Templing in Cambodia - part I

“May I ask you a question?” my roommate asked, as I stared at him bleary-eyed and uncomprehending. I’m still on autopilot, desperately trying to function while waiting for my brain to boot up. I grunt something affirmative. He strides to the fridge, yanking open the freezer door to reveal something fabric-y and blue in the back left corner. “Whose coat is that?” I look sheepish. “…and the better question, WHY is it in the freezer??”

Um, yeah. So about that……

I’m hunched unhappily in the corner, as once again I have failed to grasp that I need winter clothing in Asia to counter the frigging air conditioning. I feel like a small, disgruntled animal huddled on my half of the bench, “sleeping”, if that’s what you call being horizontal at 3 AM with your eyes closed. But since I’m shivering there is no sleep, so instead I am lying there and thinking happy thoughts of coffee and mattresses. The bench pokes me in the side, in the back, wherever, so I give up and move to the floor. I’m wearing everything I’ve got, more or less, using my sarong as a blanket and my raincoat as a jacket. As it is not currently raining in the airport, my poor jacket is not particularly effective.

Departure lounges—i.e. couches—are only available to those lucky souls with boarding cards, which we do not have, and so we are forced to spend the happy hours from 2 until 4 AM cold in the corner. “White nights” are always terrible, as the lack of intervening sleep means that it’s all just one super duper unending long day.



Cambodian immigraion is thorough. Arrival card, departure card, health form, customs form, visa application. I know my passport number now by heart, scribble it everywhere, claim not to have foreign currency or swine flu and queue up for the apparently extensive visa process. They employ about fifteen people: one to take the passport, one to open it, one to look at it, one to look at the forms, one to compare the forms to the passport, one to take your money, one to stamp the form, one to stamp the passport, one to stick in the visa, one to stamp it, one to hand it back. Yay for countries with low wages. Somehow we manage to be pretty much the very last people in line at immigration and thus the last people out, where we are greeted by a mob of drivers looking hopeful and holding signs with various names. We are neither Ms Melissa nor Ms Bzewski or whatever else was there, but we did manage to locate the youngish fellow with my friend’s name on his sign. Somewhere since exiting the plane (directly on the tarmac) the sky has fallen in, and a few fat drops turn into an apocalyptic downpour: the world, in fact, might actually be ending if this storm is any judge. The parking lot has turned into a lake and the rain seems to be falling sideways in sheets. Our driver dashes across the parking lot, already completely soaked. We expect him to come back with a car, but to our dismay we see him leaping about in a plastic poncho, trying to secure the side panels on and dry out the inside of his poor tuk tuk.



The ride has to have been one of the more miserable ones we’ve undergone – though considerably more comfortable for us than for our driver. Despite the plastic panels we were still steadily getting soaked. Strong winds buffeted the little trailer. I wondered if we would end up in a ditch some point, and the massive (and very close) lightning made me wonder if a tuk tuk would function as a faraday cage the same way a car does. I grew up in an area with lots of and quite dangerous lightning, and we learned how to tell how far away the lightning is by counting the number of seconds between the flash and the boom. As the speed of sound lags the speed of light, you can calculate that every three seconds is about a kilometer away, and every five seconds a mile. Considering that lightning can easily strike anywhere in a 2-mile (3.2 km) radius, anything less than 10 seconds is both close and dangerous lightning. This was what we like to call 1-second-lightning.

Nevertheless, we made it alive to our guesthouse, a comfortable and well-appointed little place between downtown and Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, serving hot breakfast (mmmm, omlette, yummmm), halfway drinkable coffee, and banana milkshakes. Still recovering from our drive and our night at the airport—I for my part guzzling coffee—we could happily have stayed half the morning there had our airport pickup driver not approached us and suggested we make our way to the temples. Visiting the temples requires some means of transportation: you rent a bike, or most likely, a tuk tuk and driver for the day, who will take you from place to place. Our driver proposed a 3-day tour and a fair price, so we set off.

Liberally quoted from Wikipedia:

The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single religious monument. Many of the temples at Angkor have been restored, and together they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture and have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Visitor numbers approach two million annually.

Angkor wat itself was built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. Another famous temple is the temple of Bayon, whose distinctive feature is “the multitude of serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak. The temple is known also for two impressive sets of bas-reliefs, which present an unusual combination of mythological, historical, and mundane scenes.

Interested parties can follow the history of the period, but the main point is that Angkor was the capital for several centuries, excepting about a hundred years at one point, and that the era spans periods of alternate Hindu and Buddhist dominance. Some temples belong to one faith, others to the other, and some have been converted. Some temples are mountain-temple style, with concentric stacked levels leading to an upper area with multiple shrines; others are more laterally constructed; others are a combination. Based on the style of the columns, the lintels, and the decoration, the temples can be dated to various reigns. Some temples are constructed of brick, others of sandstone, others of limestone.



