Rookie mistakes

As of yesterday I've been traveling for eight months. Wow. I'm starting to feel the pressure of impending deadlines. And I'm still making stupid, rookie mistakes.

I was in Luang Prabang, Laos, a great little town to relax and do nothing. But since time is becoming a factor I decided to keep moving. I took a bus to the town of Phonsavan to see an archaelogical curiosity called the Plain of Jars, then took a miserable overnight bus ride to Vientiane. (Blog posts are coming on all these places.)

There I planned to visit the US embassy to have pages added to my passport. (That's a pretty cool problem to have, eh?) Then I was going to apply for a visa to Vietnam and catch a plane to Hanoi. Vietnam is the only country in Southeast Asia that does not issues visas on arrival. Most places you can just show up, pay the fee, and they'll issue the visa on the spot. You have to arrange a visa for Vietnam in advance.

I arrived in Vientiane on Saturday. Embassies are closed on Saturday and Sunday. Duh.

As crazy as it sounds I decided to take yet another overnight bus to Bangkok, because it's easier and cheaper to arrange transport to virtually anywhere in Southeast Asia from there.

I made an appointment to go the US embassy and realized that the Embassy of Vietnam is on the same block. What a stroke of luck. So I went to the US embassy and did my thing there then walked down to the Vietnam embassy ... and read the note saying that it was closed for three days in honor of the Lunar New Year, which is huge holiday in Southeast Asia.

So the earliest I could even apply for a Vietnamese visa is Thursday. I didn't want to stay in Bangkok until then, so I hopped on yet another bus this morning and came back to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

For those of you scoring at home, that's three countries in three days.

Now I have to decide what to do about Vietnam. It takes a while to travel there because it's long and skinny. The two main cities are in the far north and far south. The main tourist attractions are in the north (Halong Bay) and south (Cu Chi tunnels, Nha Trang).

So do I rush through all of it? Concentrate on one half? Do half now and half in March? Or skip it? We'll see.

While I'm in Siem Reap I hope to knuckle down and post some blog updates. It's hard to get online when you're in a bus for 12 hours every frickin' day....

Ayuthayah

I wanted to visit some of the historical ruins of the Thai kingdoms so I headed north. First I took the local train from Bangkok to Ayuthayah (ah-YOU-TEE-ah ... I think), a rickety old thing that locals use to commute. It took about an hour and a half and cost 15 baht, or about 45 cents.

I rented a bike for the day. It was a perfect sunny day, warm but not too warm, low humidity and a slight breeze. The landscaping around the temples is gorgeous. The temples are surrounded by ponds and canals, gardens and rows of trees.



Where at Angkor I felt pressed to see as much as I could, here I could relax and spend a relaxing day riding at a leisurely pace.

You can't help but compare it to Angkor, so I will:

In Angkor the jungle is dense and claustrophobic at times. Not so at Ayuttayah. Angkor is absolutely mobbed with tourists. Not so at Ayuttayah. The stonework at Angkor is masterful, still holding up well after hundreds of years in the tropical climate.

This is Wat Sri Sanphet, one of the major temples at Ayuthayah, famous for its three giant bell-shaped chedis, which exhibit a Burmese influence, or so I'm told. The chedis are impressive but the walls around them, um, not so much...



Everywhere you see foundations sinking into the ground, chedis leaning over, walls twisting in crazy waves. It helps you understand why Angkor is perhaps Southeast Asia's biggest tourist attraction, while Ayuthayah is a place where people will spend a day, if they have the time. And it's not as if the city is a historical footnote. Ayuthayah was the center of the Thai kingdom from 1350 to 1767 and home to as many as a million people.

Outside this temple there's a market with food, souvenirs and beggars. I had to give this family style points.



There's an adorable little girl all gussied up in makeup and barrettes, sawing away on some sort of stringed instrument, with a collection bucket that says in English (and Thai) "FOR EDUCATION". How could I say no to that?

Her education funds certainly aren't going towards music lessons. I should have given her more money to stop. It sounded like someone tossing and turning on a busted boxspring.

Unemployed travel bums like me rent a bike for the day for 20 baht, about 60 cents. Other tourists hire more exotic forms of transportation.



There were dozen of elephants, all decked out in gold and red, each with an umbrella attached to the seat, or howdah. If the wind blows the umbrella away you get the elephant to pick it up. Must be nice to have a job...

Everyone who visits here has this photo.



It's the head of a Buddha statue held in place by tree roots. The whereabouts of the statue's body are unknown. When I first looked at it I was reminded of the sinister atmosphere of Ta Prohm, the temple at Angkor being torn apart by the roots of giant fig trees.

But then I realized this is a Bodhi tree, the type under which the Buddha sat and gained enlightenment. Where at first it looked like the tree was strangling the statue, it now seemed as if the roots were gently cradling the head. Funny how my perspective changed just by knowing the type of tree.

