Happy New Year and “Saibhadee” (Hello!) from Luang Prabang, Laos. I didn’t expect to find Internet access in Laos, but it turns out Luang Prabang is a pretty hip place. More on that below.
On December 27th we arrived in Bangkok. I must admit that after our decidedly un-western trip through Burma, I was ‘jonesing’ for a taste of home! Bangkok hit the spot. It was a perfect mix of things familiar (public transportation, city life, shopping malls, movies, etc) and things unfamiliar (Thai palaces, Thai food, Kickboxing, strange city life!). We stayed at a hotel right on the river Chao Praya (the main artery through Thailand – each country seems to have it’s own – SE Asia is a study of ‘river people’ – Burma has the Irrawaddy, and Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam have the Mekong) and were able to take in the city skyline and some of its bustle right from our window. We arrived late on the 27th and went straight to bed ahead of our day of sightseeing. On the 28th we met our guide “Buffalo” (pretty strange, I thought, but apparently many Thai people have family nicknames depending on when they were born or what animal they look or act like… I thought this might be similar to American Indian tradition. Also, one side note about guides: I was thankful for a name like “Buffalo”! Some guys have tough names for westerners to pronounce. Africa was very tough for that. And here? Well, Thailand has 44 letters and 22 vowels in its alphabet, and it’s a cakewalk to pick up words in Thai versus Burma or Laos! We’ve been lucky so far, though – we met Aew, pronounced ‘you’, an easy one, in Phuket; Yan in Burma; Buffalo in Bangkok, Rick or Reg or something that sounds like it in Chiang Rai, and Sampong, like ‘ping-pong’ he told me, here in Laos. But when a guide says, “my name is…” these days, I start to get nervous. Nothing worse than slaughtering a guy’s name each time you say it. I should know – lots of people go for “Ben Battery” instead of Batory, rhymes with “story.”). Buffalo gave us our first glimpse of “the same, but different” in Bangkok. We were off to the Grand Palace, and the best way to go is via public transport. I can relate to that, I thought. In a river city, though, public transport means ‘by boat’! There are “boat stops” along the Chao Praya just like we have bus stops along Central Park West. These floating piers are marked by the mashed up tires that serve as bumpers for the large boats that crash into them. The boats themselves are about 40 feet long, and seat or stand about twice as many as a bus. The most amazing thing was the way the boats “parallel parked” along the boat stop. Regular river traffic made a simple docking impossible and inefficient, so these guys drove past the stop, then backed the back-end of the boat (the loading and unloading area) up against the pier. A boat driver had two helpers on board – one person to collect the money (fare was 10 baht, or 25 cents) and another at the back-end with a whistle. The whistle-blower was like a dog-trainer, using subtle tones to denote different things. One note meant keep backing up, another meant, cut it hard left, and another meant all clear. I wondered what the signal for “oh crap, a tourist just missed the dock and fell in the water” was as I leapt off the boat as it jerked away headed for the next stop. I will say this – if you are not lined up ready to jump off, you’ll have t swim for it! What a great way to keep things running on time! I had to respect these drivers and their “whistlers”, though. Imagine backing a 40-foot boat into a small dock with perfect precision…it’s the equivalent of aligning the gas cap of your Toyota with a nozzle on 42nd street in New York during rush hour! And when your buddy hops out to guide you, make him doing with whistles only!