We started off with the littler temples, which offered the opportunity of clambering about more or less solitary, with perhaps one or two other sweating and red faces visible. The first temple-mount we visited offered supreme views of the bucolic countryside: many people live and work inside the park, raising cattle, cultivating rice, and operating the massive syndicates supplying tourist goods to the little children who hawk them at any opportunity.

In fact, the recurrant theme of our visit was the following: we arrive at any temple in our tuk tuk. Our driver explains which temple it is and where he will wait; meanwhile, an entire pack of women and small children have descended upon us. “Hey lady! You want cold drink? You want scarves? I have lots of colors? Hey lady! Ladyyyyyyyyy! Buy from meeeeeeeeeee!” Tiny children proffer postcards and reed-bracelets, respectively 10 for 1 USD, and they dog our heels like a pack of hungry Chihuahuas. We ignore them and proceed, but they persist: “when you come back, you buy? If you buy, you buy from me!” We suspect this latter promise means something different to them than to us; as we are not buying, it is easy to promise that if we were to buy, we would do so from them. I also met one little girl who could rattle off the same spiel in alternating French and English. Some of the kids will ask where we’re from. One of them, upon hearing I’m American, replied “CapitalWashingtonDCpopulationthreehundredandsixtymillion”. I wanted to test them: “What is the capital of Spain?” I ask, and immediately comes the response: “Madrid!” while another child chants in the background: “Valencia, Barcelona, Bilbao, Malaga, Sevilla….” Ok, let’s think. A hard one: “what is the capital of Latvia?” They seem stumped, then one: “ Riga!” The children don’t learn this in school, they learn it from the tourists. At least they go to school in the morning, even if they are out selling in the afternoon. As soon as you start to talk to them, they drop their schpiel and actually talk to you; still, perhaps I’m cynical, but I fear even this apparent openness is a tactic to win “friends”: all of the sudden, they switch back to “ladyyyyyy! Buy from meeeeeeee!” which followed us everywhere.

One of my favorite temples was a ruined “jungle temple”: a flat-built temple, mostly falling down, and trees growing out of portions of it. And best of all: no one else in sight. The temple itself was huge, with room after room after room, flanked by galleries reminiscent of roman architecture, and beautiful carvings. The temple at Bayon was also magnificent, but full of tourists. Our sunset view turned out to include several hundred other tourists, but was nevertheless beautiful.



Cambodia seems obviously poorer than Thailand, with an obvious lack of 40- and 50-year olds, a multitude of children, and a dearth of future opportunities. Our driver, a guy a little younger than I am, told us that even if you can pay the fees to go to university, there’s no work; sentiments echoed by another guy I met who was looking for work in Dubai or elsewhere in the Gulf. Anywhere where there’s work.

The night markets and old market proved a pleasant change from the aggressive hawkers at the temples; they would come to you only of you expressed obvious interest in their wares, rather than trying to drag you into their shop. They would bargain but with a smile, and if you remember how much you would pay for the same stuff in the US or Europe, you’ll come away satisfied. Cambodia runs a parallel economy: both dollars and real are accepted at more or less the same exchange rate; but the influx of tourists has created tourist prices and a tourist economy separate from that which the locals pay. An excellent curry with rice will cost about $4 in a white-linen restaurant but so will standard “fried noodles with vegetables” or “fried noodles with meat” at the ubiquitous restaurants in the park; the same meal would cost about a fifty cents if you could manage to eat it “on the street”. So where $4 is less than you pay at home, just knowing that they are gouging you sometimes takes away from your appetite. The price-value relationship, therefore, is entirely subjective.




Our last night in Siem Reap, we went to a massive, and I mean massive concert. Cambodia’s “Number 1 singer” was playing in an open-air extravaganza. We rolled in late, which meant that we spent at least half an hour “rolling” in wall-to-wall motorcycles inching forward. Trying to get a tuk tuk through that was an exercise in patience and creativity; traffic congestion was exacerbated by all the people who had despaired of ever getting further and who had parked more or less where they were. Still, we edged the tuk tuk up to where we could at least hear and kinda see the concert, so if worst came to worst we could stay there. We wanted to stay together as a group, so leaving S. with his bike and us girls forging off on our own was out of the question – how would we ever find him again? Still, he parked, and we edged our way into the foray. The place was decked out as if at an amusement park, complete with Ferris wheel and food stalls everywhere. The balloon toss game was apparently also popular, as stalls for that lined the roadway for several hundred yards. B. tried some kind of meat on a stick, and all of us had boiled eggs which had been injected with some kind of pepper sauce (quite excellent) and sugarcane juice, plus traditional merengue pastries similar to those I knew in Thailand, consisting of a thin crepe-like batter cooked into small pancakes, spread with sugared egg white and cooked till crispy. We also acquired a groupie, a little boy who was fascinated with us and insisted on having his picture taken with us. I think many Cambodians don’t understand the ‘point’ of taking pictures – I think they think it’s just to take a picture and then see yourself on the screen, rather than for us touries to keep and look at later.


