She replied, "Mai pen rai" - it doesn't matter. I seemed to find myself in this same exchange over and over on this trip. At least my mistakes allowed me to work on my Thai accent.
We walked towards the prang along a grass covered causeway. On both sides were the foundations of stone temples that have long since vanished. Susanne suggested I climb up to the prang's upper platform so she could get a picture. The steps were terribly chipped, not to mention very thin, so I had a hard time climbing up. The sun was really bearing down on us now - each step made me a little more sweaty, a little more uncomfortable. And Susanne's camera doesn't have a zoom on it - oh, I hope it was worth it. At the top, I had a great view of the three large stupas across the road, despite the sticky haze that hung in the air. A Japanese family approached the foot of the prang and the father encouraged his daughter to make the climb as well. We met halfway down the steps, she panting from exhaustion, I panting from fear of tumbling the rest of the way down. We looked at each other and I threw up my hands as if to say "What on earth are we doing?" She laughed aloud and smiled, apparently getting some kind of meaning from my gesticulating.
Susanne met me at a mid-level platform and we walked around the prang to see if there was a view from the other side- not really. Some Thai girls were posing for a photograph when I saw a dog sitting on the stone steps above them. I quietly approached the dog and gave it a little tap on its rear. The dog happily trotted down the steps, right into the pack of girls. They all broke out in hysterical laughter. I stood there innocently and smiled back at them. There really wasn't much to see on the back end of the prang, so we climbed down and headed back across the street to an outdoor market, just to the left of the stupas. Susanne spent some time exploring the sights and smells of the dried fish and vegetables while I headed straight to a bottled water vendor.
Our group was supposed to meet below a gazebo across the road in 10 minutes, so we made our way over and enjoyed a brief respite in the shade. Once everyone was assembled, the driver arrived and loaded us into the minibus. The first hour of the ride back was quiet as we were all worn out from the afternoon sun. As we reached the outskirts of Bangkok, though, everything turned to gridlock. Hellish Gridlock. Construction along the highway had caused a 30 mile backup that forced us to stop the van every 20 feet and then sit for five minutes or more. The traffic situation was unbearable - the air conditioning only worked when the van moved, and since we weren't moving, it was only a matter of minutes before the entire group started to sweat like pigs. For the next 90 minutes everyone sat in silent frustration and anger. I did my best to relax and accept the fact that there was nothing I could do about it, but irritability was contagious. I'm tempted to say more about this experience, but thinking about it just gets me all tense again, so let's just say that two hours later, we finally got back to Banglamphu and our guesthouse. Susanne ran straight for the shower upstairs while I guzzled Coke and bottled water in the foyer. We ate toast and sesame buns for dinner, for we worried a big dinner might keep us up late.
Tomorrow we were going to Cambodia. I hoped I'd fall asleep quickly; otherwise I might end up dwelling on the days ahead.
Posted by acarvin at 10:43 PM
November 6, 1997
Bangkok's Wat Pho, The Grand Palace, Chinatown
I managed 12 splendid hours of sleep last night, despite the sub-par conditions of our room and beds. Today we would attempt to visit some of the great wats of Bangkok, famous throughout Southeast Asia. We began our day with a walk south past the Grand Palace to Wat Pho, the largest and oldest temple in Bangkok. The Palace didn't open until 8:30am, so Wat Pho seemed a natural first stop. Technically, the monastery opened to the public at 8am, but when we arrived around 8:05, there was no sign of any staff to collect our entry fee of 20 baht each. So we strolled through the open gate and made ourselves at home (we'd pay as soon as we saw the ticket collector, of course - I promise...)
Statue guardians, the Grand Palace Wat Pho is a magnificent complex of temples, pagodas, gardens, and glittering chedis reminiscent of turn-of-the-century B&W photos I had once seen of Sri Lanka. Apart from a handful of monks and the resident cats and dogs, we had the wat to ourselves. The silence and serenity made the moment all the more glorious. We wandered through the gardens, marveling at the sun's rays dancing off the chedis and the dozens of stone Buddhas swathed in saffron-dyed robes. Susanne headed off on her own in one direction while I entered one of the wat's major sims - central temples used as houses of worship. Inside I found a massive bronze Buddha coated in gold foil, surrounded by several dozen candles and incense sticks. A lone monk encouraged me to enter and take pictures, so I took off my shoes outside and came in for a closer look. I was somewhat surprised that photography was allowed in here, but the monk smiled and raised his hands in the shape of a camera in front of his face and again waved me closer to get the shot.
