Mae Sariang

January, 2010

...awoke to watch the sun rise over the lake. The wats across the way looked much nicer without the overkill of tacky disco lights and Buddhas with disco halos.

Another early bus, this time bound for Mae Sariang. Unlike the previous two journeys, this time the road was straighter, running through a forest of tall trees. There was only one mountain range to cross, and in the valley below, a very large village fed by the terraced rice. The bus was large, comfy, and nearly empty.

Mae Sariang was another stroll of less than an hour. We had lunch at a very popular restaurant, my beef in tomato sauce unanimously elected the tastiest dish in country. the wat out front was noisy. Farmers shoot bottle rockets into the air to petition the sky gods for rain. The tell-tale Shan silver wedding cakes were here replaced by roofs of gingerbread.

Our Guest House had a riverside balcony, and it beckoned. Yet another day passed nearly horizontal beside water. Goats and cattle grazed on the opposite bank, their caretaker napping in a tree. Buffs waded nosedeep, ears twitching. The sky became mottled with cloud, the sun eventually backlit the jungle in orange. After dark, flashlights appeared, bobbing on the other side of the river: boys night fishing. Deserves a quiet night. The frogs seemed to protest. And my body molded itself to my chair. The backpacker trail has the occasional town conducive to chilling out, a short respite from the rigors of travel. Yet all Thai towns can fit the bill...

...after a few days in the wild west of Thailand, a region of wooden saloons, country BGM, and red dust, we closed the theme by following a river valley that was straight out of New Mexico. It led to a town of Hot, where I craned my neck looking for punnable English signs, but only spotted the "Hot Police Station." Wish I'd seen the firemen. I got greater mirth in a town called "Hang Dong." Arrived midday in Chiang Mai, where we'd spend the next five days...


On the turntable: Generation X, "Kiss Me Deadly"

Mae Hong Song

January, 2010

We easily could've passed more time in Pai, but hurried over to Mae Hong Song to meet up with Dew and Pom, who we hadn't been able to reach by cell (and ultimately wouldn't find). The bus ride was one of those memorable Asian journeys, crammed into the back seat and surrounded by oddly-shaped luggage. The road today was as windy as the day before, below some very impressive peaks. I was entertained by a middle-aged hill tribe couple, who were taking a ride straight out of a slapstick comedy, complete with inadvertent pratfalls. The young girl next to me was browsing a celebrity magazine whose common denominator seemed to be very large breasts, an endowment shared by the reader. The woman beside her was adamant that no one touch her bag, which had been placed on the floor in front of me. After she fell asleep, one young man wound up sprawled across it completely. Being quite close to Burma, we stopped at many check points. At one, the cop threw me a wink and a smile.

Mae Hong Song didn't impress much on first glance, and I began to regret not staying in Pai. Then we came to the lake, which became the focal point of the next couple days. We had a dinner and a breakfast beside it, and on the final morning, I sat on its shore to watch the sun appear behind the high peaks to the east.

The mountains ringing the town were spectacular, stretching over into Burma. We watched the sun drop there from the wat on the hill at the town's center. It seemed like half the town was circumambulating the chedi there, flowers in hand. A monk had climbed up and was unwrapping a piece of broad yellow cloth. Further up, a handful of monks were burning the forest, including the base of one large tree. Smoke form other fires were visible across the landscape, and by springtime, the whole thing would disappear.

We had gone into the mountains earlier in the day, to a long neck Karen village. It was composed of several dozen huts, maybe half having been converted into shops selling the textiles woven here. There was also a Catholic church built by the Koreans, as well as a small school. we spent a great deal of time at the latter, distracting the kids , to the obvious annoyance of the staff. In our party was an actual Korean school teacher, who stepped to the board to give a quick lesson. I always feel slightly uncomfortable in visiting villages, and here especially so. Half of me longed to stare and take photos, and half felt like I was gawking at the handicapped. The Thai government pays the Karen women good money to wear the neck rings, but they have no rights, and must return to their villages at night. Some of them have left the village to refugee camps at the border, populated by 15,000 people and increasing every day with those escaping the fighting across the border. The UN will relocate the lucky ones to European countries.

On the ride back to town, our driver told us that the tourist industry had yet to recover from the 2008 airport closures. He hoped that people will return in a few years. We saw very few, as we rounded out the day visiting Shan style temples done up as silver wedding cakes. The dull light inside the teak structure reflected lazily off the Buddhas.

One theme of our time in Mae Hong Song was a series of amazing meals. I had a wicked Shan curry at Mae Si Bua, followed by a coffee at a nearby cafe, as I perused a magazine about 1960's mods, wishing I could read the Thai characters. At the Salawan River Cafe, the dark interior was of a western saloon, emphasized further by Hank Williams on the speakers. Dogs snoozed in the doorways and Miki slumped against the wall like a pair of gunfighters.

On our final night, coming down the hill on a sunset walk, we found the whole town absolutely throbbing. The town was hosting a huge festival, so we moseyed on down to have a gander. It was more of a carnival, with games and rides. There were quite a few hilltribe people about, including some longneck Karen, who looked completely conspicuous in the crowds. One of them wore a hoody, to blend further. It really looked as if the entire population of Mae Hong Song was here. Most of those back in town were farang. Beside the lakeside wat, a few Thai people released paper lanterns into the sky, which rose to become yellow specks of light mingling with the crescent moon...


On the turntable: Hillstomp, "Darker the Night"

Life in Pai

January, 2010

...took an early minibus to Pai. As the road was quite curvy, none of the luggage could go on top, making for a very crowded ride. Miki and I had chosen seats well, and had a fair amount of space, but personal boundaries meant little as centrifugal forces thrust us against one another through all the turns. The Thai girl in front of us filled a veneer bag with the contents of her stomach.

Pai was a cute little town, very touristic. This had once been a backpack destination, but now fashionable middle-class Thais outnumbered the farang. It seems their numbers overtook that of the 2000 locals. Every single resident appeared to be involved in the tourist trade somehow, every structure in town being a hotel, cafe, or shop. Many of the latter had post boxes from which to send postcards, or those white cement milage signs seen on every Thai road. The town was blessed with natural scenery, of red dirt, and alpine peaks that looked a lot like New Mexico. The trees on those hills were the bare skeletal shapes of winter, but here in the valley all was warm and welcoming. The music overheard, plus the multiple flyers for yoga or similar hippie attractions had great appeal. This was a place that I could happily place a few happy weeks.

We had a stroll around town, taking all of an hour. There was nearly no traffic on the street, until you needed to cross, then a van or a bus would roar out of nowhere. It was my own private "Local Hero" moment. We wound up in hammocks overlooking the river, reading, and dozing. Kids splashed in the water, dodging the bamboo rafts ferrying Thai families downriver. There was a wat on a hill just outside town, but we couldn't be bothered to climb it, preferring instead the view from the hammock. For isn't doing nothing what this town is all about?

In late afternoon, we had a coffee in an adobe colored stucco cafe with colorful window frames that fueled further comparisons with New Mexico. Dinner riverside at sunset rounded out the day.

(Though not quite. Had a beer at an outdoor jazz cub that happened to be closed. The owner told me how Pai had built a bunch of new hotels for the increasing number of Thai tourists. Sadly, they never came...)

On the turntable: "A Dead Band's Party" (Various)

Lazing on a Chiang Mai Afternoon

January 2010

Awoke early for the bus to Chiang Mai. Shared a truck with a Swiss teacher who'd made a visa run to Laos. We discussed Thai politics and the expat situation here. This country is very strict on outsiders, apparently worse than Japan, which surprised me. We talked about Burma. He said that the current situation with the Thai king is frightening in that if the military takes over and takes a militaristic stance, it could become another Burma. That country, on the other hand, is slowly changing, prodded by China. The road up to Mengla will always stay open for the flow of goods into Thailand. When I mentioned my talk about Kengtung, he told me of a government clash with the Shan, the fighting going all the way to Tashilek. Some shells had accidentally fallen on Mae Sai, whose residents flew south. The world media had nary a word.

