Finding Zero

by Amir D. Aczel

  Pierre and his wife invited me to a lunch of the usual fish cake and noodle soup. Then he brought out an old cardboard box full of yellowing documents. After digging through them for a while, I found something of interest: a copy of a cover letter by Cœdès for an article he had sent to be published. It wasn’t an important find, but still it was exciting to get to some original Cœdès material, if not to discover something directly related to K-127.

  I mentioned my goal to Pierre and he said, “If it comes from Sambor sur Mekong . . . Well, there is an Anglo expat living in Phnom Penh who might help you with this. He knows this site very well, and maybe something about the whereabouts of the lost inscription from Sambor. His name is Andy Brouwer. Look him up online, you should find an e-mail address there.” I stayed for coffee and then went to find my boat and its rower, who, after having lunch with people she knew in this village, had waited for me by the river.

  The trip back was somewhat longer since we were now going upstream. We passed many birds perched on little bushes on the banks—kingfishers, mostly, and cranes, all searching for food—and lush jungle vegetation on both sides of the river. In the village by the road, I finally found a cab after looking for one for half an hour; it was getting dark and cold. The taxi driver was gruff and untalkative and spoke little English. Traffic was dense on the one-lane road back to Hanoi. Passing a car or an oxcart along the way was a difficult and lengthy operation, and we had to do it often. When a car passed us and almost pushed us off the road into a ravine, I began to wonder whether this chase was worth risking my life for. But it is—I will find that missing inscription, I told myself resolutely. The next day I was back in bustling Bangkok, ready for my great adventure to Cambodia.

  15

  I stayed in Bangkok for a few days, catching up on e-mails and tracking down Andy Brouwer. Fortunately, he had a very descriptive and visually appealing website, providing good information on a number of otherwise inaccessible archaeological sites in Cambodia that he had personally explored and clearly enjoyed writing about. He seemed, from these Internet blogs, to be a gregarious man eager to share his knowledge of the country and its treasures. He responded to my e-mail query with interest and offered to meet me anytime, so I bought a ticket for a flight to Phnom Penh.

  The next day I left behind the shiny concrete, steel, and glass skyscrapers of Bangkok and flew to hazy, low-lying, and crowded Phnom Penh. I checked into the InterContinental Hotel at the southwest end of the city and dialed the phone number for Andy Brouwer. At his suggestion, we agreed to meet for dinner at the intersection of Wat Langka and Street 278. It seemed weird to me that streets would be named this way, but that is how it is in Phnom Penh. The InterContinental is on one of the few streets with an actual name: Mao Tse Tung Boulevard.

  I took a cab from the hotel, and the driver found the address. Wat Langka is an old Buddhist temple south of the waterfront area of the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers, where the royal palace and other key monuments are located. Street 278 is just a small street with cafes and bistros catering to tourists, where one can find beer and meat pies. I had over an hour before my meeting, so I went inside to visit the Wat—which means temple in most Southeast Asian languages. It had high white walls and a red pagodalike top, similar to many other temples found in Thailand dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

  There were wide, open entrances, and inside, by a large Buddha statue, several monks wearing saffron-colored robes engaged in worship. Nobody paid attention to a lone Western visitor. Surrounding the main temple building were arrayed perhaps 50 small Buddha statues made of wood and of little distinctive artistic quality—nothing like the striking Buddha images at Wat Pho in Bangkok, home of the giant, golden reclining Buddha.

  Leaving the temple complex, I made my way down Street 278. Western rock music blared from a bar where a handful of tourists were nursing tall tropical drinks. Down the street was a gift shop stocked with the kind of gaudy souvenirs that are ubiquitous in Asia: small metal and wooden Buddha statues, carved images of Angkor Wat, imitation stone heads of the Hindu gods, and carved phalluses on key chains. I looked around for a few minutes to pass the time and then continued down the street. There was a small nameless hotel, with a bar with high ceiling fans and wooden furniture. I walked in and had an Angkor beer and a handful of peanuts. A few French and German tourists were sitting at tables outside, enjoying the late afternoon sun.

  After sunset, as the streets grew darker, I headed back to the intersection of Wat Langka and Street 278. I immediately saw a medium-height Western man with light hair standing there; he looked at me and asked, “Amir Aczel?” I said yes, and he shook my hand. “Hi, I’m Andy Brouwer,” he said. “So, where would you like to go?” I said it was his home turf, and he suggested a restaurant he liked. We walked a block, and I barely escaped being hit by a swarm of motorcycles that rushed toward us as soon as the light on the boulevard had turned green. Andy seemed unperturbed, being used to the Asian traffic. At the next corner, we entered the restaurant, which served a wide selection of both Western and Cambodian food.