More to come…. I hope….

On the road again - Thailand part 6

On the road again

I thought I was sleeping, but even despite the pounding rain I could hear the collective gasp and feel the van tense as we braked suddenly, and swerved. A dog. The rain was coming down in sheets and I wondered how the driver could even see, much less brake for all of the curves he was taking at speed. I alternated between trying to sleep and not focus on my potentially imminent demise and staring nervously out the front windshield, but it was clear that there was nothing I could do at this point, and my fate was in the hands of what I hoped was a competent driver. Competent or no, the van a 15-passanger vehicule, the kind my parents didn't want me even riding in when I was younger because of their propensity to tip over, it had no seatbelts, it was 4 AM and pouring rain. At least the 4-AM part was to our advantage; traffic in Thailand is often more of an obstacle course than a path to a destinaiton, and the fact that we were not sharing the road with an armada of scooters and motorcycles contributed to our safety. Still, I can't pretend I wasn't nervous, but as I tell myself frequently, whether I die or not is determined by forces beyond my control, and worrying about it won't change it. During the daytime, traffic is barely controlled chaos. It seems like there are twice as many motorcycles as inhabitants, yet you constantly see entire families piled onto one machine. Stopping at a traffic light in Chiang Mai, you see a flock of literally hundreds of motorcycles, many of them with an additional person perched pillion-style on the back. Sometimes an old lady clings on feebly behind, or you see a woman returning from the markets with double her width in bags and baggage. There are also the sidecar varieties, though for many it's a kind of mobile shop, with things that dangle and rattle as the vehicle moves. The motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic, the shuttle busses stop suddenly in many places, and wherever there is a market it seems to spill out into the street. In the more rural areas you'd see, for example, a younger guy clinging to the back of the load of a pickup truck - at highway speeds (okay, most things only go 40 kph anyways, but still) - or a load almost three times the height of the truck, ballooning out over the sides and taking on almost comical proportions. And at some places there are cows on the road, which certainly contribute to the mayhem. This morning, the van was left swerving from the shoulder over two or three lanes towards the median (of an almost completely empty road) to avoid potholes large enough to serve as a watering hole.

We had all piled out of the house at 3 AM. It was strange to see everyone dressed and wandering around, looking sleepy and excited at the same time. We were off to Bangkok by van to meet the princess; a 10-ish hour drive. Eventually the rain must have let up and/or I must have relaxed, as I was able to more or less sleep for a few hours and awoke to a vision of verdant, mist-shrouded hills flanking some body of water, and I struggled between being awake and asleep. Mostly I was trying to decide if I was cold or if my legs were cramped; I'm not small and not usually dressed for air conditioning.

I feel you can judge a place quite a bit by its coffee; strangely, some of the best coffee producing regions seem to drink the most terrible coffee anywhere. Sumatra is not far away from here, yet most people drink 3-in-1 instant coffee, which I find drinkable under duress but not particularly good. Egypt was a mixture: Nescafe was widely available, and somewhat less so turkish coffee. But in Turkey: no Turkish coffee to be found, just cay (tea). In Europe, where no coffee is produced, they make fantastic drinks, which are exported elsewhere but otherwise horrendously overpriced. American coffee, much disparged, is at least mostly made with actual coffee grounds, and with the gentrification of coffee even that is quite drinkable. Thankfully Singapore has adopted the chinese Kopi, made from actual coffee beans, poured from the height of about a foot and a half (half a meter) and mixed with condensed milk.

All of that was a prelude to saying the coffee we had for breakfast was simply terrible, with an aftertaste of coffee filter and a strong actual flavor of some kind of spice. Or old coffee grounds, who knows. My friend ordered an ice coffee, which was also terrible but in a different fashion, with its own unique and terrible taste. Still, as anyone who knows me knows, I'm functionally retarded until after my first cup of coffee, so you can bet your buttons I drank the stuff. And wonders of wonders, I am now awake.

Despite the traffic and despite the terrible coffee, we made it alive to Bangkok, though the old guy was carsick towards the end, and we were again welcomed at the singer’s home where we had stayed the first night. They, of course, welcomed us with all manner of hospitality, which included an apparently famous and expensive dessert. Now, I’m not in general a big fan of jelly desserts and things made of strange wobbly gelatin, so I wasn’t too keen on the bowl of clear jelly surrounded by some kind of viscous clear liquid. I, ever curious, wanted to know what it was. The grandpa wasn’t really having much of anything to eat on account of his fragile stomache and general weakness, so Jun, the singer’s brother, told him it was good for health: “The last time I had it,” Jun said, “my wife couldn’t sleep for four nights.” I tasted it and didn’t like it, and it was happily lapped up by another family member. The dessert? As near as I could tell from the explanation, it was made from the saliva of seagulls, used in making their nests. Or something like that.