Our bus wound lazily through the hills into Chaing Mai. We spent about 2 1/2 hours at a cafe, reading and having coffee, then went exploring. We visited the city's oldest wat, then walked past the museum and the women's prison to Wat Singh. It was busy on this Sunday, people strolling the buildings, and under the trees that had pithy sayings strung to them. In the shade, and old car sat to be admired. A few blocks up was Chedi Luong, whose massive stone ruin hovered above all but one tree so tall it was out of proportion to the rest. The grounds were packed for the funeral of a famous, high ranking monk. Rows of chairs were lined between the pillars like in a Catholic cathedral. Men in white military uniforms patrolled around. The King's son was due to arrive for the actual funeral service the following day. Before the chedi was a two-story boat with a black elephant on the prow--the monk's vehicle to the next world. His life-like wax figure sat in a smaller boat nearby. The grounds were filled with tables offering free food. We walked and ate, walked and ate.

Out front, the Sunday market was just revving up. We walked a little but I was somewhat burned out. I can only take so much of markets. I did partake of a cheap massage, probably the best of the trip thus far. Afterward, there was a brief moment of panic when I couldn't find my cherish jade necklace, but it eventually turned up. We walked past the string orchestras sitting in the street, along the klong, and through a maze of soi to our room, the cheapest yet in Thailand, and the grottiest--cold water, mosquitos, broken windows. But the comfiest bed made for good sleep.

On the turntable: Van Halen, "Fair Warning"

On the turntable: Willa Cather, "Death Comes for the Archbishop"

Into Burma

January, 2010

...visa run back up to Mae Sai. After changing hotels, we caught the bus back north and slipped over the border. Immigration almost refused the fee, a crisp $20 folded in half, saying it was too old. Tachilek looked little different than the Thai side, only grubbier and less friendly. Our smiles weren't returned, except for one kid and an older man. The tuk-tuk drivers and street vendors were extremely aggresive, falling into step beside you, and not fucking off until the twentieth "No!" The cigarette sellers held up their cartons, thumbs cleverly concealing viagra of dubious effectiveness. The more permanent shops sold the usual tat-- clothes, tea, pirated DVDs. Men of all ages and trades walked around in longyi.

We walked gingerly along the busted concrete crumbling into open sewers. We found a wedding reception in progress, a Toyota out front done up in bows. Up the hill to a massive gold chedi. behind it, two dozen concrete monks formed a conga line behind the Buddha. Miki tried to snap a photo of some Lisu girls, but upon a shouted command from one girl, the rest fell into line behind her, out of camera range. This leader glared at Miki as she passed. The mountains in the distance were dotted with gold gumdrops. We had a goat curry in a grungy basement restaurant, which surprisingly sold Heineken. Then, back to Thailand.

In our truck was a Swiss guy with a guitar. He'd stayed in Burma for 14 days, hanging out with some musicians he'd met on a previous visit, and ringing in the Lisu new year. He said it was a drag to return to his hotel every night, as no private Burmese citizen can host a foreign guest.

Our bus rolled south to Chiang Rai. I was crammed into the seat behind the driver, sitting sideways with my knees straddling the engine block. A young girl was nearly between them, and my left knee was pressed into the flank of her overweight mother who was constantly shifting and fussing with her kids, giving me the feeling of kneeling on a waterbed. A hilltribe man behind me was leaning forward into the seat, obviously motion sick. His bony fingers pressed into my shoulders from his tight grip on the seat. The driver's wife constantly hopped on and off the bus with embarking and disembarking passengers. I wondered at a life spent hanging off a bus all day. We stopped at the drug checkpoint and for the only time out of six checks, I was asked to produce my passport. The cop swaggered down the bus in dark '70's cop shades, looking the baddass. I suppose you have to be a badass to shoot unarmed students and journalists.

Back in Chiang Rai, I changed money, had a quickie massage. On the way back, I watched a Frenchman penetrate the massage gauntlet, dismissing their siren-like calls with a simple tip of the hat. I eventually settled in with a coffee and a book on my patio at Baan Bua. Miki and I walked up to the Saturday night market, where finally got the checked kramas that we'd been searching for since Cambodia. There waas plenty of interesting food, but I was marketed out, so pushed through the old city walls to a place I'd noticed that advertised ravioli at 150 baht. the menu however quoted 250, so I gruffly told the owner that dishonesty was bad business, and walked out. A consolation prize was a Thai shrimp and chili pizza, washed down with a fine German pilsner, served up by a ladyboy waiter.


On the turntable: Treat Her Right, "Treat Her Right"

Rai and the Sky

January 15, 2010

...we awoke before dawn to catch the morning market. Over a breakfast of Chinese frybread and hot soymilk we watched the hill people sell their textiles and jewelry. A couple of old monks were on their begging rounds. I waved over a couple of guys I'd seen yesterday, one Japanese and one American. I'd noticed them when they'd arrived since the girl they were traveling with had quickly jumped atop their song taa-ou to get the bags, swinging up one sexy bare leg for leverage.

At 7:30, we climbed into our own song taa-ou with three hairdressers from Bangkok. Our truck twisted and weaved back down the mountain. A gate like a torii arch was an obvious hint of an Akha village below. I smiled at a nearby sign written with, "Agro Tourist Bureau." We stopped at an army checkpoint, its soldiers on the lookout for drugs. Men in uniform were huddled around a pot cooking rice. One soldier strode across the grounds, and I noticed one of the hairdressers nudge another. Miki and I went to see what the soldiers were eating, and they offered us each a rice ball dipped in chili sauce. It was the best rice of the trip. I looked up to notice the hairdressers giggling and filming us from the truck.

We drove for the next hour, picking up passengers along the way. By the time we stopped we had 10 aboard, plus 2 infants. Our connecting truck wasn't carrying quite as many passengers, but was cramped nonetheless. It let us out in Chiang Rai, near Wat Jet Yot, where we grabbed a cheap room at Orchid Guest House. We walked over to Orn bookshop, housed on the second floor of a quiet suburban home. Its layout and stock would rival any used bookstore in a comparably sized college town. After popping into the wat, we walked through town to a restaurant on the western edge, reputed to be the best local food in town. Nothing on the menu appealed, so we ate instead in a quaint cafe nearby. We continued our ramble, no plan in mind.

Near the river, we ran into Thom, a Frenchman we had met in Chiang Saen while we had been sitting in the street waiting for our ride north. He'd invited us to his home to stay, but as his village was 25 km out of town, we begged off. (We were to meet him yet again in front of a bar.) We passed the vocational college, the streets filled with girls in their school uniforms, which included long, hip-hugging sarongs. Nearby was the hilltribe museum, a simple yet informative intro to the subject. A group of tourists there were in the final preparations before setting off on a trek.

After a quick coffee at Cabbages and Condoms downstairs, we walked over to Wat Singh, with its beautifully carved doors and puzzling murals of Krishna. Outside, two cyclo drivers napped in their machines. Down the street we saw a man looking through a broken piece of glass burned black. I suddenly remembered the eclipse. He gave us a peek, the sun with a large chunk bitten out. By the time we got to Wat Phra Kaew, the sky was dimming as if a thunderstorm was rolling in. The temple grounds were lush and shaded, the buildings masterpieces of reddish wood and overlapping roofs. The pieces in the museum were wonderful, and I appreciated the fact that it was free. The real gem was the jade Buddha, housed in a lovely building that had a massive and apparently ancient turtle in its pond. The Buddha itself was magical in the way it captured the green light.

We zigzagged around town, occasionally looking up at the eclipse through my sunglasses lenses smeared with Tiger Balm. Later, I saw a well decorated truck with a half dozen people in the back, driving slowly past the market, speaker blaring, "The end is near! The end is near!" Past the mosque, through the market, and back to the tourist ghetto of Wat Jet Yot.