The Grand Palace was beautiful – Thai people are known for their aesthetic sensibility, and the palace and the grounds were just works or art. Perfectly positioned and built, resplendent in gold, blue, yellow, red, and green, guarded by snakes, ogres, dragons, and other mythical beings. Next to the Grand Palace we saw the famed “Emerald Buddha” (which is actually made of jade) and Thailand’s largest Reclining Buddha. Tourists were everywhere, though, and we were happy to leave the Palace area behind and head north of the city to boat through its canals. Many Thai people still live right on the river, and it was another example of “different, but same” – homes were above water level, on stilts, and people had garages with boats rather than cars. Instead of a front gate to the house, each home had its own personal docking area, a small pier that jutted out into the river. It usually consisted of a few covered benches, decorations, and a sleeping or pacing dog (gimme some land, please gimme some land…I ain’t a fish…where do I bury this bone? Help me…please help me…). Looking down the canal, it made a perfect street scene from any America suburb, once you swap out the canal for a road and the boats for cars. There were even ice cream boats that rang bells for the children. One distinguishing feature, though, were the boat vendors. Old women would pull up to a pier with their grocery boats and do their shopping. Men would beckon to a hardware boat because they needed a light fixture. Our driver even pulled up alongside a drug store boat and bought some sort of ginseng elixir. We saw women sewing, men working or cleaning, and kids playing, right along the canal. Their houses were neat and trim, and well structured. A perfect watery neighborhood!
From the neighborhood tour we had lunch along the Chao Praya (Thai food is really, really great…I am addicted to spring rolls and Phad Thai…and peanut sauce? Mmmmm…), and then were left to wander the city on our own. We headed to the mall because I needed to pick up another memory card for my digital camera. We traveled via the “Sky-Train,” a clean, cheap and fun elevated train system that transects the city. The Mall was just like any in the US, only much, much cheaper. I found my card, and we wandered the shops, just checking things out. We had dinner at a sushi joint in the mall that looked like it had more locals than tourists in it, and we went to the movies! Yep, a real taste of home. We saw the Two Towers, in English with Thai subtitles (how the heck do you say “Frodo” in Thai???), from the Siam Centre Mall in Bangkok, Thailand. I’m not sure why, but seeing movies in foreign countries always strikes me as funny. It seems like film is so “American”, and for those two hours or so I am transported home. For some strange reason I can
remember almost all the movies I saw in foreign countries. It must have started as a kid, because I can remember being so excited to see King Kong when it came to our small town in the south of France. I also distinctly remember seeing Star Wars in Amsterdam in 1978. I was 6! My mom had to coax me into the theater past the life-size cardboard cutout of Chewbacca! (He’s a good guy, she said…) For instance, I remembering seeing James Bond’s Goldeneye in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1995, The American President and Tommy Boy in Limerick, Ireland in 1996, Dragonheart in Dublin in 1996, The English Patient and the entire Star Wars re-released trilogy (in the same night…one after the other…after eating KFC…I was homesick) in Malta in 1997 – just to name a few… And now I can add the Two Towers to that list!
We spent the next two days in Thailand seeing what we could despite the New Year’s holiday shut down – January 1 was a Wednesday, so Bangkok enjoyed a 5-day weekend since they closed everything down both Monday and Tuesday as well! We wandered town as best we could, but this proved difficult because of the lay-out of the city – there are lots of elevated sidewalks and pedestrian overpasses, but this makes walking hard. To get to a park or a cool shop across the street, you have to back track to the overpass at the end of the street, cross that amidst the crush of people, then walk back down the street to just across from where you had been. It was pretty frustrating. Bangkok had car pollution, but was pretty clean aside from that. Few, if any, beggars, and we felt pretty safe at all times. I would have liked to have spent more time in Bangkok – next trip!! We did visit the National Museum, which gave us interesting historical background on the Thai culture. There have been 9 kings – the current is Rama IX – and the people clearly revere their leaders. I wonder, though… It’s actually a crime in Thailand to speak ill of the king. But why is such a law necessary if everyone loves him? I was curious, but unnecessarily. Whatever the reason for the law, people love their lives, their country and their royalty in Thailand. And frankly, I don’t blame them one bit. One side note, though: amidst all the history, the hundreds of years of kings and kingdoms in Thailand and Burma, we never read or heard one story of treachery. No Shakespearean drama, no Roman betrayal. How can this be? Is it kept from us, or are the people that pure of hear going back hundreds of years? I refuse to believe that a brother didn’t poison another brother to claim the throne as his own, for example. Or am I wrong? Am I that jaded? Raised on Hamlet and “et tu, brutus”? We did find out that Rama 8, the brother of