Travelers' Tales Thailand: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides)

by James O'Reilly

  Pleased,Tina and I continued our afternoon rounds. As dusk settled over the wooden buildings and dirt lanes we sought out dinner. With a finger pointing to my mouth, and a hand on my belly, I asked a newspaper vendor where we might eat. He laughed, and pointed to a small doorway a short way off. We entered the “restaurant,” carefully navigating between low wooden tables, lower chairs, numerous men, conversations, smoke, and a single 15-watt bulb suspended jauntily from the ceiling. In the dim light we asked about the menu. The cook pointed to what was on the fire—a rotund black cooking pot with upside down pale-yellow chicken feet along with other less recognizable parts oozing up from the bubbling broth. With a wide grin, and simple hand gesture, he asked if we cared to dine.Tina and I glanced quickly around at the many soup-slurping patrons, and two sleeping dogs in the corner, then at each other. It was, evidently, tonight’s special. We nodded our heads, extended our hands, and said with a smile, “Let’s Eat!”…while thinking, “Oh, what the heck?!” The cook presented each of us with a huge bowl of broth (gratefully without any feet) to which noodles, eggs, and a few vegetables were then added. Not bad. It tasted much better than it looked…which, well, wasn’t so difficult. Beers countered the tongue-sizzling spices and drowned any remaining doubts.

  When we returned to our bargain-basement sanctuary, I flipped on the light. As we suspected, 15 watts just wasn’t sufficient. The era of 60 watts had arrived. I turned on my small flashlight, turned off the single overhead, and replaced the bulb. A perfect fit. Again, I flipped the switch with a flourish.

  After some moments, the bulb began to glow. Brighter. And brighter. I opened my tattered guidebook; Tina took out her journal. And that was it. Our improvement started flickering. After exerting a few final feeble waves of light…darkness. Not just our room, but the entire block had gone pitch black. No light came from the window. No light came from the hall. No light came from the street. The entire block was out.

  We began to hear voices. In the dark. Inquiring voices, foreign words. In the dark. They were unintelligible, but we understood. We quickly replaced the bulb and lay quietly. Would they know it was us? What would the shopkeeper say? And to whom? Dogs barked, a few chickens scuffled in their perches. We lay motionless, expecting the owner of our lodging to come pounding at our door. In the dark. Eventually, the voices grew quiet. Sometime later we fell asleep. The next light was that of dawn.

  There had not been even one small paragraph in my guidebook warning against bulb replacements. I vowed if I ever got the chance, I would try to spare fellow travelers the fate of having to tell a similar tale. And so the story goes of another not-so-bright idea far from home, this time from Chiang Rai.

  Joel Simon’s photo assignments have taken him to all seven continents, including the North Pole, the Antarctic, and 95 countries in between. When not traveling, he’s at home in Menlo Park, California, with his wife, Kim, cat, Ichiban, and an itinerant possum named Rover.

  Real Thai food, unlike American versions of it, is one of the wonders of the world. I ate take-out lunch in my kayak under the shade of a foot-bridge. I had roast chicken with a hot dipping sauce and an old favorite, som tam, a salad of unripe grated papaya in a marinade of lime juice, chili pepper, tamarind sauce, tiny dried shrimp, and peanuts. But I was no more used to the heat of the spices than I was to the heat of the sun. My mouth burned with a fire that teared my eyes. I remembered reading why this pepper pain became so habit forming. The chili caused pain killers to be released by the brain so eating the marinated shrimps became a sort of luncheon high.

  —Peter Aiken, “Thai Waterways”

  ALAN RABINOWITZ

  Tapir Tracks

  Impatient to return to the comforts of Bangkok, the author rediscovers the meaning of his work in the forest.

  I WAS TIRED. NOT JUST PHYSICALLY TIRED BUT THAT DEEP, BONE-WEARY tired that comes from having pushed beyond your limits not just once but every day for months. I was finishing up more than twelve weeks of difficult tracking through some of the largest forested areas in Southeast Asia, where I was searching for the clouded leopard, one of the most elusive cats in the world. The hardships of the jungle were beginning to take their toll. Now, fighting fatigue, I was just trying to make it through the last leg of the survey before going home.