Miki and I split up, me in search of an imported beer after seeing two Germans enjoying a Weitzen earlier in the day. Afterward, I compared prices at the massage parlors around. In front of one, a sexy middle-aged woman took my arm and tried to pull me inside. Based on how she and the others were (barely) dressed, I suppose they have a more extensive repertoire than the others.

Later, we went to the night market. The food stalls were built around a large courtyard filled with plastic tables and chairs. Over food and a beer, it was a pleasant way to pass a warm summer night in January, under perfect weather. On stage, a musician was playing music that was vaguely Hawai'ian. He was later joined by a second guitarist and a drummer, the latter over-miked and playing a monotonous rhythm on congas with sticks. The singer's way of singing in his native Thai made it sound like the mic had a short. Between sets, a half dozen girls danced in a trad style, their hand swirling and turning to hypnotize, lulling us into peaceful warm places of our own making...


On the turntable: Deep Purple, "Purple Passages"
On the nighttable: Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy"

Mae Salong

January 14, 2010

We met a former Thai Air Force officer in a song taa-ou that took us to the bus. The bus, a rickety affair, dropped us at the T-junction in Ban Basang. There were a few song taa-ou there, but none would move until they got 8 passengers. We waited 30 minutes, but no one else showed up. We tried to haggle a price for a private ride, but they pulled out a piece of paper (English only, of course) claiming that they had 'set rates.' I walked to the street to hitch a ride, and the rates became unset immediately.

The road weaved and wound as it climbed to a ridgeline, following it through villages and small towns. In Mae Salong, we grabbed a bungalow and had lunch. From our table, I noted the Thai flags running up the main street, a reminder of who was in charge here, despite the overt Chinese feel. I'd noted similar flags on the border towns of Chian Saen and Mae Sai. There sems to be a strong nationalistic streak running through the Thai gut. In Laos, I rarely saw any flags, subverting the usual chest thumping at which socialist states are so adept. The flags waving throughout Thailand were a constant reminder of whose soil you were on.

We followed the ridge out to the marketplace. Akha and Risa were decked out in their finest, selling silver and textiles, not a word of English pushed past their teeth black with betel. The town's Chinese residents sold tea in more permanent shops standing behind them.

We walked up a road to the tomb of an old KMT general who had led his defeated band here in 1949. The trail became overgrown and laden with leaves, so i grabbed a large stick and tapped the path like a blind man, hoping to scare any poisonous critters away. The trail became paved again at a series of bungalows that were quite the thing 20 years ago. The style of the buildings and the grounds were quite Chinese. The trail led to a set of 718 steps that led to a temple. We arrived sweaty and out of breath at the top to find a young man teasing a dog. Not viciously, but causing it to yelp and snarl. I stared at the man, and he made a gesture with his hand like, "What? Go away!" I said, "You know, that dog is smarter than you, man," which made a woman sitting nearby laugh. We had a short stand-off, Miki and I calling him an idiot, and him glaring, but at least he stopped harassing the dog. Miki and I went into the temple, then heard another yelp. Back outside, I wanted to get the dog away from him, but saw that he wasn't making any contact with the animal, who was now asleep at his feet. Nothing I could do about that.

The view from atop the temple was incredible, with the town stretching away down the ridge, rows of tea climbing the sides. It was Chinese as touted, but was lacking in trash and squat squares of concrete. If only all China could match this. It was more like North Vietnam to me. On the way down we found a smiley, chatty monk sweeping the front walk to his temple with a three meter bamboo broom. Five minutes with him restore my faith in humanity.

We read the afternoon away on the porch of our bungalow, then walked the ridgetop main road through town. Midway down he road was a teahouse, Chinese in look, but made of dark teak, lit by candles. The entire back wall was open to reveal houses on the opposite hillside behind. A wonderful place to read awhile and soak up the view, but unfortunately, closing for the night. Our eventual destination was the Mae Salong Villa and dinner. We sat on the veranda, eating Yunnanese food recommended by the owner. the meal was good if pricey, and tainted somewhat by the owner checking on us every five minutes. Hardly her fault, since we were the only customers at that early hour. Below us, the valley and the villages hanging on the mountainscape disappeared into night...


On the turntable: Blue Oyster Cult, "On your Feet or on Your Knees"

To the Line

I walked the dawn streets looking for a place to have breakfast, filing past begging monks. Nothing was open, so I had to satisfy myself with buying bread and coffee at 7-11. I sat eating them on the banks of the Mekong. The sun was just coming out of the Lao jungle, shimmering across the river to me. I took my time here. We'd passed the better part of a week on or beside its waters, and today we'd say goodbye.

An obviously gay couple walked by, the third I'd seen in this small town. Chiang Saen must be on the gay and lesbian travel circuit. There were also some trucks vying to ruin my peaceful morning with their speakers -- one for a group called "Miracle of Life." At eight o'clock sharp, the national anthem came on and moved me along.

We flagged a passing song taa-ou for the ride north. The Golden Triangle refers to this entire area, but the town of Solp Ruak had adopted the name since it sits on the western bank of the Mekong where Thailand, Laos, and Burma come together. I'd debated a quick stop here, but the town was ugly and quite touristy, so was satisfied simply with this quick peek from the back of the truck. We began to take on more passengers now, including a few village folk, three monks, and a Burmese girl with a cosmetic of ground bark on her cheeks who was eating nuts and throwing the shells out onto the road behind us.

Mae Sai wasn't much to look at, but it certainly was bustling. I love borders and I love market towns and this town had all the best qualities of both. A real dream for people watching. Besides the obligatory Chinese, there were the broad faces of Burmese, and the dark skins of those from further west. Tribal people added color in headgear and dress. A few of them were topped with steep-pitched conical hats, balancing baskets filled with nuts across their shoulders. Dozens of vendors roasted chestnuts. I saw more thanaka, that ground bark paste on faces, especially on the cheeks of poor kids who'd come up to me with hands outstretched upon seeing my white skin. One street kid slept in the doorway of the Thai Airlines office. We walked through the cavernous Chinese market, then down the main drag with its money exchange, gold sellers, and gem shops. In one flashy cafe, three monks sipped coffee. Border guards toting M-16s strolled around looking tough. Atop the hill was Wat Phra That Doi Wau, offering excellent views into Burma. It all looked like one continuous city from up here, except that Burma had quieter streets. Near the wat was a large steel scorpion, supposedly the biggest in Thailand. I still don't know why.

We had lunch at a Burmese Muslim place, hidden down a side alley, which did a good biryani and a nice noodle soup. Later, we did an internet time out, at a shop run by a friendly Burmese guy who spoke quite good Japanese. He'd been here 20 years and told us that the economy here was dying, the death knell being Thailand's decision to change visas from 30 to 15 days. I asked him about travel in Burma, and he suggested I ask at the border.

We were toying with the idea of a trip up to Kengtung, as a kind of visa run, arriving back in Thailand with a new 15 day visa, which would carry us to the day of our flight back to Japan. I approached immigration and asked the woman there about doing a day trip. She was really funny and friendly and told me to simply walk across the border and ask. I gave her my passport and did just that. There were quite a few people sitting on the bridge, including more begging kids. Where did they belong? From here, I could see how close the buildings on both sides were. With a running start and some courage, a person could jump from the rooftop of one country to the next. On the Burmese side, a cop sat in a plastic chair reading a paper in the middle of the road, cars passing on both sides. Vehicles did a do-se-do into the opposite lane. I entered the Burmese immigration office and asked my question. A guy at a desk gestured to a guard who led me into Burma. Inside the tourist office, I found a man writing something on a piece of paper. I asked him if the road to Kengtung was open, and his answer was what was written on the paper: "The military allows people to go to Kengtung only with a guard." I pointed at the paper, and asked, "Hey, are you studying English?" He said, "Yes," and we both laughed. The military. So the situation wasn't political, but some type of unrest. The officer told me that we could take the bus, at a cheaper price that I'd thought. But we'd have to pay the expenses of the guard --salary, room, transport, etc. I thanked him, nodded to my guard, and walked back to Thailand. There was a brief moment of tension when I couldn't present my permit to cross the border, but that was cleared up with a phone call. My five minute foray into Burma ended without incident. I was amazed how relaxed and playful everyone was, far removed from the tense border I'd heard about.