the current king, died at 21 of a “gun accident.” We had to ask our guide – there was no mention of it in the entire museum and we had to do the math ourselves and wonder why he died at 21. Our guide said nothing further, though. Just “gun accident” and shrugged. I didn’t press it. No reason to end up in Thai prison! We also went to a neat place – the Jim Thompson House. Jim Thompson was an American who moved to Bangkok after WWII. He saw opportunities in Thai silk and single-handedly revived the Thai silk industry. He collected art, and built a nice one-acre estate for himself by refurbishing old Thai-style houses, then taking them apart (most are made with simple wooden dowels.) and moving them to his lot. Unfortunately, he mysteriously disappeared on a trip to Malaysia in the 60s and was never found. I found this strange until I read his bio and saw that he came to Thailand after the war to work for the OSS – the precursor organization to the CIA. Well, that answers why the guy mysteriously disappeared – he was obviously still working for the CIA in addition to his silk work. His house was really interesting, though, and the silk work was exquisite. We’ll be bringing a few pieces home! Our other tourist activity in Bangkok was a trip to the weekly Thai kickboxing matches. This was some spectacle. We saw 10 matches ranging from 100 lbs. to 123 lbs. These guys were tiny, but man, they packed a wallop. They just kept kneeing each other in the thighs and the kidneys. Ouch. No, thanks pal…I actually don’t like to pee
blood. This is one rough sport. Matches are 5 rounds, and of 10 matches, there was only one “knockout” – a stoppage by the referee in the 4th rounds because the guy could no longer lift his legs to protect himself. It made me wince just watching these guys. I mean, a ‘Charlie horse’ hurts, you know? I can’t imagine getting hit there 200 times!! Yeesh. Also of interest was the crowd, a motley crew of seedy Thai men who frantically waved their wagers with each round. They had a series of hand signals, and frankly, their action looked exactly the same as that on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange…
We were sorry to leave Thailand, but we thought it for the best that we were leaving on December 31st. No sense being in a potential terrorist area on New Year’s Eve. We flew to Chiang Rai and spent New Year’s Eve in a hotel in the town of Chiang Saen right along the Golden Triangle, the small area that includes the borders of Thailand, Burma, and Laos, along with 50 or so other tourists. It was quiet, but safer than Bangkok, we thought. The Golden Triangle is an area notorious for drug smuggling – particularly the opium trade. Supposedly, opium production has stopped, and patrolling helicopters in Thailand are always on the lookout for the distinctive poppy blossoms. The real trouble lies in Burma, where I mentioned that drug lords rule whole areas of the countryside with their government’s tacit approval. We visited a lookout over the triangle itself, the summer home and gardens of the former queen mother of Thailand (the current king’s mom – she grew up in Switzerland for education purposes and so loved the mountains – she built her retreat high in the hills… also she wanted it to be a project for the people to work on to get them away from opium production), and the opium museum.
From the Golden Triangle we took a boat trip down the Mekong River and into Laos. I didn’t expect to find Luang Prabang so accommodating in terms of internet access, but it’s a small sleepy town that caters primarily to a budget, back-packing crowd. I’m sitting in a small Internet café/juice bar/silk shop watching the world go by. Luang Prabang is home to about 50,000 people and there is nothing taller than 2 stories. Town is about 1 mile by ½ mile and it’s spotted with markets, temples, restaurants, and French cafes. The temples and the colonial French architecture make an interesting pair. Luang Prabang is kind of like the most laid back street in New Orleans, with a few temples and orange-robed monks added in. It’s a very comfortable place. In 1995 it was added to the United Nation’s World Heritage Sites list, and deservedly so. It’s a town full of bikes and rickshaws…a place where you can wander the streets and find bats, snakes, and live frogs for sale. They have bookshops and silk shops, and a hill, Phousi Hill, which overlooks the Mekong for miles. Tourists take $1taxi rides or just rent bikes. Certain streets are closed to all but foot traffic. It’s kinda paradise, to tell you the truth. One sad note – local people like the World Heritage classification. It guarantees tourism and also ensures this town will stay as it is – no new building, no destruction. But the people do not like the way the UN has channeled funds here. Apparently the money that is meant for temple refurbishing or general upkeep goes into the pocket of the French UN administrator here. Too bad. It’s truly a wonderful place. Yet while this area is nice and the people maintain a decent standard of living, I remain skeptical about the rest of Laos. Per capita GNP is at $200 per year, making Laos one of the poorest countries of the world. Our secret war from 1964-1973 here also dropped bombs every 8 minutes for 9 years (according to the Lonely Planet guide), giving Laos the dubious distinction of being the most bombed country in any war, ever. I suspect Luang Prabang was made a World Heritage site mainly because it’s the only bit of Lao life that was still standing after we finished with it.