Sadly, there's a fence around the tree and guard to keep people from sitting or climbing on it or taking inappropriate photos. There are signs everywhere asking tourists to stay off the statues and monuments, often in vain. I can't recall seeing signs saying, "Oh, by the way, we'd appreciate it if you didn't sit in the Virgin's lap" or "Please don't climb on the altar and have your drunken idiot friend take a picture of you hugging Jesus on the cross."

Ayuthayah is on an island formed by the confluence of three rivers, so I took a boat tour around to visit temples on the opposite side of the river banks. At Wat Phanan Choeng I saw an enormous golden Buddha statue being renovated.



The courtyard at Wat Phuttaisawan has an inner wall with dozens of golden statues of the Buddha. (I didn't count them.)



The last temple we visited was Wat Chaiwatthanaramm, perhaps the most beautiful temple I've seen in Southeast Asia. It was built in the Khmer (Cambodian) style, probably to commemorate a victory in battle against them. The sun was just about to set, bathing the brick in a soft golden light, perfect for taking pictures.

Unless your camera battery dies. This is the only photo I have of it.

Laos

I'm in the town of Luang Prabang in northern Laos after two days riding the "slow boat" on the Mekong River, sitting in an internet cafe next to a Buddhist monk. My travel guide says this may be the prettiest town in Southeast Asia. I'll see for myself tomorrow.

I spent last night in Pak Beng, Laos, which may be the coldest town in Southeast Asia. I froze my butt off for most of the day on the boat, not what I thought I was signing up for when I came here!

Hopefully I can post some pix if I can get a decent connection when I get to Vientiane, the capital, in a few days.

Quick update

I'm about to hop on a bus and head to Chiang Khong on the Thailand-Laos border. Tomorrow I'll cross the border into Laos and take a two-day trip on the "slow boat" to Luang Prabang.

No ... more ... temples

I've covered a lot of ground since I left Bangkok. I wanted to make my way to northern Thailand and visit a few of the historical sites along the way. I took the train to Ayutthaya and spent a day there. I took the bus from there to Sukhothai and spent a day there. I took the bus from there to Lampang and spent a day seeing the town and the Elephant Conservation Center. Now I'm in Chiang Mai, the tourist hub for northern Thailand.

The temples at Ayutthayah and Sukhothai aren't nearly as large (or impressive) as those at Angkor but they're also not as crowded. The sites are elaborately landscaped and dotted with canals and ponds. The weather is unusually cool here so I was able to spend a couple relaxing days riding a bike around the ruins. But my brain is full to the brim with temples and it's time to see something else.

I've got lots of good pix but I'll update the blog and respond to email when I have the time and a decent connection. In the meantime I'll probably be sitting on a bus, to where I haven't figured out yet.

I'm online with a lousy connection doing some research for the next leg of the trip. I've got a little over a month to spend before I have to be back in Bangkok to meet a friend who's coming to visit, so I need to prioritize what I want to see and plan wisely.

The Tiger Temple

Ok, so here's the real story on my River Kwai excursion. It could be considered a disaster. For starters, I ended up on the wrong tour. I was supposed to ride the train on the Death Railway, but I ended up in the wrong group. I wasn't terribly disappointed, in part because I was completely smitten with my tour guide. She looked like a Thai version of Thandie Newton.

I tried to make clever and witty conversation, but there was a definite language barrier. She spoke Thai, of course, but she also spoke English well. However, when it came to my turn to speak, all I could manage to say was "Duh" or some variation thereof.

Then my camera died at the worst conceivable time.

My tour included Wat Pa Luangta Bua Yanasampann, better known as the Tiger Temple. It's a monastery-turned-animal sanctuary where I was told you could actually touch the tigers.

We walked down into Tiger Canyon, where the tigers are kept during the day. There were maybe 15 tigers there, all sleeping. Because they sleep through the heat of the day, and because they've spent so much time around humans, they lie there while an endless stream of tourists poses for pictures with them. For the entrance fee you get to have your picture taken with one.

But for 1000 baht (about 30 bucks) you get to do this:



Look at the size of that beast, for crying out loud. My God, what a magnificent animal. These are Indochinese tigers, which can weigh as much as 400 pounds. His head is the size of a basketball. And that's no optical illusion -- his paws are that big.

I also got to do this:



And this:



That's the monastery Abbot Phra Acharn Phusit (Chan) Kanthitharo making sure my vocal cords stay intact.

There's a small army of volunteers who guide tourists through the maze. The rules are very strict about what you can wear, partly for safety, partly because it's a monastery. It was when I first lay down next to the tiger that the volunteer who had my camera noticed that the battery was dead! I nearly cried. They just happened to have disposable cameras for sale, but I haven't gotten those pix developed yet.