Wat Pho I met up with Susanne and we continued to scour the monastery grounds. By now, what began as a trickle of fellow visitors opened up into a flood of camera-toting Americans, French and Japanese tour groups, all squawking loudly in their languages of choice as guides led them around with multicoloured umbrellas. One of the groups was wrapping up a visit to the main sim, which I surmised was where Wat Pho's pride and joy was kept - the great Reclining Buddha. Once again we removed our shoes and entered the temple, this time to find a gargantuan golden Buddha, 46 meters long and 15 meters high. I had never seen anything like it before. Susanne commented how there was no chance our cameras could ever capture the sheer size of this graceful being, so we focused less on taking pictures and more on appreciating the moment - it's not like there are any convenient giant reclining Buddhas back in DC for us to visit.
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| The giant Reclining Buddha, Wat Pho |
Inside the Grand Palace
By 9am, Wat Pho teamed with hordes of farangs, so we bid goodbye to Buddha and doubled back to the north gate of the Grand Palace, a ten minute walk along the palace's high white walls. The palace itself is really more of a compound containing the traditional royal residence, various halls of audiences and important wats and ceremonial gardens. Upon entering the gate and making our way through the ticket line (where I was playfully chastised by the ticket ladies for saying "two persons, please" in Thai so it sounded more like "three persons, please"), we found ourselves in front of Wat Phra Kaew, one of the grandest temples in all of Bangkok. The pagoda's tiles flashed with thousands of multicoloured glass tiles, while the gilding of the giant chedis added even more dazzle to this wondrous site. Everything was so close together it was hard to squeeze through the throng of tourists just to get a good picture.We climbed about the main platforms surrounding the golden chedis and then entered the monastery's giant sim. At the heart of the sim, surrounded by a golden throne, sat the Emerald Buddha - the venerable talisman of the Thai monarchy. The Buddha, actually made from jade, is a 75cm stone statue that sits well protected in a bulletproof glass case. Those who enter the pagoda are forbidden to take pictures and are requested to sit or kneel on the floor, lest they insult the Buddha by standing arrogantly in his presence. Experts still debate its origins, but Thais traditionally believe that the Buddha statue was carved in India and brought to Chiang Rai by way of Sri Lanka in the 15th century. For the next 300 years, the Emerald Buddha served as the symbolic representative of regional hegemony, as conquering kings and generals would seize the statue and bring it back to their capital to place legitimacy on their reign. During these tumultuous centuries, the Buddha moved from Chiang Rai to Lampang, to Luang Prabang and Vientiane in Laos, back to Thailand by way of Thonburi (just across from modern Bangkok) and finally to Bangkok itself by General Chakri in the late 18th century. With the Emerald Buddha in his grasp, Chakri laid claim to the throne and proclaimed himself as king of Siam - today he is known as Rama I, the founder of the current Chakri dynasty. The Buddha remains inside the palace at Wat Phra Kaew, where it is adorned with royal robes - one robe each for the hot, rainy and cool seasons of the year. And to this day, only the king himself may change the Buddha's robes.
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| Wat Phra Kaew, the Grand Palace |
Royal residence and gardens, the Grand Palace Just south of Wat Phra Kaew we visited the gardens of the royal palace residence. The residence and the grand halls adjacent to it have not been the actual living residence of the king for some years now, yet they are still used for coronations, official ceremonies and the interment of royal ashes. At the center of the garden is Chakri Mahaprasat, the Great Holy Hall of Chakri. Built in 1882 by British architects, the hall combines an odd, yet successful blend of Thai, Victorian and Italian Renaissance architecture. Something about it harkened back to images of the great halls of Amsterdam or Brussels, but it still possessed a certain flair that was uniquely Thai. The tourists certainly seemed to eat it up.