  We sat down and ordered. “I’m from England, originally,” Andy said, “from a town between Birmingham and Bristol.” I told him that I knew the area and asked him what brought him here. “Well, I worked at a bank for 31 years—I started when I was 16—and always dreamed of breaking loose and coming to Cambodia. Only Cambodia. In the 1990s, I started visiting here, a month of paradise and 11 months of daily grind. And after many such years I decided it was time to be in paradise all the time.” So he moved here and started working for a travel agency. But on the side, he indulges his dual passions: adventures in the wild and soccer.

  I told him I was looking for an inscription, originally found at Sambor on Mekong, studied by Cœdès, and now of unknown whereabouts, its existence made more doubtful by the fact that the Khmer Rouge had looted and destroyed so many artifacts. “Well,” Andy said, “I once found an inscription, myself.”

  I looked at him, surprised, and he continued. “I was exploring an area about 30 kilometers north of Angkor, where according to an old French topographic map from the late 1800s, which a friend of mine had procured at a curio shop, there were some unexplored ruins. Nobody knew about them. You see, the French made all kinds of maps and notations of things they found, but when they left Cambodia in the 1950s, all was either lost or taken back to Europe. So I navigated using this map, with my moto-driver. I had talked with the village chief and he had told me that he or his people had no knowledge of any temple ruins at the location I described to him, but that if I found any, to please tell him about it. And he sent his chief of police with me.

  “Everything was densely overgrown with vegetation. This was now a virgin forest. People had not ventured here in maybe a hundred years. We literally had to hack our way in, meter by meter, using machetes. There were mosquitoes everywhere, and at one point we saw a cobra slither away. It was very rough going. But that’s the kind of thing I love to do. So after a few hours of this, we arrived at exactly where my old map showed that there were ancient temples. And, lo and behold, we found the ruins of several temples: old bricks piled on the ground, some walls barely standing, stone doorways with carvings, and a hole where some ancient looters once looked for treasure. We sat down on the ground feeling victorious. And the guy facing me was striking the ground with a stick as we were talking, and I noticed that it sounded like he was hitting a stone surface. So I asked him to stop, and I leaned down and cleaned the dirt from under his feet where his stick was hitting. And as I did this I uncovered a large stone on which ancient writings were inscribed. Maybe it had an old zero on it, I don’t know.”

  “Well, zeros are hard to find,” I said. “But how old was it? K-127 is from the seventh century.”

  “This was later,” he said. “These temples were closer to the time of Angkor—ninth or tenth century. So, anyway, we go back a
nd I tell the village chief what we found and he makes a record of it to tell the authorities about it. Then a couple of years pass and one day I am watching TV and there is this National Geographic program about ancient history and this man makes a trek to that very same temple site and ‘discovers’ my inscription!” I said something about how unethical it was, but Andy said, “Well, at least the village chief didn’t just forget about it but did tell someone where to look, and now they have another inscription.” He went on to tell me about other adventures, including one where the ruins he discovered were so visually attractive and the surrounding jungle so lush that a Paramount Pictures locations executive he had made a connection with came to Cambodia within two weeks of the discovery for a preliminary study. A year later, they shot the film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider at that site.

  Andy Brouwer on one of his jungle adventures in Cambodia.

  “How would you go about looking for K-127?” I asked Andy when he finished his story.

  “I have some connections,” he said. “Let me make some phone calls, and I’ll e-mail you. I’m pretty sure someone I know can help you.”

  “There is one more thing,” I said. “I am interested in meeting knowledgeable Buddhist monks who might know about the concept of the void and be able to explain it to me. You see, I think that the zero probably came from the Buddhist Shunyata.”

  “That’s an interesting idea,” said Andy. “And I do know where the best place for you to look for an answer would be. It’s called Luang Prabang, in Laos. It’s a city of Wats and Buddhist monks. This is where I would go.”

  I thanked him and called my driver, who took me back to the hotel through the evening traffic jams of few cars, many tuk-tuks, and thousands of motorcycles. When I turned on my computer at the hotel, there was already a message from Andy connecting me with one of his friends, a Cambodian man named Rotanak Yang who knew antiquities well. A short time later, Yang e-mailed me and promised to get in touch soon with any information, or names of people who might know something about K-127. In the meantime he told me that at one time, in the 1920s and 1930s, the inscription I was looking for was indeed held at the national museum in Phnom Penh, as I had gathered from reading Cœdès, but that it had long been removed from there—where, he didn’t know.