Miki and I spent the rest of the day at Mae Sai Guest House, a group of bungalows on the river. They were perhaps the nicest lodgings of the trip -- walls and floors of woven bamboo with good light and strong hot water. We sat on the veranda and looked at Burma 10 meters away across the river. It felt like nosily spying on neighbors. Life there didn't seem so different from over here. The family 'next door' was busy cleaning its garden. I was annoyed with the way that the patriarch would toss veneer trash bags over the wall into the water. It was funny to see his dog eating the same trash, then be called to be fed up above. A large snake swam from Thailand to the Burmese shore, then returned again. Didn't have the correct visa, I guess.

After dark, dogs on both sides of the border began barking at one another. A drum beat from somewhere off in the hills. From the Burmese side came the sound of voices. Two or three times, the crack of gunfire made me wish I'd paid attention to the design of our bungalow's roof...


On the turntable: Van Halen, "Fair Warning"
On the nighttable: Wiliam Eastlake, "Lyric of the Circle Heart"

Happy New Year!

Thar be Dragons!

East...



West...



And in those places between...

A Lad in Saen

January 13, 2010


The dawn light was still gray as we climbed the steep stairs of Wat Jom Khao. The temple hall was decorated with paintings of Buddhist lore--most of them quite surreal. The male figures had the cheesy mustaches of a silent film villain, and the Buddha himself was quite ugly, his face old and out of proportion. Beside the temple was a low squat tower. From this hilltop, we could watch the sun rise behind the old French fort, watch the light take hold in Thailand across the water.

Back down the hill, the monks were finishing their final alms rounds. About a dozen women were kneeling in the street. Upon a certain verbal cue in the monks chant, they all simultaneously began to pour water from soft, shapely vessels.

Miki and I hustled up our own breakfast, then walked down a slope to the Mekong that served as the border. We were processed out of Laos and jumped into a waiting pirogue to make the crossing. It was ridiculous how easy it all was, how casual everyone was. Infected with this spirit I tried to talk the woman at Thai immigration into giving us 18 day visas rather than the usual 15. She seemed to go for it, until an official little man in a starched brown uniform popped his head in the window and explained (politely, but slightly aggressively) how to pay the overstay fee. Fifteen days it was.

We took a song taa-ou, following the Mekong to Chiang Saen. we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the quiet little town, past the old ruins which were much like those in Ayuthaya, usually a broad platform of raised brick, with a few chedi or a seated Buddha at the end. Unlike the segregation of the ruins into parks as at the old capital, here the town had been built to encompass them, houses and shops constructed right up to the leaf-covered grounds. Three of the old city walls remained, the fourth having crumbled into the Mekong long ago. We walked the north wall, under large trees growing through gaps in the brick.

The waterfront was lined completely with Chinese boats, their crews loading them with various goods. We watched one group carrying 5 cases of Red Bull, holding a chopstick in one hand which the foreman would take as a means of keeping count.

We spent the better part of the day at Wat Chedi Leung. The chedi is --was-- massive and furry with weeds. There was a variation on the broken platform theme in that this one had had a roof built over it to protect the large gold Buddhas it housed. A group of monks from Chiang Rai came and filled the floor with their orange forms. Two guys had unmistakable gang tattoos, and one was probably a ladyboy, very delicate in face and gesture. I found myself wondering why, if they didn't take food after noon, were so many so fat? After a brief chant, they were off again, filing in pairs through gaps in the ruins. The head monk came and found us, a nice young man of 24, who seemed eager to practice his English. Such a dichotomy, this young guy overseeing such an ancient site. Adjacent to the main hall was a small outdoor cafe called 'Heaven on Earth.' It did have a semblance of such, with thoughtfully arranged flowers, colorful art, and comfy chairs in which to pass a couple of hours.

We had a massage while the light faded, followed by a simple meal by the river. Then began the worst night of the entire trip. Our quiet, peaceful bungalow by day became the center of the party by night. Voices drifted from the vendors across the street, eventually drowned out by the thump of 3 or 4 competing sound systems. Our pipes must've backed up at some point for the air in the room became thick with the reek of raw sewage. No, I don't believe I can recommend the Chiang Saen Guest House...


On the turntable: Nirvana, "Bleach"
On the nighttable: John Nichols, "On the Mesa"

Mekong, Upriver

January 12, 2009

...we made our way down the dusty hill to where the slow boats were moored. The trip upriver to Huay Xai was touted to be 5 -6 hours, but it took us 9 1/2. Such is Lao Time. I felt sorry for those trying to cross into Thailand as we docked just 5 minutes before the immigration post closed. But this was the way I had intended to pass the day, and it was heaven to drift quietly up the Mekong, watching the mountains drop away into jungle. Our boat had long, ornately carved rails, between which soft bus seats were laid in rows to pamper spoiled white asses. The passengers were all European at first, including a French woman who seemed unable to sit still for 5 seconds. As we continued upriver, the pilot stopped about a dozen times for locals who stood on the high rock crop banks waving shirts. We stopped at one village that had a market right on the bank, and seemed to be selling nothing but T-shirts. Nearby, a couple sat eating in their pirogue, clearly embarrassed to be the subject of every one's photos.

Our pilot steered us past the low jungled hills, past the shores of rock and sand. The rocks had been carved during rainy season in a pattern that was almost purposeful, methodical. He used a proper captain's wheel, unlike the single bamboo shafts attached to the afts of the pirogues. Both his steering house and the bow contained small altars, the latter more ornate, its joss sticks lit before launching. On board, an old woman sat with her three granddaughters, none of whom moved for the entire trip. The woman seemed to have knee trouble, and was asking the French bata-bata butterfly for treatment. Again, interesting how Europeans are seen as a source of medical treatment. A Frenchman sitting nearby rubbed some sort of salve into the afflicted joint. I watched all of this to the soundtrack of my iPod, listening mostly to '60s stuff, and slightly chagrined that the "Oldies" setting now includes music from my college days.

We reached Huay Xai at dusk and grabbed a room. The owner was a gorgeous woman in her '50s, with the glamour and dress of a beauty queen. There were photos of her in her younger day, resembling two daughters well represented in the adjoining photos. Clearly brought up with great expectations, I wondered how they felt about waiting on and cooking for tourists.

We walked up the main street, taking all of 5 minutes. It was all very Thai, even on this side of the river. At the base of the long steps leading up to the Wat, a man whispered hello from the shadows of the naga's head, a clear attempt to sell drugs. We ignored him and found a restaurant on a deck overlooking the Mekong, the sun's final act being to accent the purple hills with pink. A Korean girl sat behind us, filling out her journal, and across the room, a man sat at a keyboard, his crooning being a vast improvement over the previous BGM of bad pop songs. As the Xmas lights came on, Miki and I raised our final toast with Beer Lao...


On the turntable: Genesis, "Plays Live"

Winding out of Laos

...Laos wakes early to chickens and shouted voices. Music was coming from somewhere, and like all trad music I'd heard since while in country, was of the "more cowbell" variety. This was Saturday -- market day. The town had swelled with villagers from the surrounding hills, which explained the voices and all the boats moored at the bottom of the steps. Being hill-tribe people, there was an array of colorful clothes and interesting headwear. A few women had their hair tied up in interesting buns, many at the front. They had gathered to buy or sell veggies, tobacco, silks, and meat carried in bags or arranged like a crime scene. One woman stood chatting and smiling to a friend, holding bovine forelegs with the shinbones protruding. The old-timers, as expected, had beautiful faces.