We paused for a brief snack of prepackaged Haagen Dasz imported from New Jersey. We then continued north to Wat Mahathat, Thailand's premiere house of Buddhist learning. While Wat Mahathat is centered around a sim like other wats, its grounds extend for several acres in the form of tree-lined alleys and hidden passageways, all home to students, monks and some local families as well. It was a serene neighborhood surrounded by the anarchic din of Bangkok traffic. While I enjoyed the peace and quiet it provided, I felt that at some level we were intruding here, despite the friendliness of its residents. Eventually we left the campus and continued east into the heart of Bangkok.
Listen to the sounds of Bangkok!
(Requires RealAudio)
Weaving through traffic in a Tuk-Tuk
Worshippers chanting at Wat Suthat
It was now close to 11am and the heat was bearing down on us. After walking for ten minutes or so, Susanne wisely suggested we catch a tuk-tuk - Thailand's answer to India's three-wheeled motorized autorickshaws - and proceed to another wat. So we flagged down the next available tuk-tuk and roared through town to Wat Suthat, a medium size monastery that boasts one of the largest surviving Sukhothai-style bronze Buddhas, known for its thin face and sinewy fingers. The wat itself was modest compared to others we had seen this morning, yet at that particular time there was a prayer service inside, with one monk leading a group of 30 or so women in a solemn chant. I sat quietly on the floor and listened to the hypnotic drone. I captured some of the chanting on my tape recorder, though I left my camera inside my bag - it seemed a little rude to whip it out at this particular moment. The tape recorder at least allow for a more subtle approach to capturing the event.
We left Wat Suthat and turned south along a tree-lined parkway. Our next stop was Pahurat, a series of markets and neighborhoods that included Indiantown and Chinatown. The markets first appeared as a series of stalls running parallel to each side of the street. We were in the textiles and garment district - everything the cheapest of face towels to the finest silk suits could be had here for the right amount of baht.The market street terminated at a busy intersection. But the Chinatown bazaar was supposed to continue through the next block - where was it? A crowd of people covered the other side of the street, but as they moved across the intersection it became clear that the street did indeed continue up ahead, in the form of a thin alleyway that was no wider than a car's width across. This was gonna be tight.
We joined the hordes of shoppers and moved into the alley. It was wall-to-wall people - you couldn't avoid having another person touching and pressing into you at all times. A pickpocket's paradise, I thought. In order to move deeper into the bazaar, you had no choice but to go with the flow - quite literally. Pushing and shoving made no difference here, so we let the human wave carry us forward. Inside the bazaar it was hot, humid and roaring with the cacophony of shoppers and sellers. The vendors added to the din with their various noisemakers, including alarm clocks, cellular pagers, boomboxes blaring Thai pop, Indian dance music, even Aqua's now-ubiquitous "Barbie Girl" song. I bet the noise gave sellers the upper hand when bargaining - it was too loud to think so I'm sure it was damn near impossible to haggle with a clear head.
The market continued block after block for about a kilometer. Shoppers swarmed in all directions while the occasional beggar lay on the ground, wailing for alms, as nearly everyone stepped over them without even acknowledging their presence. (These beggars, I should note, were truly few and far between in Bangkok. I'd see more homeless people on my walk to work in DC than I'd see in a full day in Bangkok.) We pressed through the bazaar for half an hour until I started to feel a bit light headed. The air was hot and sticky and I hadn't fully adjusted to Bangkok time, so we paused at the next major intersection to rest with a couple bottles of Coke.