The motorcycle waiter, meeting the monk and other stories - Thailand part 5

Among the vast relations and friends who turned out for the celebration, there were perhaps two or three little kids and one or two other youngens around my age - surprising that so few of them are having kids; or else, the kids are grown up and gone. Nevertheless, it was nice seeing faces at least of my own generation, and I got to talking to my friend's niece, who is a recent graduate of the university and is the same age as I. She invited me to come visit her, and she would show me around Chiang Mai and her home town. So I did.



People remark how cheap clothes are in Thailand, where you can pay a few dollars/euros/francs for a "genuine" article which everyone knows is fake and which will likely fall apart within a few weeks or days if you're unlucky. And no surprise: the quality is often terrible, but at the same time, with some of the "better" fakes, it's astounding to what level of detail they copy their original. And if you happen to purchase boxer shorts, some kinds of t-shirts or a number of other articles, it's possible they originated in the back room of my friend's sister's place. Their business is making clothes which are distributed in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and elsewhere. Huge bolts of cloth go in, the three or four ladies sitting essentially in the garage whip them into boxer shorts, sewing on elastic claiming to be 'Calvin Klein' or 'Joe Boxer' or whatever. Another shed holds the finished product swathed in plastic bags and sorted in no fashion whatsoever. With much enthusiasm they managed to ferret out a few things for me to try: the baggy trousers typical of the region, popular with rural folk and tourists and otherwise no one under the age of forty; sport pants in neon green and red; a sarong; and other sundry items. We soon agreed on the necessity of 'big' opposed to 'small' sizes (I am a veritable giant here, taller than almost all of the men), and my friend's sister gave me several of the articles as a gift.



We'd brought the grandpa with, and when he got tired of the shade outside - where it's still almost unbearably hot - he went in to sleep and we went to lunch. Through innumerable back roads and avoiding potholes large enough to swallow a motorcycle without chewing, we somehow made it to The Reservoir. Steering carefully past the motorcycles parked on the embankment overlooking the lake, and so covered in foliage they were barely recognizable as motorcycles as such, we steered in to the parking lot of what appeared to be a restaurant. We ordered, still standing in the entry, and were given a reed mat, a basket of glasses, a bucket of ice and a bottle of coke, and we set off. On the shore of the lake were a series of little reed huts, each with a thatched roof and a reed floor balanced on stilts in the water. Reachable by a little gangplank, we made our way in, balancing our way across a floor with many of the reeds missing, to find a little table in the back. We spread out the reed mat, placed the low table in the middle, and distributed the glasses. Apparently our food would be delivered, and we passed the time by enjoying the scenery, and wondering if the little hut next to ours - reachable by wading a short distance through the water to a small sandbar, and the hut was floating on metal barrels - would sink completely under the weight of the 20 or so people who filled it to bursting. And because life isn't fair, they got their food before we did; we, however, got to enjoy the show. All of the sudden a motorcycle comes tearing across the field separating the huts from the restaurant, and upon closer inspection we see it is the waiter on the bike, expertly balancing a tray on one hand and steering with the other. He barely paused as well before shooting through the water onto the sandbar, where he gallantly dismounted, bounded up the gangplank and handed over their food. Ingenious.



On our way back, on one of these little dirt roads seeming to lead nowhere but actually leading back to "civilization", there was a temple. Granted, I've probably been to 20 or so so far, and in comparison, this one was downright boring. Except for the cast concrete naga staircase, I wouldn't even have known it was a temple, for it missed the opulence of its fellows. As soon as we entered, we were assaulted by a loud clacking sound, as if there were an air hocky tournament being held in the back, and indeed I thought the half-finished temple was being used as an activity center or something. Alas, it was nothing of the sort, but rather a Buddha factory. Here is where clay was pressed into little Buddha figurines, and the loud clacking noise was the die being pressed onto the base piece; the whole thing functioned somewhat like a drill press. A plug of clay is placed on the form, the person pulls the lever down sharply two or three times to press the clay into the die, the extra clay bits are brushed aside and by means of a little rotating lever, the clay piece is lifted up so it may be removed from the mold. Several young guys were busy at work, so quickly I wondered if they didn't accidentally Buddhize their fingers by mistake.

They made space and we gave it a try. I asked J., the niece, why we were doing this, if it was just for fun or for a specific purpose. I think she misunderstood me; she told me later it was their belief and not just for fun why they were doing this, and I explained I understood why they were making the Buddhas, but not why _we_ were making the Buddhas, if they have specific significance if one does it oneself, or something like that. She eventually explained that it was only because we knew the people making the figurines that we were able to do this, and it was therefore a special privilege to be able to do this.