We waited fro Liu to buy a couple of chickens for his sons, then boarded a boat for the seven hour trip upriver. It was a chilly morning, but warmed up once the mist burned off. It was a pretty smooth ride, the mountains reflected off the glassy surface, with occasional rapids, which the boat seemed to climb. We passed fishermen, people damming small streams, a boatload of monks, bathing buffalo, women placer panning gold, and naked kids having kung fu battles on the beaches, complete with high kicks and flying sand. Norman Lewis talks of the monoscape of the jungle. It is the perfect camouflage, as people literally just popped out of the dense foliage. Other times, in straining your eyes, you could make out these figures and small huts, like viewing a Chinese landscape painting.

We stopped in a few villages along the way. The first was a Tai-Dam weaving village, with a sign out front saying, "No Slash and Burn Village." The villagers rushed to hang their wares in front of the homes for us, the first customers of the day. A few women were at their looms, all four limbs moving independently like a drummer. One woman was boiling silk worms and pulling the yellow thread out of the pot, while her baby slept in her lap. She offered us a each a worm to eat, which tasted just as bad as the ones I had had in Korea 13 years before. I found one scarf that I liked, weaved in remarkable detail by a women in her '80s, with failing eyesight.

We had lunch in a different village, eating in front of the hospital, closed for the day. As we ate, a large palm frond fell onto the electrical wire. I doubt that the hospital will have power when the open tomorrow.

The third village was a very poor Khmu village, which we'd noticed by its small hospital built high on a cliff overlooking the river. It was a steep scramble up sliding sand. A couple of men were repairing fishing nets, one with great dexterity considering that his right hand was gone. He'd made the bad decision to fashion a knife from a UXO. Based on the reactions we got, not many farang have come here. There was the usual parade of kids, as well as a very old man who was brave enough to come up and take Miki's hand. We passed a few old women bathing, completely unconcerned with covering bare pendulous breasts with their sarongs.

Later, we did a pee stop on a remote stretch of sand. As I did my thing, I had a fantasy about Liu and Suan, the boat pilot, pulling away, marooning Miki and I here at the edge of the jungle. Would we be able to survive, to get out? My answer came a few kilometers upriver. The entire right band had been cleared of jungle, for a new road leading to the nearby Vietnam border.

In late afternoon, we arrived at Muang Khua. The waterfront was a construction site, and the rest of the town not much better. The hotels were large, characterless concrete boxes, and before them garbage and food was strewn everywhere. People walked by doing the patented projectile nostril clear. Definitely a Chinese town. There was a hard edge here that I hadn't yet found in Laos, both from the Chinese and Vietnamese locals, and the tourists. Greeting two foreign men with a "Hello," one answered with a gruff "Bonjour." He was of the age to have possibly fought at Diem Bien Phu, 50km away. A daily bus leaves here at 6 a.m.

We met our driver from the first day, who said that the town "isn't beautiful, too noisy." We concurred. A friend of his had a guest bungalow in a village one hour away. "Great view," he promised.

We arrived in a village flanking the road, like a hundred others during the last 3 weeks. Our bungalow turned out to be a pile of blankets and a mosquito net in the back corner of a shop. Um, no. Had I been traveling with the driver from point A to point B, and these were the digs, offered up at, charitably, $1 a night, I'd be fine. The trouble was compounded by the driver's buying our dinner at a stall beside the road, whose meats were of an age slightly less mysterious than that of Dick Clark. Again, had this been part of the flow of travel, I'd be a good sport. But we'd pre-paid $70 a day, and found the food and accommodations sub-par. So we mutinied. We asked to go on to Oudomxai. Liu and the driver acquiesced, but there seemed to be some unspoken tension there. I hated this loss of trust, after three days, of what felt (naively perhaps) like friendship. Once the driver turned up, the vibe changed. There was a definite aggressiveness in both his manner and technique. What was unfortunate was that Liu seemed to have shifted sides, in deference to him. He was no longer in charge , it seemed. And our tour had begun to suffer -- the itinerary became less interesting, the amenities, less amenable.

We reached a sort of armistice over dinner in Oudomxai, the laughter and good feeling returning. What rankled though was my pride. I didn't want the driver to think I'd refused the "bungalow" because I was just another spoiled tourist looking for comfort. It was all a matter of me wanting services equaling payment rendered. Yet even this left me uneasy about how conservative I've become. Almost as amends, we wound up in what was perhaps the nicest accommodations of the whole trip -- a Chinese hotel, that while reasonably plush, couldn't offer protection from the sound of a loud TV echoing from down the hall...

...Oudomxai is a Chinese town, and the market reflected it, in the broccoli and bok choy, in the imported smokes. There were a few hill tribes about, but more often there were men in Mao caps. We drove south, stopping at a couple of uninspiring villages. One of them was a cold place, the people not interested in us at all, not returning our smiles or greetings. It was almost like an unspoken comment on cultural tourism being a trip to a human zoo. Miki were by now tired of these village visits, uncomfortable with this very point. Far better to spend a week or a month with them, offering work as an exchange for food, and hopefully, mutual understanding. A lot of these villagers are obviously unhappy with busloads of tourists dropping by to gawk and shoot photos. We quickly took the hint and fucked off.

In a single roadside stream, people were washing farm equipment, their cars, themselves. An old man smoked a cigarette through a waterpipe. Tall corn stood in rows on badly deforested hills. Banana trees extended their fingers to high-five the sky.

Our driver made quite a few stops on the way for his own personal needs--for rice, sugarcane, ice. I didn't mind much, but we spent perhaps a cumulative total of a couple hours waiting on him. I like him, despite myself.

The hills dropped, then we were at Pakbeng, a single dusty road leading up from the Mekong. The town itself wasn't much to look at, but the surrounding hills, and the river, added charm. Most of the hotels and cafes had waterfront decks, on which we had a pleasant way to pass the afternoon. There were only a handful of foreigners about, including one who lounged on a bed sitting on the veranda of a guesthouse next door. Farang began to arrive en masse in the late afternoon, trudging up the slope laden with bags like pack animals.

Our own guesthouse was pretty nice, a wooden affair of dark teak. It was noisy though, mainly from the karaoke coming up from the street. Judging solely from the thumping bass patterns, Laos has only 5 songs. And Lao people are outright bad at singing. One could argue that the pitch of the music is different from what we know in the West, but most of the singers (ahem) I heard were miles off the key of the song itself. As the bass thumped on, I began to curse the Japanese for inventing karaoke in the first place. One cafe offered a diversion in some Thai radio. I found it amusing mainly because the top news story was about predicted tapioca shortages in 2010. We live in interesting times...


On the turntable: "Still Swinging" (Various)

Nine months after...

I wrote this not long after the quake and tsunami of March 11. It appears in a less vehement form in the Quakebook collection. Buy yours here. Every cent of the proceeds go to charity.

That Friday, I awoke before dawn, in order to get to my early morning yoga class. As always, I swallowed a splash of coffee to fully rouse myself, then quickly checked my email before setting off. I noticed a message from my sister wondering if my wife's family was okay. I didn't have time then to check the news, and it was difficult to concentrate on my teaching that morning. It was only later that I saw the videos of the water rushing in. I watched one video after another, as if not quite convinced that this was real. NHK was streaming in another browser window, and in a third, I followed Facebook updates from friends. This last was the most surreal. From the nature of the messages, it was obvious that cell phone reception in Kanto was down, Facebook being the only reliable means of communication. But it was unsettling to this vicarious experience of the post-quake confusion in real-time. One post: "Where are you? Did you get the kids?" Another: "Trains stopped. Walking home. Google Maps says I should be home in seven hours." For the rest of the day I imagined my friends walking through the cold night. That night I couldn't sleep, my head filled with images of all that moving water.