My thirst quenched, I was ready to get up and go. But as we tried to continue east, the bazaar's traffic thinned out back to an average street - whoops, we were lost. The LP guide contained a map of Pahurat and the market areas, but we had reached a neighborhood where none of the streets were labeled in English. I wondered if we were supposed to have turned left back where we bought the sodas. Not knowing exactly where we were, I suggested we walk north until we reached a major intersection. After a block or two we reached an impressive wat - a landmark on the map, I hoped. I looked at the map and saw a wat that was in the general vicinity of where I thought we were, but this wat was closed to the public, and the wat listed in the book was supposed to be a major tourist attraction. We walked its perimeter just to see if we could get inside and ask someone directions (I was eager to see if I remembered how to say left, right, and straight ahead in Thai) but all the doors were locked shut. Getting rather frustrated, we continued our walk north. Soon, I saw a sign that said "Hotel Chinatown." Aha! I was positive this place was in the book. I checked our guide and found the hotel listed on the map. Now we knew where we were; great news, but the map also proved that were now standing in the middle of nowhere. Time to hire another tuk-tuk.
A view of Bangkok from the Chao Praya Express We returned to the hotel for a quick Coke and crossed the street to Tha Phra Athit, the local canal dock for the Chao Praya River Express boats. For six baht each - about 15 cents - we caught the next express ferry heading south. We weren't going anywhere in particular, just a little maritime joyride. The ferry was crowded with local commuters and a few farang tourists with their cameras and sunglasses. I wondered if we stood out as badly as the rest of them. Susanne and I managed to find a seat, so we got comfortable and enjoyed the ride down the canal. Despite the noise of the motor, Bangkok seemed so much more peaceful from the water's perspective. Sampans and ferries came and went from one dock to the next, but as a whole the water traffic was light, especially compared to the street congestion just a few yards onshore. On the left I could see the Grand Palace in the distance, with Wat Pho's chedis not too far above it. And to the right we caught our first glimpse of Wat Arun, perhaps the city's most recognized landmark. It's the tallest wat in Bangkok, and its increasingly thinning stupa reminded me of a solid stone Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, Wat Arun was covered in scaffolding, so it wasn't exactly the awesome site you might expect. But as the universal symbol of Bangkok, it served as yet another reminder that we indeed in the heart of southeast Asia.
We neared the southern end of the express ferry route, so I suggested we get off the boat and check out the Oriental Hotel. Along with Hong Kong's Peninsula Hotel and the Raffles in Singapore, the Oriental is regarded as one of the finest hotels in Asia. Ever the aficionado of colonial-era hotels, I wanted to take a look. The hotel was awash in white - white walls, white staircases, white uniforms. It felt like an overexposed black and white photograph, or a scene from some Stanley Kubrick film. We sat for a while in the Author's Cafe, formerly a favorite haunt of Graham Greene and other globetrotting writers of the past. The cafe, also completely white, shone brightly from numerous skylights on the ceiling. A large red and white staircase circled downward in two directions, not unlike something you might find in an antebellum southern mansion. We ordered tea and scones and ate while two young Thai men in (white) tuxedos played flute and guitar. To our dismay, they performed poor interpretations of western songs like "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "Yesterday" at a pace slow enough to put asleep even the most wired of standup comics. Some visitors might call this place heaven, but after a short time it began to feel like hell in whitewash. Longing for the noise of the city, we polished off our teas and departed, pausing long enough to take advantage of the sparkling clean serenity of the hotel restrooms.
It was early evening rush hour on the Chao Praya Express, but again we managed to find some seats. Susanne soon got up and stood along the side of the boat to take some pictures. I joined her eventually and admired the view as the wake of our boat crashed below me. We reached our dock and jumped off the boat as dozens of commuters and uniformed school kids crossed on and off the ferry. Somehow it was now past 5pm and I was thoroughly exhausted, so we headed to the room for a rest. Earlier we had talked about seeing a Thai kickboxing match that night but I bitterly opposed moving myself off the bed. After some successful cajoling on Susanne's part, though, I agreed to go to a match.