Anyways, when I thought we were leaving, we were instead brought across the grounds to what looked like the monk's house, and we made ourselves (relatively) comfortable on the floor. Eventually the monk arrived and a few prayers were said. Now, this is not by far the first ceremony I had witnessed or taken part of since I had been here; there was the initial festival blessing, a blessing at Doi Suthep, the donation ceremony towards the building of a toilet at one of the temples, another blessing ceremony, and a commemoration of the death of my friend's son. This was, however, one of the first where the monk actually spoke to me. At the commemoration ceremony I was given a Thai name. This time, the monk asked me a few questions about myself - my name, my age, where I am from, where I lived in the US, etc - and then introduced the old guy seated next to him. "I call him my father," he said, "he's 92 years old and he has a sixth sense."

What followed is a bit difficult to describe, as it was also a bit difficult to understand. I think the grandfather was some kind of a fortune teller, or professed to do so, because he said I was in danger from something but somehow would be protected. It wasn't very clear. I had to correct their assumption that I was Christian; while I am respectful of all beliefs, I profess none of my own. He wanted to know if I meditate, and explained that the Buddha figures were one step towards doing Good Things which would bring one closer to heaven. And he told me that they had been talking about nuclear war, that they are very afraid it will come, and they feel their religion will protect them. For my part, I am still awaiting a better translation, but it boiled down to the monk giving me two little Buddha figures, explaining how to meditate, and promising that they would protect me. Lastly, the old guy examined my ring - a recent gift from my friend's father which I cherish greatly - and claimed it had been mine in a past life.

With no more comprehension than you, dear reader, we left the monk and made our way back to go to Chiang Mai for the evening. J. took us out to an amazing sushi restaurant and we collected her friends Bel and Hua for our "night on the town". The bar was open-air, full, and quite big, spilling somewhat into the street and blasting Thai rock music. The girls ordered almost 4 liters of what I found to be an overly sweet and strangely flavored neon green "cocktail", so I instead opted for a beer while they drank their concoction out of a shot glass which barely held a single piece of ice, and the boys opted for rum and soda. Being at this bar, with this crowd of kids was a strangely familiar experience, even though I had never been to this bar before nor did I know any of them: some things, like bars, are apparently similar in a lot of different places. Vendors would pass by hawking everything imaginable: jasmine wreaths, roses, snack food, more roses, more wreaths, begging for donations for the blind harmonica player, more roses, fried crickets (yes, and grasshoppers too), more roses.... the one bit that I had seen nowhere else before, besides the insects, were the elephants we looked over to find standing on the sidewalk. Where does the elephant go when it's not "working"?



Anyways, it was a good end to a good night, and I had an opportunity to speak to her friends a bit about what kinds of things they do, what they study, their plans and hobbies and such. One of them had spent a year in California, and all of them spoke at least decent English, so I enjoyed the break from my monosyllabic silence (I can communicate with my Thai family just fine, only it isn't a conversation and our mutual vocabulary is mostly restricted to kitchen objects, eating, sleeping, and temples).

Life in Thailand - Chiang Mai etc - Thailand part 4

Report date: 20 September
Days since last report: about 4
Number of times I've said sawidee-chaaaaaaaao: about 23,000

So there we were, waiting, kicking our heels (for my friend, literally kicking her heels, as she's over a head shorter than I) on the bench next to some monks. Yes, monks are people too, and they also take the songtheows to get around. I kept my eye on the small herd of red ants busily doing something at the corner of my bench, and I watched with suspicion every time one ventured towards. I'm not a huge fan of insects, and I'm a big "live and let live" kind of person, but I wasn't sure of their intentions but soon figured out if I tapped on the bench they wouldn't come any closer to me. We boarded the shuttle bus with one of the monks and a few others. By shuttle bus, I mean more or less a small pickup, whose covered bed has been modified to add seats along each sides of the bed. There's a button on the cieling when you want to stop, and you can fit at least 20 people in and hanging off the back of the thing - as we would discover on our ride back. It's how mere mortals get around, and as we weren't able to borrow someone's uncle to drive us into town, we took the bus. I was with J., my excited, bird-like little friend who showed me some of the sights of Chiang Mai: temple after temple after temple after temple (which I dutifully photographed but didn't enter). We started off in the (a) market, attracted by a large crowd to the front of the Chinese temple. "?" my friend pointed to where they were apparently giving out some kind of drink, and I nodded. She quickly returned with a brownish drink, which she--by pointing at the thing as we crossed the market--expected to be tamarind juice. It turned out to be terrible-tasting tea, which goes to show that even locals don't know everything. At the wall, she had a tuk tuk driver take our picture, and as we were asked to take pictures for some Israeli tourists, they asked where we're from. I told them I was from the US and my friend from Thailand; he said, "I suppose you don't have any problems with the language, then." "Well," I replied, "I don't speak Thai and she doesn't speak English. But we communicate just fine."