These photos are from my digital camera, and were taken today. When I told the girl at the hostel who booked my tour that I didn't get the tour I had paid for, she offered to send me on another tour for free, including the one I had just done. I wasn't keen on spending another 12+ hours in a minivan. But it meant I would get to ride the train, and go to the Tiger Temple again.

(I also had the crazy idea that I might get to see my beloved tour guide again. It was a different tour, though, with a different driver -- but she was my guide! Was it Fate? No, it was definitely not Fate. I still couldn't get past "Duh".)

Just up the hill from Tiger Canyon is a platform where four cubs sleep. You can just walk right up and pet them. Three of them lie in the shade of the fence while the fourth lies on the platform, where you can sit and have photos taken. (The photo at the top is of one of the cubs.) Here I am petting a wide-awake tiger cub, which happens to be the size of an adult Black Lab. Again, check out the size of those paws!



The monastery wasn't intended to be an animal sanctuary, but local villagers brought an injured jungle fowl to the abbot. Peacocks were attracted by its calls. A wounded boar was nursed by the monks and released back into the forest. He returned the next day with his family in tow. Then people started bringing tiger cubs that had been rescued from poachers.

Now there are all sorts of critters roaming around. In this photo are goats, normally camera-shy deer and -- your eyes do not deceive you -- a camel.



The tiger is the biggest of the big cats and is on the short list of the world's most fearsome predators. (Siberian tigers can weigh over 800 pounds.) So being groped by tourists may not be the most dignified way for them to spend their days. However, because they are so threatened by poaching and loss of habitat, if they weren't here they'd almost certainly be dead.

The admission price is 500 baht, and there are donation boxes all over the compound. It's money well spent, since it all goes towards the care of the animals. They're in the process of building a huge addition so that the adult tigers will each have a private area to roam. The goal is to return the cubs to the wild.

http://www.tigertemple.org/Eng/Donation.htm

During my photo session today the volunteers positioned me behind one of the biggest tigers, a monstrous brute I could have fit inside of with room to spare, so that they could put his head in my lap. As they lifted his head he bared his teeth, started growling and swatting with his paw. They quickly pulled me back out of the way. (I didn't resist.) The big cat closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

It made me realize the precariousness of my situation. Yes, these animals are conditioned to be tolerant of tourists. Yes, there are dozens of handlers to make sure nothing goes wrong. But these are huge, powerful and astonishingly agile predators that could end my life before anyone could do anything to save me. It was quite a thrill. I felt quite privileged to be so close to these beautiful, majestic and, sadly, endangered animals. I had my picture taken with ten of them. Twice!

The day took a tragic downturn, however, when a member of my group was the victim of a savage and unprovoked attack by one of the animals.

Mongolian Nazis

Travelers tend to fall into different stereotypes. The Ugly American is alive and well, I'm sad to report. But there's a certain traveler who tends to be young, earnest, idealistic, and not terribly well-informed.

My favorite story of the trip thus far concerns such a person, a young lady I met in Russia. She was horrified when I told her I was traveling to Mongolia next.

You don't want to go there. I just came from there. They're all racists!

I had done quite a bit of research about Mongolia, so this caught me by surprise. There are less than three million people in Mongolia, and, aside from a small Kazakh enclave in the far west, virtually everyone in Mongolia is a Mongol. It seemed unlikely to encounter racism in a country with essentially no minority population.

And the country is Buddhist, a religion or system of thought that stresses tolerance.

I took pictures because I knew my friends back home wouldn't believe it. I saw SWASTIKAS everywhere! They're all Nazis!

As gently as I could I said that I was pretty sure the swastika was a Buddhist symbol and that I found it unlikely that Mongolia was a bastion of Nazism.

Oh no! I saw them EVERYWHERE! You don't want to go there!

I thanked her for her kind warning and exited the conversation as smoothly as I could.

I did some research and found that "swastika" is derived from the Sanskrit word svastik, which can be translated as "that which is associated with well-being". Or, to put it more simply, the word for the symbol associated with hate and fear in the Western world means "lucky charm"!

Sanskrit is, of course, the language the Buddha spoke. But the swastika actually predates Buddhism. In fact, the symbol was used at least 10,000 years before the birth of Christ and exists in cultures all around the world. One easy explanation is that it is a pattern which naturally occurs in woven goods.

Here it is in a detail from the rafters of a temple at the Erdelene Zuu monastery in Kharkorin, Mongolia, home of the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire.



And here it is branded on the flank of the horse our guide rode when we were horseback riding in the Eight Lakes region.



And for good measure here it is on a door at the Summer Palace in Beijing.



However, while it is commonplace on buildings and in traditional art, and while you can buy souvenirs with other Buddhist symbols, souvenirs with swastikas are hard to find, even in Buddhist countries. (I looked.)