Muay Thai, or Thai boxing, is the national pastime of Thailand. In Bangkok fights take place in either the Lumphini Boxing Stadium or the Ratchadamnoen Stadium, depending on what day of the week it is. Tonight, Thursday Night at the Fights would be at Ratchadamnoen. We caught a tuk-tuk near Khao San Road for the quick ride north up Ratchadamnoen Avenue to the boxing stadium. Several hundred Thais of all ages were hanging out in front of the arena, enjoying what appeared to be a festive tailgate party. We approached a ticket counter; I knew seats started around 150 baht per person, so I asked the woman at the counter, "Thaorai Baht?" - "How much?" I had gotten pretty good at understanding numbers in Thai, but with all of the crowd noise, I couldn't decipher her response. Looking rather embarrassed that she couldn't communicate with me, she stepped back and brought over her supervisor, who gazed at me, taking his index finger and pointing it upward. Isn't that a rude gesture in Thailand?, I thought. But I looked up and over the ticket window I saw in large print the number 210. Oh, 210 baht. So I handed her our 420 baht - a total of ten dollars, give or take - and purchased our second class tickets for some seats upstairs.
Susanne and I climbed the concrete stairs to get to the upper deck. Inside we found an arena in the round, with bleacher seats for our balcony level and ringside chairs below us in the first class level. In the center of the arena was the ring itself, about 30 feet square. Two tiny, thin boxers were in the ring, kneeling on the mat in prayer while their trainers prayed with them from their respective corners. In the first class seats sat a well dressed audience, talking among themselves and laughing. But in second class, it was an entirely different story: hundreds of men of all ages were standing around, waving their hands and fingers while shouting out numbers at the top of their lungs. The match would begin in under two minutes according to the clock, and people were placing their final bets. If Muay Thai was Thailand's number one pastime, placing bets on Muay Thai probably held a close second. With all the commotion, I was reminded distinctly of commodities trading at the Chicago Mercantile exchange. The shouting, the hand signaling, even the cellular phones going off - the denizens of second class had business to do, and time was running out.
The first match began with a familiar "ding" of a bell. A quartet of two drummers, a flutist and a cymbalist hammered out a continuous tribal beat, making the fight all the more exotic. The two boxers circled each other slowly, punching and kicking when the opportunity revealed itself. Each swing or kick that connected with its target scored a certain number of points, and whoever had the highest total at the end of the match would be declared the winner.
Initially, the two fighters fought rather limply, so we paid more attention to our fellow audience members instead. I noticed that our balcony level was screened in with chicken wire, like the Thunderdome in the Mad Max film - was this for the boxer's protection or ours? A large Thai man with an old knife scar wrapped across his face like a thin mustache shouted out bets during the breaks between each round. I could hear him yell, "Haa sip! Haa sip!" - "50 baht! 50 baht!" The bets would rise as the bell for the next round approached. With ten seconds before the bell, the man hollered, "Gao sip, gao sip! Roi Roi! Roi saam sip!" - "90, 90! 100, 100! 130!!!" The bell rang, the match resumed, and our scar-faced neighbor pulled out his cell phone in an apparent attempt to check voice mail. There were also a few Thai women who took part in arranging bets, sometimes more vigorously than men. In the audience I could only count a handful of westerners, yet none of the Thais seemed to pay attention to our presence. I know that may sound like an odd comment, since clearly no one would care if a couple of Thai tourists attended a boxing match in Vegas. But I considered my frame of reference: if this match had taken place in India, we would have been hounded constantly. Here, though, we were just another face in the crowd, and I took much comfort in that fact.
Listen to the Sounds of Muay Thai!
(Requires RealAudio)
Gamblers shouting their bets
at Ratchadamnoen Stadium
My gaze returned to the fight, and suddenly, Wham! One fighter leveled a stunning right foot kick into the jaw of his opponent. Sweat and blood sprayed across the mat as this poor fellow fell flat on his back, knocked out cold. His trainer tried to revive him as the audience screamed and booed. Large wads of baht were exchanged between the winners and losers. After a minute or two the trainers pulled a stretcher into the ring and carried away the downed unconscious fighter in abject defeat.
The next fight was more evenly matched, lasting a full five rounds until one boxer won in an 11-7 decision. Once again, thick handfuls of 100, 500 and even 1000 baht notes were exchanged throughout the audience. The third match started soon after 8pm. It didn't seem to be much of a fight, so we returned to the hotel by tuk-tuk halfway through the third round. Nothing like an evening of Muay Thai to wrap up a busy day in Bangkok.