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"He't" he said, placing the dish in front of me. Mushrooms. Ta'kii'ya, chopsticks. Chan, plate. Na'am, water. Na'am'kheng, ice cubes. Na'am'geow, glass. Soom, fork. Slowly, slowly, I learn. "Arroy ma'i ka?" (do you like it / does it taste good). And the answer, bound to set the entire party into fits of laughter: "la'am cha'ao" (Northern dialect), or the more standard "arroy di". They enjoy teaching me words in Thai to expand my budding vocabulary. Sadly, I can't hardly remember any of them, but it's a start at least. I think if I lived here for a few months, with no english speakers to distract me and perhaps a basic grammar and a basic dictionary, I would eventually learn it. My friend's old schoolteacher often tells me words for things, but I can never tell if he's trying to tell me or teach me something.

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J. and I set off on bicycles. I felt I was riding a child's bike, and indeed our bikes were the same size and I doubt she comes up to 4'8". I was actually able to pedal while seated on the luggage rack in the back; but considering we were riding on (for me) the opposite side of the road in a place where traffic is (just) barely organized chaos, I decided to behave myself and ride like a normal person. The result, of course, is that I felt like a frog folded up on a bicycle. Our job: town crier. But secret-like. There was going to be a birthday party and celebration for my friend's birthday and commemoration of her son's death, and a famous singer friend was going to come, so therefore in the interests of seating and space and in a general desire to prevent the whole town from turning out, we were instructed to selectively invite some of the neighbors. I've been staying in this villiage near a small town near a larger town near the city of Chiang Mai, with about perhaps 100 houses tightly huddled along a stretch of road. This is the kind of place where roots run very deep, and indeed the house we are staying in is the one she grew up in, and who knows how many generations lived there before that. A village, like an anthill, is an organic and somehow confederate entity. It has a nature and character all of its own, and so much of the life here -- if for nothing else, in the interests of temperature -- is conducted in the shaded areas in front of the houses. Life is so much more collective and so much more public; such that any trip through the town will inevitably lead to visits with this that and the other neighbor, and it is frequent that friends and family gather for meals and to just sit. The houses come in a wide variety: some, like ours, are more solid, sprawling plaster constructions firmly anchored to the ground; others are built more or less on stilts or pilings, such that the ground floor is garage or open porch space, and the actual house is only on the second floor. I was shown one of these stilt-houses, this one made entirely of dark, lovingly polished wood. The windows were a set of sliding slats which could be opened to let in sunlight or closed at will; there was no need to insulate for cold. Large families, combined with the tradition of referring to everyone as "sister" or "brother" or "uncle" or "aunt" seriously confused my attempts at keeping people straight; I have long given up on all but a few names, but have been able to communicate with and get along with most everyone some how.



The celebration was quite a bit of work, and it seemed like half the town was already involved in the preparation. Trucks arrived bearing plastic chairs, crates of dishes and glasses, drinking water and ice chests. Until into the evening on the preceding day the women were about the snipping and preparing of food, while the men busied themselves with the awnings and chairs and the stoves and everything else, and the work recommenced early in the morning. My job was photographer, which involved wandering around and, you guessed it, taking pictures. Of course, I preferred close-up expressive portraits and candid shots, but as soon as people figured out I was taking a picture everyone would stop, turn, pose, and smile - and worse, everyone would jump into the picture and drag anyone else they could find in with them, such that instead of taking a picture of two people I was taking a picture of twenty, and then everyone always wanted to see. At about 10 the monk arrived, and he was seated on the makeshift dais made by grandpa's bed, supplemented by the wrapped donations (?) of two sets of milk boxes adorned with flowers, and various articles of his trade. At about 10:30 the guests of honor arrived: the famous singer and his entourage. The ceremony itself consisted of intonation of blessings and finally pouring the water, and I was dispatched to take pictures, which I found horribly distracting but no one else seemed to. The singer et al had been greeted by cheers and greetings, and as he sat and ate various tentative family members and neighbours approached to have their picture taken. I don't know how to gauge his fame, but he seems to be recognized more or less wherever he goes--which happened when we were out at lunch in Chiang Mai the day before. But despite all of this, he seems a very warm and straightforward person with a good sense of humor. I like, for example, that his driver is essentially an accessory family member who is not treated as a servant.