The next morning, I checked in to see that a great many people I cared about were having a pretty rough time. It was also apparent that we had better access to news, when the media was still giving facts and hadn't begun squealing like nervous nellies. I went off to work, but couldn't keep my concentration. Even though my wife and I were safe in Santa Fe, loads of people checked in on us. My co-workers could see that I was disturbed. I'd already begun to hear about the sense of calm amongst the Japanese, about the absence of looting or advantage-taking. Yet minutes into my work shift, I watched a woman try on sweaters, then toss them in a heap on the shelf, all before the eyes of her two young children. In the big picture, retail came across as pathetic. My manager let me go home early . Once there, my wife told me how she'd seen a car rear-end another, then quickly U-turn in order to flee. What the hell is wrong with my countrymen? After a year back in the States, we are quite depressed about the state of things here, at the behavior we witness daily. A day before the quake we began to reassess things, and I began to look at grad schools back in Kyoto. The moral strength and cooperation we witness in Japan becomes almost the justification for a return, the sort of society in which we want to raise the child now deep in my wife's belly. I'm not such a pollyanna that I don't recognize the problems there, the things that once rankled. Over 15 years in country they'd slowly worn me down, in what one wit called "death by 1000 cuts." But America's flaws glare by comparison. (Though that's a rant for another day.)

By Sunday, we needed to turn off the laptops and go for a walk. The news was no longer fact-based and entered the realm of speculation. As the week went on, I relied more on Facebook and Twitter than any media source. The foreign press sickened me. On the first day, as I desperately tried to find out if people I loved were still alive, these websites forced me to wait for 30 seconds as they tried to sell me stuff. Their later sensationalized coverage will always be remembered as they created a panic of fleeing foreign Tokyoites and drew attention away from the true suffering going on further north. Again, the priorities and morals of my birth country astounds me.

As the week went on, our lives began to revolve around what was happening with the reactors. Online, silly humor interspersed with drop-dead seriousness gave me the impression that Tokyoites were slowly losing their minds under the worry about the radioactivity, as they were jolted yet again by another aftershock. By the following weekend, they began to write of other, more normal things, and in the international media, Japan dropped out of the top headlines.

And as we continue to live here safely in America, my sleep is still disturbed, I still finds myself occasionally shedding tears. It's incredible how emotionally attached I am to Japan. It appears the quake caused some profound seismic shift within me, as I begin to seriously consider where to live the rest of my life.


On the turntable: Asleep at the Wheel, "Live at Billy Bob's Texas"

Afoot in Laos

January 2010

...set off for a five day trek. The van left Luang Prabang, winding higher and higher into the hills. We got out in a Khmu village, where a boy of about three was playing with a large knife. We had lunch on a tree stump on the far side of the village, the floor of the jungle around us littered with dry leaves. Local people had a way of just popping out of the trees. Nearby, a couple of men were in the middle of a transaction over a water buffalo. The going rate was $500.

The path formed one section of a dike around rice fields, now brown and out of season. We crossed streams over stones, dodged large piles of scat, and scrambled over fences built to keep the buffalo out. One animal stared us down as we passed, protecting her baby which hid itself in the shrubs by the stream. Further downstream, we stepped over the crushed body of a centipede huge and nearly a foot long. Our guide Liu told us that its bite was deadlier than a cobra, bringing death in less than half an hour, unless the victim takes in opium, which will counteract the venom. Beyond this was a tall tree stump that held an egg, a few flowers, and some rice. Spirit shrine for the mountain beyond.

Above us to our right was the new road, a mere scar cut into the ridge. Some kids were sliding down the dirt slope. Spotting us, they cut across the fields to intercept. They were all pre-teen, doing their daily 90 minute commute home from school. In the morning, they leave at 5 a.m. We became a makeshift schoolbus as they followed us the rest of the way to their village singing a song, each kid taking a different verse.

The village was a mix of Lao Loum, Khmu, and Hmong. There was some sort of party going on in one of the houses. This being dry season, there was more time to play. Our appearance shifted the attention our way. We sat beneath the chief's house 'talking' to his wife and a dozen kids who'd surrounded her. One of the kids was a girl who'd followed us, who Miki and I agreed was a great beauty. She also had a certain obvious sweetness and intelligence, but what really endeared her to us was the fact that she'd done the long school commute without shoes.

We left town, along the road now, with a different set of kids in tow. They left us when the pitch became steep. The road was built in the past six months, but sections were already crumbling down the hillside. Near the top, we found some women who were lugging large branches back to their village. (Earlier, we'd seen kids as young as 5 doing the same.) This village was where we'd spend the night.

It was actually two villages; the Hmong scattered along the hilltop, and the Khmu homes just below it, built in two parallel rows bisected by a single road. We paid a visit to the chief, in whose shack we'd be staying the night. He brought us tea, which I sipped while watching his one year old grandson bathe from a spigot. He was perpetually naked and had a bell around his neck. Pigs, dogs, and chickens ran around him in the yard. The chief caught one of the latter, took it to the kitchen, and slit its throat. His son held a bowl for the blood to spill into. We'd eat its flesh for dinner. I thought about my stance on killing, how I usually insist that nothing be killed specifically for my personal consumption. I think now about how weak this is, that buying any kind of meat is always second-hand complicity in that animal's murder.

As I was thinking this, I'd been hearing a sort of gamelan, and closer inspection revealed that it was coming from the shaman's house. He was chanting in front of the spirit altar, shaking a rattle and stamping his feet, hoping to bring a cure to a sick girl in the village. Liu told us that he'd carry on like this for two hours or more, neither tiring nor stopping for food or drink.

We walked the dusty road between the Khmu homes. The huts were set back aways, with small garbage baskets sitting at the roadside like mailboxes. Unlike the Hmong and their smokey kitchens, families here had built fires out front. A group of kids were running around and jumping over shrubs and sleeping dogs. We stopped to buy some kind of sweet rice snack at the village's lone shop, and here a woman asked us to look at her sick toddler. It had gotten spots a few days before and the mother wondered if we had any medicine. The child didn't seem bothered at all, neither itchy nor in pain. I assumed it was some kind of allergy, though couldn't say for certain. Our first aid kit wasn't with us anyway. But this experience made me feel some guilt and helplessness, and solidified the fact that Westerners are seen as some kind of reverse witch doctors, bringing aid from distant realms.

We walked back below the ring of mountains fading in the light. The village had no electricity except for a single bulb hanging behind the chief's house. We sat below it, eating soup and eating the chicken that had been running in the yard an hour before. Afterward, Liu talked about the origins of the Hmong, which he'd then translate to the chief. It was interesting to see Liu's bird's eye view, having removed himself from village life to the city. The chief and his son hung on his every word, the oral tradition at work. It's amazing how well people listen if they aren't spoiled by TV. They did compromise on radio. (I'd often seen people carrying what I'd though were transistor radios in their pockets. They turned out to be cell phones with music downloads.) We listened to a Hmong radio program, a woman's a capella voice singing forlornly across mountains, valleys, and borders. When it was over, devoid of further distractions, everyone turned in by eight. I read for another hour before following. As I read, two teen girls watched me, squatting just out of sight in the darkness. (They'd watch me again as I bathed by the spigot in the morning.) And the shaman continued his chants well into the night...

...I awoke to voices and chickens. People were busy in the pre-dawn hour. We took a walk in the mist, watching kids trying to goad their chickens into a fight. They tie their bird to a string, then throw it at another bird that is just going about its business. I only saw two fights, both ending with one of the parties retreating within seconds.