  This was my first time in Thailand, and my fourth day in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the few remaining “forest gems” of this country. But after having spent the last few months tracking leopards in the dense, lush vegetation of Borneo’s rain forest, this dry semi-barren area seemed anything but gem-like. Efforts to find clouded leopard tracks in the area of a recent sighting had, so far, proven futile, though there were abundant signs of tigers and Asiatic leopards. Normally, this would have excited me, but right now, this hike seemed like just another delay in my quest for a cold drink and a soft bed. As my Thai guides jabbered away in a language that sounded completely nonsensical to me, I calculated the days, hours, and minutes before I might reach Bangkok.

  Six hours out from camp, and a little after midday, when the heat was at its most merciless, we reached the Huai Kha Khaeng, the main river which runs through the heart of the sanctuary. (Huai means river in Thai.) This watershed is one of the most pristine forest areas remaining in Thailand, and it contains some of the richest wildlife populations in the country.

  Racing ahead of my companions, I veered off from the old elephant trail we’d been following to get a drink of cold water from a small feeder stream nearby. As I knelt to scoop the water in my hands, I heard a high-pitched squeal, followed by the sound of something crashing into the water. Looking up, I froze. Twenty-five feet in front of me was a large prehistoric-looking beast. After being scared by my approach, it had leaped into the main river. All my weariness vanished at the sight.

  It was a Malayan tapir, a hulking, secretive creature whose starkly contrasting black-and-white coloration helps render it inconspicuous during its travels through the forest. Its six-hundred-pound bulk had been moving quietly through the dense undergrowth parallel to our trail, reaching the riverbank at the same time as I did. I watched its wet hippolike body glisten in the midday sun as it stopped abruptly in midstream and turned its head in my direction. Raising its fleshy snout like an elephant’s trunk, it bared large white teeth that could easily have inflicted a severe bite, then emitted a harsh, grating sound. I knew this action was meant to threaten me but I couldn’t help but smile. He was brave, this one. He would have presented a tempting target for a hunter.

  Malayan tapir

  It was my first sighting of this species in the wild, which is considered rare even by men who have lived in this part of the world. The tapir’s preferred habitat of lush lowland rain forest made its presence here, at the drier northern extremity of its range, unusual. Yet even where tapirs are more common they are not often encountered. This strange-looking relative of horses and rhinos, considered one of the most primitive mammals in the world, is now on the list of the most threatened.

  Realizing that I posed no immediate threat, the tapir continued to thrash his way across the river, then disappeared into the forest undergrowth with a speed that seemed impossible for such an ungainly animal. The other men, only one of whom had ever seem a tapir before, had caught up and were standing beside me, watching quietly. We were all smiling. Many years earlier, a traveler in Burma had described the tapir as “an enigma,” a survivor of a “more gentle and legendary time…wandering in unique isolation in a world not yet mature enough for its wisdom.” I suddenly remembered what had brought me to this part of the world. I was seeking a little of what was left of the “wisdom” of the forest. For the remainder of the day, I looked upon the terrain with new eyes, no longer in a rush to be anywhere else.

  Alan Rabinowitz is a research zoologist who contributed five other stories to this book.

  Thailand is roughly the size of France, California, Kenya, Iraq, Morocco, Botswana, Papua New Guinea, or Sweden.

  —JO�
�R and LH

  JANE HAMILTON-MERRITT

  A Meditator’s Initiation

  A Western novice finds her way in the male world of Buddhist monks.

  VERY AFRAID, I APPROACHED THE ABBOT’S GUTI. AS I KICKED OFF my sandals at the door of his little house, I could see a monk, the Abbot, sitting Buddha-like in a mound of saffron robes inside on the floor. A flurry of thoughts hurried through my mind. Be sure to prostrate three times. Don’t touch him. Always keep the hands in a respectful wai position.