Incidentally, Laos take the prize in terms of foreign exchange. To date on our travels, Zambia had the honor of giving us the “most” foreign currency for our dollar: 4500 kwacha to $1. Here in Laos, it’s more than double that: 10,500 kips to $1!!
From here it’s off to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. As always, I’m not sure what kind of access I will have here in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, so my next point of contact may not be until Singapore on January 22nd or so. Until then!
All the Best,
BEN
6 January 2003
Luang Prabang, Laos
Additional Stuff:
Weather? Southern Thailand was hot and sunny. A few rainshowers in the early morning or late evening. Burma was real hot in both Yangon and Bagan (90s), but cooled down to 75-80 in Mandalay, and even cooler on Inle Lake. Bangkok was muggy, but ok (85ish) and Chiang Rai in Northern Thailand was rainy and cool. So far Laos has been pretty temperate, and it has rained all morning so far today. It’s about 80 and humid.
Are the people different-looking and acting? The rest of Thailand (we now know) considers southerners ‘hicks’ just as we do in the US, but we had no frame of reference at the time. The central Thai people (Bangkok) were clearly more modern and westernized. This was definitely an urban vs. rural distinction, though. Northern Thai people were also more rural, yet had more Chinese features than other Thais. Bangkok was pretty hip – kids were dressed just the same as in Greenwich Village, NYC. In other areas, flip-flops and practical clothes were the norm. Bathing trunks and a tank top in Phuket and pants and a plaid shirt for a farmer in Chiang Rai. In Burma 75% of men wear a longyi (pronounced ‘long-jee’), the traditional Burmese dress. The Thais use the Burmese as the brunt of most of their jokes, and many such jokes involve the longyi, which looks just like the Scottish kilt and the Kenyan kikoy. It also took 10 days out of our 11-day trip in Burma for me to see someone wearing anything other than flip-flops. This includes military, workers at the airport, waiters, hotel staff, etc. Burmese also have more ‘Mongoloid’ features than the Thais. Some of their tribes, we found out, descend from Attila’s Hun people of central Asia, and this was clearly evident to us. So far Lao people look very much like the Northern Thai people – both in physical characteristic and dress…
SE Asian economies and consumer habits intrigue me. On a street or in a market place, there are literally hundreds of vendors selling exactly the same thing. How can this be? Where is the product differentiation? Where is the competitive edge? I have no idea how 50 people selling luggage locks for 10 cents apiece can stay in business. Can someone explain this to me? We have seen it over and over…Thailand, Burma, and Laos – and I don’t expect Cambodia and Vietnam to be different. And it’s not just tourist stuff, with high margin. I’m sure the souvenir vendors do great – one T-shirt probably puts them in the black for the week – but I’m talking about the green bean ladies, the eggplants ladies, the lock guy, the machete guy, the candle lady, the shoe guy, etc, etc ad naseum. I’m just not sure how this all works…
Books read so far:
1) The Rapture of the Deep, Michael Zinsley
2) Sex and Sunsets, Tim Sandlin
3) How To Be Good, Nick Hornby
4) Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
5) Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem
6) Travels, Michael Chricton
7) Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche
Book reviews to follow sometime soon!
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