At breakfast, the chief hurled stones at a pig that had bullied his own piglet away from its sop. The piglet was sleeping nearby amidst a pile of rubbish. I really liked the chief, always smiling and happy. He'd been elected just after the communists took over in '75, and had moved the village from the deeper mountains three years ago. Based on this latter info, I wondered if he'd been one of insurgents who'd terrorized the high roads for decades.

We left the village up a narrow dusty path, as the mist burned off to reveal beautiful peaks. Closer in, rice fields surrounded small huts used for rest, naps, or the occasional overnight. The road led to a Lao Loum village at the edge of the Nam Ou. We sat awhile on its bank waiting for a boat to take us up river. Below us, a boy removed water from his flooded pirogue, then set out fishing. Our own boat eventually turned up, and we rode through a glorious day, the sun on our faces, cooled by the spray.

Muang Ngoi eventually welled up on the Western bank. Fishermen and kids did their thing below the long concrete steps which we ascended to out guest house. We got a bungalow overhanging the river, with a hammock to serve as metronome for a lazy day.

The village was a single dirt lane lined with small shops. It was only about 500m long, with a wat at either end. We had lunch in a small restaurant/shop midway, where the cooking took ages. As we waited for our food, who should turn up but Ian from Dreamland. He'd had a nice day as a mahout and had arrived here after a couple of days on the river.

After lunch, we walked out of town behind an old monk sheltering from the hot sun beneath an umbrella. Liu followed suit, pulling from a tree a leaf about a meter in circumference and holding it over himself. Further along, a girl in a tree dropped tamarinds to us. Later, ducking under a low branch of bamboo, I came up too quickly and smacked my head on the next. Liu warned me about a small venomous snake that lives in bamboo. It usually minds its own business unless disturbed in the manner I'd just demonstrated.

The trail led to a wide-mouthed cave, little more than a single room. There was a pool just deep enough for wading, which deepened toward the darker, rockier back. A tourist had once slipped and died here. Looking back toward the cave mouth, the light spilling in tinted green, the sun backlighting the jungle just outside. In front was a stream that flowed from the cave next door.
Large fish, some a foot long, swam in and out of the shadows. This stream met another under the shade of a large tree overhanging the water. An Asian tourist sat in one of the branches, pondering something important. Nearby, a village girl swam naked, her mother squatting on the bank, eating taro.

Back in town, I spent the rest of the day in my hammock, watching the water moving between immobile mountains. Boats came in and out, some poled, some powered. On the opposite bank, a herd of cows were moving in one direction, a herd of buffalo in the other. Where they met, they mingled and began to graze. I liked this. Small pigs ran around and stopped, ran around and stopped.

At six, the electricity came on, so we went to eat. Afterwards I wrote, until the 10pm electricity curfew left me in mid-sentence. I went back outside to watch the stars awhile, brilliant in their full voice...


On the turntable: The Cure, "Wish"
On the nighttable: Douglas Preston, "Cities of Gold"

October 14th Elegy

Pak Ou

January, 2010

...about 100 of us are herded onto different boats. Our group is led to a small vessel that is little more than a roofed canoe powered by a small engine. The pilot sits crosslegged, hands on the steering wheel, his son of 4 or 5 at his side. The boy shivers in the cold. We're all cold. This morning, like every morning, is overcast and chilly. The cold wind at this speed isn't comfortable. But it is a delight to be on the Mekong again. The usual scenes are there: old boats trawling up-, down-, and cross-river; a new boat being cobbled together. Dozens of people on the banks, others in small fishing canoes, all of them equally photogenic. Banyam trees rising from the riverside, their root systems forests in themselves. Cows graze the rivergrass, elephants are ridden along the low jungle trees. An old truck 'liberated' from the US army is used for construction. Deathboats race by like Hot Rods, carrying their helmeted passengers. Rock reefs rise like the spines of dragons, with watermarks showing what the river can do in rainy season. We round a bend to a new series of mountains, rockier, more foreboding. Up there is the cave of Pak Ou. As we pass this point, the sun comes out, compounding the mystery.

The upper cave's darkness nearly hides the hundreds of Buddhas placed in small nooks and cracks in the rocks. The lower cave is more overt, Buddhas of every size are stacked up the front entrance, capped with a gold chedi. A warrior guards them, sitting spread-eagle at the cave mouth, though missing a head. Wonderful metaphor...


On the turntable: Spoon, "Transference"
On the nighttable: Mary Austin, "Land of Journey's Ending"

Sunday Papers Tenth Anniversary Edition

I mourn those who lost their lives that day. And I mourn those who were killed in their memory.

America, I hope you get over your national nervous breakdown soon. Ten years of violence and suspicion just weren't worth it.

Perhaps if we didn't cling so tightly to our identity as Americans. Seems to me that we are 'people' first...

Lazing in Luang Prabang

January 1-6, 2010

...our first act of the new year is to catch a bus bound for Sam Neua. Far to the north on the Vietnam border, Sam Neua was the stronghold from where the Pathet Lao launched their attacks against US forces. Curtis LeMay is famed for his comment about bombing enemy forces back to the Stone Age. Yet it could be argued that the Pathet Lao had never left the Stone Age, living and plotting their raids from a series of caves. It was these caves that I wanted to see, a bookend of sorts to the Viet Cong tunnels of Cu Chi that I'd crawled through over a decade before.

So we waited for the bus. And waited. An hour after it was to leave, it hadn't. "No problem...Maybe this afternoon...Maybe tomorrow." We could stick around Phonsovan, attend the wedding to which we'd been invited. As we made our deliberations, a bus bound for Luang Prabang revved up behind us. We boarded and left within 5 minutes.

The trip seemed repeat of the one two days before, a dreamy floaty meander along mountaintops, Hmong villages like pearls on a necklace. One village seemed populated only by children. In another, a young man kicked a cow, sending the rest of the herd spinning like bowling pins. In the next, young women play catch with prospective suitors. At a pee stop, a hilltribe woman squatted in full view beside the bus and let fly...

...for 5 days we settled in Luang Prabang. There was little to do but wander the streets, hide from the sun on the grounds of shady temples, or sip coffee on the veranda of an old colonial French building. We liked the pace, tried not to plan, not to fill our days with things to do. One day, we went up the mountain at the center of town. On another, we visited the 'museum,' little more than a tribute to a long dead king, housed in a beautiful old building. Rings that had formerly been on the fingers of US Marines were on sale in the lobby.

One hot afternoon, we crossed the river on a rickety bamboo bridge to a small village before doubling back to town along the riverbank. A few foreigners had stripped down and entered the water, letting the current pull them toward the Mekong.

I especially liked the small alley down which we were staying. We'd first stayed in a different, grungy place across town, after searching for an hour, in a town swollen for the long New Year's weekend. Hotels were booked nearly solid with 500 Thai tourists. After a mosquito plagued night, we moved to our current digs, run by a friendly Hmong couple. In the afternoons, a man across the street played a wooden marimba, accompanied by his teacher on a gamelan, who also did double duty in singing out the notes whenever his pupil got stuck. Next door was a shack whose outdoor kitchen looked out on the alley and served as center for the alley's social scene. The baby that lived in our house was slightly croupy, and the mother spent a good part of the day soothing it in a sing-song baby voice that I at first had thought was a children's program. On the other side of us was a gallery, its European owner always reading a newspaper by day, merrily drinking wine with friends at night. Across from him was the Heritage House, a one hundred year old building built on stilts and partially hidden by tall trees. At the end of the alley was a large wat, and beside it, the peaceful Mala Cafe.

The cafe was where we relaxed during the blackout, amongst the trees and the ponds and the fish. Without TV, the staff seemed bored, except for one girl who, with a small baby on the seat, rode a bicycle up and down the alley, giggling as she was chased by dogs. The blackout also caused problems at the night market, quashing the usual tunnel of light. Some vendors had their own power generators, but I felt sorry for those who didn't, as they'd have no business. But it was pleasant to sit in the garden of the guest house basking in the complete absence of man-made sound. Nothing but the voices of people coming from out of the dark, inciting the barking of dogs, all accompanied by that omnipresent marimba. When the power eventually returned, the son at our guest house turned on the TV within seconds.