As do many people who have connections to different cultures or who live in a different country than that of their birth, my friend seems to be, as they say in German, between two chairs. In many respects, it's clear she's in her element here; her vivacious personality, which sometimes clashes with the reserved Swiss-cum-Internationalism of Geneva, seems to flourish among a veritable flock of lively and talkative people. And yet it's clear she's become accustomed to the way things work in the "developed" world, and is frustrated by the "backwardness" or "small mindedness" (in quotations not because she said it, but because the terms should be taken as illustrative and not pejorative) she sometimes encounters here. And while she tries to change some bits of their world, in the end, she will return to Switzerland and they will get on with their lives however they best can; and when she talks of Switzerland or "the colleagues" or "the office," I can imagine that these terms find little resonance in their world. Perhaps they resent her for it--though I know they are proud of her as well--but her world and theirs intersect in the shaded area in the venn diagram rather than one of a series of concentric circles.



For my part, I feel like everyone's adopted wayward child; they have welcomed me so generously into their lives, homes and hearts. Today particularly I find the elder ladies, even some I have never seen before, heartily grasping my hand or my arm and smiling up at me, which is understandable in any language. I am coddled and spoiled and almost fed to death. Everyone has learned I don't eat meat, which leaves here an astounding range of options open. I particularly like anything made out of pumpkin or mushrooms, and all of their vegetables seem so incredibly flavorful. Most of the stuff I don't even know what it is, but they've assured me it's meatless, but that means it could contain seafood or fish. Here in Northern Thailand they frequently eat sticky rice instead of loose-grained rice, which is rolled into a ball in the palm of the hand and used to scoop food from a communal serving dish. You use your thumb and the ball of rice to pick up a small portion of whatever it is, and then place it directly in your mouth without somehow dropping it in your lap or getting your fingers particularly dirty. I'm learning a lot about Thai people: those who speak English are shy, but they are curious and lively. Friends and strangers alike are greeted with clasped hands and a tipped head, and you should never touch someone's head or step over someone lying on the ground. You are not allowed to let other people buy perfume or deodorant for you (are there any exceptions? I don't know), and you are supposed to keep your head lower than the monk's and the Buddha’s in the temple.



I'm learning also that families work different here: they seem larger and much more connected than the ones I am used to; certainly much different than the typical nuclear family. It is also so that within a family there is a kind of heirarchy, where more senior members are able (expected?) to direct the others. Where "western" (I speak here for the US and perhaps Germany) cultures emphasize the individual, such that all children are, for example, equal within the family but perhaps submissive to the parents, here there is a collective emphasis that one takes care of the family as a whole first. Thus it is not too out of the ordinary that a brother moves in to care for his sister and her aging husband, or more "senior" cousins direct more "junior" ones. I was surprised, for example, that the singer's brother and his wife live with him, and that they maintain the house and help manage his life. From the "western" perspective, I would think that the brother would find this insulting or demeaning, or would grate under his brother's obvious dominance, or be resentful towards his brother's success. Perhaps my perspective is a cynical one, but that was my initial take. But they way they see it here, the singer is taking care of his brother's family by having them live with him in his mansion, and since he contributes financially to the whole thing, it's only fair that the brother and his family contribute to its upkeep.

Temple Tramping - Thailand part III

Report date: 16 September, 10h. 1 day since last report
Location: Lamphun district, Chiang Mai
Temples visited: 12 or so

He called me over. With trembling hands he took my own, slipping the ring on to my finger with his shaky ones. The ring was golden-coloured, patterned on each side and set with a greenish stone, and completely surprisingly, it fit. I admired it for a minute before slipping it off my finger and trying to hand it back to him: but he would not take it. For me? I asked in our sign language, and he nodded emphatically. Really for me? I asked again. He nodded again. Because he liked me, because I liked him, because we took good care of each other, he had given me his ring. The old guy and I had been getting on splendidly these past few days, and had developed a kind of sign language with a few English and Thai words able to cover the basics of communication. If he or I had anything more complicated to ask, we used our translator. Yesterday at lunch he kidnapped me, deciding now was the time to leave the table and return to the van, and so he took my hand and the two of us headed for the car as fast as his legs could take us, waving to the others over our heads as we left, and me all the while wondering where it was we were even going. Not bad for an 83-year-old. He still has most of his hair, which he dyes black, and most of his teeth. His voice is gravelly and difficult to understand even in Thai, so I am not all too disadvantaged. He calls me the youngest daughter of the family, and I am honored.



Yesterday was sightseeing day. The family rented a van and a driver so that everyone could come, so myself, my friend, her parents, her cousin, her uncle and two friends of her mum's all came with. And we set off, the ladies chattering happily about this and that, telling funny stories and generally having a good time. My friend wasn't feeling well and slept all the way there, and while I dozed in and out of sleep I was still fascinated by the surroundings. We travelled up past Chiang Mai to a temple called Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, one of the more famous and extravagent temples in the area atop a mountain, reachable by elevator or by climbing a 306-step-Naga (dragon) staircase. The more elderly took the lift, and the rest of us made our way as best we could with all of the French and German tourists, many toting helmets. Our group bought their lotus blossoms and entered the temple. There is a large, golden pagoda there, and one is supposed to walk around it, clockwise, holding the lotus flower. As the heathen of the group, I wasn't given a lotus flower but rather the video camera and instructed to take a lap or two for posterity. I filmed the first lap entirely with the lens cap on, which I am sure contributed significantly to the artistic quality of the shoot. Afterwards we are blessed by an ancient and friendly-looking monk who ties a bracelet around my wrist; it's not my religion and still I feel the goodwill emanating from the piece of braided string.