Posted by acarvin at 9:10 PM
November 5, 1997
The Trans-Pacific Commute
Another wasted day at the office. It's become an annual ritual of mine, going to work with my 25-pound backpack in tow, whittling away the hours until catching a flight to some faraway place. This year, Susanne and I were going to Southeast Asia, and our flight to Bangkok was to depart from New York at 9pm. We had to get to New York from Washington, of course, so after sitting at work for six hours, thinking of Asia and pondering the possible adventures ahead, I slipped out at 3pm to meet Susanne at Washington National for the short flight to JFK. The hour hop to New York passed quickly, but it was only the first of over 24 hours of continuous travel time.
Getting to Bangkok ain't easy. Our Cathay Pacific flight would travel from New York to Vancouver in five hours, refuel for 90 minutes, and then continue on to Hong Kong - another 14 hours give or take, depending on the head winds. We'd then have another hour to spare before launching skyward again for the 2 1/2 hour flight to Bangkok. Do the math: 1+5+14+2.5 hours + layovers adds up to one long, cranky, sleepless commute.
The Cathay 747 was comfy enough - I even had the fortune of an empty seat to my right. But for whatever reason, perhaps punishment for past sins or good old fashion travel jitters, I couldn't fall asleep. Oh, for a few minutes here and there I'd nod off, but for all intents and purposes I spent the entire transpacific pond hop tossing and turning in my thin Economy Class seat. But hey, what do I care, right? I'm going to Thailand! I'm going to Laos! I'm going to Vietnam! - I think. Actual itineraries aside, excitement and anticipation pre-empted any real sleep on that particular flight. I had even done my best to stay up as late as possible, til 8am Washington DC time the next day, just to begin my sleep patterns on Bangkok time (exactly 12 hours ahead of DC). No dice. Awake like a longhaul trucker on crank. So I did my best to lay back, close my eyes and listen to La Boheme on the inflight audio system. And I waited for 14 hours.
5am Bangkok time, Wednesday morning, somewhere between Russian Kamchatka and the islands of Japan. Susanne was now awake and the cabin crew was serving the passengers a breakfast choice of omelets or beef congee - ground meat in boiled rice porridge. Earlier on the New York to Vancouver flight, I thought about how we were to spend over three weeks on Asian soil, I decided to begin the trip with an open-minded spirit. "Beef congee, please." Bad idea. Cold hamburger scraps over grits. This time, I opted the easy way out and enjoyed cold omelet instead.
Around 7am, our plane descended from its airborne perch over the South China Sea into Hong Kong harbor. I could see the marvelous karst mountains that buffet the city as we approached the runway - my first in-person view of the Far East. This trip was Real now, with a capital R - time for vacation to begin. We had just spent 24 solid hours in the darkness of night, thanks to flying piggyback with the changing timezones. But now I could finally see what was ahead of me - a whole new chunk of Asian continent to explore.
Our flight was a few minutes late so our scheduled one-hour layover became a lot less leisurely than I had hoped. Nonetheless, we managed to make it to our Bangkok flight just in time. This 150 minute flight should have been a cake walk, but anticipation got the best of me as I counted every minute of the flight, viewing our progress on the in-flight map projection. Look! We're over Vietnam. Look! We're over Laos. Look! We've entered Thai airspace. I could see that Susanne didn't need my play-by-play commentary, but I knew she was just as excited as I was. By 9:40am, we were on the ground in Bangkok.
Customs at Don Muang Airport was a breeze - ten minutes tops, half of which was spent walking down a hallway to the wrong immigration queue. We caught a taxi - a brand new Mercedes - that brought us to downtown Bangkok in about 30 minutes. We raced along a new expressway passing billboards for Intel Pentium chips, Motorola pagers and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I felt as if I were driving along I-4 through Orlando. Was this what modern Thailand was all about? 15 years of 10%+ economic growth per annum had made this nation into one of the Asian Tigers, but was this Tiger now as American as Tony the Tiger? And with the new economic realities of the recent Asian economic hangover - including the 40% devaluation of the Thai baht - was this trip to be a vacation in a land of financially depressed Western aspirations? Only time would tell.