The town quieted considerably after the third day of the year. Most of the time I spent sitting and watching life as it is lived in Luang Prabang. Watching the tuk-tuk drivers gossip as they'd awaited fares. (They nap in the seats, rather than slung out in hammocks like their corresponding brethren in Vientiane.) The mystery of what goes on behind the louvered blinds above the shops. Joma like a US cafe, done up with murals and warm colors. Muggy, overcast mornings burning off to become hot afternoons. The social politics of southeast Asian;  the Laotians hate the Thais for looking down on them; Vietnamese backpackers telling how they are still discriminated against by non-Viet expats.(I feel like an ass after telling the backpackers: "Ten years ago I was backpacking through your country!")  A Western tourist guy with dreads, drunk everyday by afternoon, talking to ghosts, holding a beer in one hand and a book by Coelho in the other. His local counterpart, walking down the center of the main street in a sarong like a checkered tablecloth, topped by a coolie hat. Other times, he'd be squatting in a storefront smoking his pipe. Running into White Lotus's Beatrix at breakfast one morning. The sound of Lao, like backwards English, especially in the tones of men. Watching incense swirl into beams of sunlight at Xieng Thong, inspiring thoughts on transcendence and flexibility in travel. Zigzag walking the side alleys, looking at centuries-old human technology -- cooking, weaving, carpentry. Being sniped for a photo at Art House Cafe. Monks begging at dawn, along two parallel rows: one of orange garbed boys, the other of foreign photographers right up in their faces. The ever-present rivers. With the sun high, the river looked like someone was pulling a sheet of plastic wrap over dull-looking stones.

Every night we had dinner with the Italians. After they left, we ate at a couple of fusion cafes, one screening Casablanca on the bare white wall... On the turntable: Jerry Jeff Walker, "Navajo Rug"
On the nighttable: Craig Childs, "House of Rain"

Toasting the New Year on the Plain of Jars

December 30-31, 2009

...caught a minibus bound for Phonsavan. An overcrowded vehicle pulled away to reveal another one with ample space, allowing for a peaceful ride but for the driver and his morose humor. Every time our vehicle would chase an animal off the road, he'd make a chopping motion with his hand and say, "Laap! Beer Lao!"

The road snaked along mountain ridges, the valley floor dropping further and further away, with higher, prouder, peaks rising up on all sides. I remembered how incredible Laos had looked from the air, and now I was riding over some of the same unbelievable shapes I'd seen back in 1997. Closer in, things were equally fascinating. Hmong village followed Hmong village, each of them at the highest point of their respective mountain. Many people were hard at work digging a trench beside the road. Others were taking a bundle of reeds they'd gathered, then smacked them down with great force. These would become the roofs of houses, or the mats within. Nearly everyone seemed to be at work, from the aged down to the youngest kids. Nearly all of the women were busy doing something, including pre-teen girls carrying wood on their backs, counterbalanced by a strap around their foreheads. The only people I saw idle were the men, lounging under bamboo shelters, or leaning against pillars playing guitar. A few new homes were going up. The one's we'd seen in the lowlands were raised above ground by posts, but up at this height they were flush to the ground. Where all the wood came from was a no-brainer. The Hmong are infamous for their slash and burn approach to agriculture, with the entire region devoid of trees, completely picked clean. I saw one restaurant being built at the edge of a hilltop whose sides had been cleared for the wood to build it. I can picture the entire thing sliding away with the return of the monsoon.
In one town, we passed a long line of schoolkids heading home. In another, a man, badly injured on his motorcycle, was carried off and loaded into a car. An Italian guy who had helped now washed the blood from his hands. We stopped for lunch at a sizable town that had sprung up at a T-junction. Here we picked up a Swiss bicyclist who, upon reaching this spot, had found himself out of money. Bicycle touring through Laos seems to be quite popular. I'd already seen two women riders earlier in the day. The Swiss joined us for the final 3 hours of our drive.

Phonsovan was a one street town built upon a high plateau. At night, the only lights to be seen were spilling out of the open fronts of restaurants, or from the passing vehicles, dust swirling up through their beams...

...had breakfast at Crater's Cafe, located beside the UXO museum. At nine, we joined some new friends (including the Italian with bloody hands) for a one day tour of the area. We started at a Hmong village that sat atop a red earth mountain high in the clouds. The guide seemed bemused that our biggest reactions were to the animals. Pigs and dogs ran everywhere. A few buffaloes were tied to stakes, including one with an immense set of shoulders and a gnarled ear, the blood from it still staining his upper right flank. There were pigeons in coops, and a monkey on a chain. The latter was connected to a defused bomb ringed by a tire. This village is famed for using bomb casings as fencing, or as the support beams for structures. A few were also used as planters, or as cooking implements. This is unusual in itself, of course, so our finding greater enthusiasm in the monkey was highly amusing to the guide, his high pitched giggles heard frequently. Carlo, the Italian, mentioned that there had been more bomb casings on his visit here 5 years ago. The guide said that the Vietnamese had bought much of it for scrap.

I was greatly impressed with the visit to the shaman's house, with its immense spirit altar of origami paper and light, beside an ancient poster of Bruce Lee in 'The Big Boss. " Outside, a small girl seemed absolutely terrified at the sight of us, bawling in tears and clutching tightly to her older brother. Other kids were less bothered, including two boys who pushed bricks through the dirt like they were race cars, and one girl with a curious shock of blond hair. (I saw two others while in the area, complete blondes framing dark Asian faces.) As we left, a small gang of kids walked through the village, playing war games with their water machine guns. I found it chilling, since up to a few years before, boys not much older than they had been robbing and killing bus riders with arms of a similar type. Having ridden through their villages up along the ridgelines, I could see the ease with which they could.

Our next stop was the Plain des Jars site 1. We wandered the jars that spilled across the grassy hills, taking care to stay on the paths. The dozen or so bomb craters were reminders of the perils which still exist here. Many of the craters are filled with pretty wildflowers. After lunch, we went to site 16, opened just 2 months before. There was a real sense of danger as we walked the trail through the quiet forest. Our guide chose this moment to make a phone call, and we weren't exactly sure which places were safe. (His call seemed rather important--he showing furious and manic body language as he pleaded with his 15 year old sister's boyfriend not to elope with her.) I set off alone up the trail in order to pee, and nearly shit myself to see that I was standing amidst a group of holes where UXO had been dug from the ground seemingly days before. Carlo yelled to me that he'd found a safety marker, one that I had strolled 20 meters past into the red.

Our final stop was at the Old City of Muang Khoun, which the American Air Force had flattened in a single night. It reminded me a lot of Ayuthaya. We visited a large Buddha seated on an open brick platform between two broken pillars. A group of Thai were up here, the girls posing like supermodels, the camera toting boys down on one knee in search of the perfect angle. A short drive away was a single stupa that rose like a missile into the sky. It had been hollowed out by Chinese thieves, revealing an older stupa within. A trio of girls were sitting on the grass outside, playing a game where they'd throw a stone into the air and pick up as many sticks as possible before catching it again. An older woman sat with them, laughing at everything.

Back in town again. As Phonsovan is close to the Vietnamese border, that language can be heard everywhere, particularly in its Vietnamese restaurants. We chose one near the UXO museum, me enjoying my first water buffalo meat in over a decade. Some street kids were stealing food from the plates left behind by foreign tourists. We took a portion from our own plates, put it in a bag, then gave it to them conspiratorially. This didn't endear us to the owners. Then off to bed at 10, trying to ignore the karaoke and fireworks that counted out the last hours of 2009...


On the turntable: Richard Hell, "Time"On the nighttable: Earl Ganz, "The Taos Truth Game"