  As I waited in the doorway for him to acknowledge my presence, I wanted to disappear. What was I doing here? This was a man’s world. Foreign women had no place in a Buddhist wat. The red and saffron asters which I had brought seemed heavy in my hands. “He’s important; he’s the Abbot of one of the royal wats of Thailand. Kings were ordained here, including the present one. This is one of the most significant wats in Bangkok. Do I dare enter this world?”

  Finally he looked toward me. Awkwardly, flowers in my hands, I approached him on my knees. Never let my head be higher than his, I told myself again and again. When I had crawled close to him, I laid the flowers aside and prostrated three times, touching my head to the floor with my hands held in prayer-like fashion. This was new and troublesome because I did not know how to do it properly. Each time I raised my head, I noticed that he was watching me, making me even more nervous.

  After the prostration, I sat on my knees, immobile, waiting. He seemed to be staring through me. I felt that he could read my mind. Unable to bear the silence, I, with my hands in a wai before my face, tried to introduce myself and make my request to study Buddhist meditation with him. He seemed not to hear. He continued to stare at and through me. I wondered what I had done wrong. I was wearing a high-necked, long-sleeved, full-length dress which I had been told was appropriate. Maybe I should not have spoken first? Sweat trickled down my body from fear and heat, but mostly from fear.

  He didn’t answer, so I gathered up the flowers and extended them to him. Since neither he nor any monk can receive anything directly from a woman, he took a piece of saffron cloth and put it before me. I laid the flowers on the cloth and he pulled the cloth and flowers near him, but he didn’t look at them nor say thank you to me.

  I sat still, keeping my hands in the respectful wai position. I noticed that the right side of his mouth was twitching. Eventually he spoke, very softly and slowly in English. “What do you know about Buddhism?”

  I answered in a voice that was undoubtedly too loud and which expressed my fear. “I’ve read books on Buddhism, but I’ve come here to study meditation.”

  More empty minutes. He spoke again. “What is meditation?”

  Trying to hold my trembling voice to a softness resembling his, I answered. “I don’t really know. I’ve only read generally about it, but for me it seems impossible to know or to understand meditation by merely reading about it. That’s why I want to study with you here at Wat Bovornives.”

  It seemed as if he were looking inside me. What was he searching for? Sincerity? I did not know. But I knew that I was nervous, uncomfortable, and aware that I was out of the world which I knew. After some empty minutes he spoke. “Dhamma class and meditation class meet tonight here in my guti at 6:00. You may come.”

  I prostrated myself three times and backed out of the room on my knees. Outside I could barely stand. I fumbled with my sandals and with heavy heart walked slowly within the wat compound along a small klong bridged with walk-overs. At one bridge, I sat down to reflect.

  The late afternoon heat hung heavy in the air. Barefooted monks, robed in saffron with newly shaven heads, strolled by slowly. Sunspots edging through heavily leafed trees dabbled geometric designs on their robes. Erect, stately, like statues, they moved. An occasional breeze stirred their flowing robes. As I watched I became calm.

  Why had I been so afraid? Thailand was not a new place for me. I was familiar with Thai ways. I had visited many wats and often found them a retreat from heat and noise. Wats had always been a place of contemplation for me. But this was different; I was trying to enter a way of life that demanded seclusion and meditation and was primarily open to men. Monks are not only celibate, but they must not touch a woman. They may speak to a woman, but only if another person is present. So it is easier not to have women living in wat compounds, particularly farang women.

  I did not want to do something stupid or break a rule which would cause a monk to go through a complicated purification ceremony. But was I being overly sensitive?

  As I waited for the evening class on dhamma, the teachings of Buddha, dusk descended into the compound. An evening breeze brushed the temple bells, which hung from the roof gables, producing a symphony of fragile tinkles. Delicate and yet omnipresent the sound of the temple chimes brought back the serenity that I had always experienced on visits to wats.