Our taxi deposited us in front of the Peachy Guest House on Pra Athit Road, just east of the Chao Praya river's Tha Pra Athit watertaxi stop in Bangkok's Banglamphu District. The Lonely Planet guide, our perennial travel bible, had given the Peachy Guest House a peachy review, but upon inspection the hotel had all the ambiance of a rundown cannery row bar, with only a terminally bored hotelkeep manning the place. Thanks, but no thanks. We walked 30 feet up the road to the New Merry V Guesthouse. The rooms were by no means better than the Peachy Guesthouse (at $7 a night, how good could they be?) but the open air foyer was filled with travelers eating breakfast and planning their adventures as if they were visiting a Starbucks as part of their morning commute. New Merry V would be our new merry home for the next few days.
We knew from the start that today had to be a write-off. It was Wednesday, I hadn't slept since Sunday night, so we were determined to take it slowly. We focused on administrative needs instead - namely, planning our itinerary for the next 21 days. Back in Washington, I had consulted with a Bangkok travel agent named Sasha over the Internet for well over a month, so we decided to pay him a visit and buy some airline tickets. We probably could have easily used one of the many travel agencies in Banglamphu, including one at the guesthouse, but we were eager to settle the issue of whether Sasha was an expat farang living in Bangkok or if he was a Thai who just happened to be named Sasha.
Sasha, it turns out, was a Thai Who Just Happened to be Named Sasha. His English was fluent and flawless, yet with a sharp Australian accent. Sasha had spent some time in Queensland, Australia, so he was no less easy to understand than any other Aussie. And so with the flick of a credit card and a quick signature, we signed for our purchase: an honest to goodness excursion to Cambodia.
Yes, Cambodia. Susanne and I had tossed about the idea of a visit to Phnom Penh and Angkor for about six months. Initially, it seemed like a grand idea - the UN-brokered peace process was on track, Pol Pot was on the run and almost in the hands of justice. But then almost overnight in early July, Cambodia's slow but steady steps towards peace were derailed when Hun Sen, the second prime minister of Cambodia and former prime minister as appointed by Vietnam, overthrew first prime minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh in a violent coup d'etat. Phnom Penh was overrun with street-to-street gun battles, Ranariddh supporters were summarily executed, the airport nearly destroyed by shelling. Newly democratic Cambodia was again reduced to senseless anarchy.
Needless to say, the bloodshed of July shifted our minds towards Plan B: a short trip to Hanoi and Halong Bay, the beautiful karst mountain islands featured in the film Indochine. There was no way we'd go to Cambodia as long as the gun ruled the streets, but yet the dream of visiting the land of Angkor never drifted far from our hearts. Today, Cambodia is still in the hands of Hun Sen and his supporters. Yet the violence had passed and Phnom Penh had returned to normal - exactly what "normal" meant, I wasn't entirely sure. Only the tourists were staying away now. I decided to correspond with Phnom Penh residents by email, and they assured me that normality had returned to day-to-day life. Though we still opposed the Hun Sen regime, Susanne and I concluded that this was a chance to visit a nation in transition. Whether this transition was from bad to worse remained to be seen, for it certainly wasn't unprecedented in recent Cambodian history. But we decided that here was an opportunity we couldn't let slip by. Common sense and the US State Department Travelers' Advisory be damned, we were ready to tread the high wire that separated adventure from insanity.
After leaving Sasha's office, we returned to the guesthouse to shower and relax. We soon discovered that our new residence lacked hot water, but after nearly 48 hours in the same clothes, even a cold shower was blessed relief. We grabbed dinner at a restaurant along the Chao Praya river, not too far from the guesthouse. Susanne and I ate pad thai and green curry chicken as motorized sampans and ferries left their wakes crashing below our riverside table. The curry was quite delicious, but the pad thai might have been a mistake - I forgot pad thai had uncooked sprouts in it. We compensated with extra doses of Pepto Bismol before going to bed.
Posted by acarvin at 2:10 PM