From Wikipedia:
Established in 1383, this magnificent temple overlooks the city from its 1,073m elevation on the slopes of Doi (Mount) Suthep, which peaks at 1,685m. It is famous for its large gold-plated chedi, visible from the city on a good clear day. Although Wat Doi Suthep is the most recently built of the temples dating from the Lanna Thai period, it is the symbol of Chiang Mai. The site was selected by sending an elephant to roam at will up the mountainside. When it reached this spot, it trumpeted, circled three times, and knelt down - which was interpreted as a sign indicating an auspicious site.



My impression of Thailand, now expanding over these last few days, is that of a country hovering somewhere between its past and its future. Its past, evidenced in its beautiful and impeccably maintained temples (unlike Egypt, where many beautiful historical relics are derelict and all are dusty) and also by its strong rural character, at least in these parts, and beautiful old houses, is also reflected in workers laboring in the hot sun, or the man transporting his wares precariously balanced on a bicycle, or the little sheds that serve as workshops or restaurants or perhaps houses. The future has marked Thailand with mobile phones and gadgets and tourists, and grand shiny new houses sprouting up across the landscape. It's an uneven mix, but not an unfamiliar one: many areas remind me of some of the small mountain towns of my youth, consisting of some newer, grander houses and a lot of older, worn down but lovingly maintained ones with dead and dying vehicules in the driveway or livestock still in the back. A difference remains that here, there is a gentle gradiation between rural and town, where I am used to a sharp divide: city, suburbs, nothing, town, nothing, town. And here, the general level of technology seems to be about ten years behind the US, though not completely. Not that I am a disciple of modernization theory - holding that having navigated the transportation networks to come to this beautiful place, with no sense of deeper connection? I have been stunned by the beauty of the temples here, far more than I have been awed or impressed by a building for a long time, just based on their sheer beauty. But sometimes I miss the connection altogether and stand, in a beautiful or famous or ancient place, I take my pictures and I leave without this place ever really having touched me. So I wonder what makes Thailand a destination, an experience as opposed to a picture. Is it being in a "developing country"? Is it just the vastly different cuisine and the different language? How much of a foreign culture can you ever take in in a few days? To a certain extent, I feel like the country which has been the most foreign to me - as an American - of all the countries I have been to has been Germany, because it was the _first_ foreign country I had been to. Despite what I found to be extensive cultural similarities, the basic experience of recognizing that things are simply done differently elsewhere, for no particular reason. The experience of discovering that light switches and door knobs and toilet flushes can look completely different and yet function exactly the same was almost a revelation. Discovering the more bizarre and extreme versions of any of the above (our appartment in Egypt comes in mind, with its eighteen light switches, some of which were behind mirrors or pictures on the wall) was in comparison less profound than that initial experience of difference.

But I digress.



I've learned how to say hello and thank you, both in standard Thai and in the Northern dialect. I feel sometimes as if I'm a performing dog when my friend whispers in my ear and I am to repeat it aloud, to peals of laughter from the assembled group, without ever knowing what I said. Still, a thank you means the most in your own language, so I try my best and let my sincerity make up for the rest. And the rest mainly consists of sign language and charades, but it works out. I spent the whole morning with the family, none of whom speak English, and we got on splendidly (though we did manage to misplace the grandfather for a few minutes, when he wandered off while we were at the second temple). The first temple we went to was holding a similar ceremony to the one we had seen a few days ago. The first thing the women did was drag me into a clothing shop and outfit me with the traditional pants and shirt of the region; I chose the colors myself but needed help in tying the pants. I'm inordinately proud of the clothing, though I will have to find a way to incorporate it into my more "modern" wardrobe. At the temple we looked around, planted the grandfather in the shade and made our way up the mountain to Wat Phra Phutthabat Tak Pha (วัดพระพุทธบาทตากผ้า). The 306 steps of the previous temple were no match for this one's 460, and in almost 90-degree heat and humidity, it's not an easy march. We make it to the top, and are greeted by a few dogs and a woman who sells us water. Apart from another couple there, the place is deserted. We settle down into the temple to drink our water and cool off, and I am struck by the serenity of the place. The only sounds are the birds, our breathing, and the distant chanting of the monks from below. This place is of another world.