  It was here, in this particular temple, in the early 1800s, that Prince Mongkut spent fourteen years as the Abbot before becoming the King of Siam. It was here that this prince, who was a philosopher, scientist, linguist, and scholar, attempted to purify Buddhist philosophy by going back to the ancient Pali scriptures, to the original teachings of Buddha. As a result of his scholarly research, he founded the strict Dhammayut sect in order to strengthen the rules of Theravada Buddhism which, in turn, greatly influenced the already existing sect known as Mahanikai.

  As I reflected about the life of King Mongkut, perhaps one of the best minds among Oriental leaders in his time, I felt a oneness and a bit of rage because the West only knew this small man, who spent a total of 26 years in the monkhood, as a raucous degenerate, sometime tyrant, and often as a buffoon. All of this was dreamed up by one Anna Leonowens in her books, The English Governess at the Siamese Court, and The Romance of the Harem, which eventually became popularized by Yul Brenner in the play and then the movie, Anna and the King of Siam. What a pity!

  Here in this wat, a-tingle with the music of miniature bells, I soon forgot the contemptuous manner in which Americans thought of King Mongkut, to think of other famous people who had entered this wat to study the teachings of Buddha and to practice meditation. It was here that the present King of Thailand, Bhumipol Adulyadej, in 1956 donned the saffron robes of monkhood for several weeks. The King must know and practice the teachings of Buddha since it is he who is the protector of Buddhism.

  A few minutes before 6:00, I approached the Abbot’s guti to watch several meditators take off their shoes at the doorstep and disappear inside. I gathered my courage, and once again tapped off my sandals and, bending low, entered.

  The meditators were not gathering in the room where I had earlier met the Abbot, but in an adjoining room which resembled an office with chairs and a big modern desk which dominated the room. The females were sitting on the right and the males on the left. I slipped into the only vacant chair only to find that it was higher than the others, making me stick out like the newcomer I was.

  Do not speak unless you can improve on silence, said a Buddhist sage.

  —Tim Ward, What the Buddha Never Taught

  To try to subdue my uneasiness, I took out my little notebook and began to record my impressions.

  One shabbily dressed, tall and skinny youthful Western man. Four monks sitting rigidly with downcast eyes. Three of the monks are farangs; one Oriental. All heads newly shaven. Farang monks look strange. Noses too big, skin too light, bodies too hairy.

  Great silence. Only the rustle of vegetation tousled by the evening breeze. Desk overwhelms room. Heaps of artistic arrangements of roses, orchids, ginger, and jasmine on the desk. White and purple predominate for flowers given to the Abbot, not orange and red as I brought. Strong smell of jasmine.

  Oriental monk must be meditating. Hands folded in lap, eyes half-closed, only the whites of his eyes showing. Incredible how much his eyes look like the half-open eyes of Buddha statues. It doesn’t appear that he’s breathing.

  The silence and my attention were broken by the appearance of two y
oung temple boys dressed in khaki shorts and white shirts. They brought two trays of yellow Chinese tea cups emblazoned with dramatic blue Chinese characters. I assumed the cups held tea, but I could not see because they were topped with lids.

  Each meditator took a cup and held it, but no one drank. Neither did I. The boys departed. Silence returned.

  Almost simultaneously, the monks and lay-meditators placed their tea cups on open window ledges or on the floor while I continued to hold mine, wishing that I did not have it.

  As I struggled with my teacup and notebook, the Abbot walked in. The monks stood and waied as he edged past them. Some of the lay-meditators stood also and everyone waied to the Abbot, except me, of course, who still held a hot cup of Chinese tea in one hand and a pen and notebook in the other.

  The Abbot sank behind the immense desk and silence ensued. Everyone seemed to be looking at the Abbot, but he wasn’t looking back. It was as if he were not in the room, but somewhere else. I was afraid to move, but I had to get rid of the tea cup. Finally, I took courage and carefully leaned and stuck it under my chair.