  So the next day, I went to visit the Cambodian National Museum, not far from the Royal Palace and the rivers. A plaque by the entrance explained how the museum was founded in the 1920s with the French governor of Cambodia presiding over the ceremony and the king in attendance. I found that somewhat sad and degrading. I never did understand how a European power could come here to Southeast Asia, presumably by ships that could carry only a limited number of soldiers, and conquer lands with millions of people living in them. I knew it happened because of the crazy colonial ambition of Napoleon’s nephew, who became known as the Emperor Napoleon III.

  As president of France in a democratically elected administration, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte staged a coup against his own government to become emperor. The French military, at his command, took over the vast region they called Indochine in 1865. Five years later, this same Napoleon was brought to his knees by the Prussians attacking Paris. I always think of that dumb joke about this event: “Monsieur, table for 100,000?”

  But of course the French also gave us George Cœdès, who did much for the region and brought us an understanding of its history and culture. Some of the exhibits in this museum mentioned his name. And a large plaque by the museum’s exit showed the names and photographs of all its past directors. One of them, from just a few years back, was Mr. Hab Touch, a name I would encounter again. He and his colleagues had done an incredibly good job restoring a once-great museum, which the Khmer Rouge had turned into a junkyard full of excrement from the thousands of bats and pigeons and other animals that had made the deserted structure their home during that dark period.

  The Cambodian National Museum today is one of the finest museums in the world. The statues displayed here, from Angkor and Sambor Prei Kuk and many other sites in Cambodia, are among the most beautiful sculptures anywhere. There are images of Vishnu, with his four or eight arms; Shiva, usually with a third eye; and there is one exceptional statue of Brahma, his four faces serenely staring toward the east, west, north, and south. There is a beautiful statue of Nandin the bull; the female statues of the goddesses and consorts to the three Hindu gods are outstanding, as are the Apsara, the nymphs that one finds everywhere in Indochina. About half the displays are statues of Buddha from different periods and locations all over the land. He is often depicted sitting on his nine-headed cobra, the Naga. And Naga images are found at many places in the museum and elsewhere in Cambodia. The entrance to Angkor Wat, for example, is decorated with the nine-headed snake on both sides of the path leading to the great temple.

  I left Phnom Penh with a little more information than I’d had before. I returned to Bangkok—my headquarters in the search for the lost K-127—to await more e-mails or phone calls that might provide me with further information. The search was becoming difficult since I had to rely on the goodwill of strangers who might know someone who knew someone else with information. It took an incredible amount of patience to wait to be contacted by people I did not know, who provided information at their own pace and out of sheer kindness and a willingness to help a researcher from another continent.

  16

  In the meantime, while waiting for e-mails that might lead me on a path to the lost inscription, I took Andy Brouwer’s suggestion to look for answers about the Buddhist void in Laos. I called Debra in Boston, and she managed to get off work at MIT for a few days and flew for 25 hours, changing planes in Tokyo, to meet me in Bangkok. We had not been together for a few weeks—longer than ever before—and I was impatient to see her again. We spent the night at the Shangri-La, and the next morning went again to the airport to board a Bangkok Airlines turboprop plane on a flight to Luang Prabang. While this was a work trip for me, Debra was happy to accompany me, knowing there would be time for us to spend together in an exotic and interesting place, and she was generous with her time trying to help me with my quest.

  Luang means capital and Prabang was the name of a Buddha image made in the first century and given as a present to the Laotian king by the people of Sri Lanka. This statue can still be admired in the national museum in Luang Prabang, even though the Lao royalty is now gone and the country is Communist. Like in Vietnam, visitors see the hammer and sickle frequently in Laos. Apparently, official corruption is prevalent.

  Our flight from Bangkok lasted two hours. As we descended for landing, we could see the red-roofed pagodas of the temples, nestled in lush greenery and surrounded by tropical rainforests and palm trees; later on the ground I identified ficus and giant tualang and dipterocarp, which can reach 200 feet and are often covered with lichens.

  Arriving in Luang Prabang airport in the late afternoon on April 4, 2013, Debra passed quickly through immigration and waited for me in the hall beyond the inspection area. I was next. I handed my US passport to the official behind the counter; he studied it for a long moment, then came out of his booth and said, “Follow me!” Noticing Debra waiting, he said, “Your wife can come too.”

  He ushered us away from other visa seekers and into a private room with curtains covering its windows. Another official was sitting there at a desk, reading a newspaper, never looking up, with a fixed smirk on his lips. The man who escorted us in drew all the curtains tightly and then said, “Sit down please.” He half-heartedly offered us coffee but quickly turned to confront me. “We require passport validity for at least six months, and you have only five. This causes us a lot of trouble,” he said, looking me in the eye. Then he said, “You have to pay us $200.” I was startled, but I knew I had no choice but to pay. If I refused, they might detain me indefinitely, or send me back on the next plane and charge me for the ticket.

  I shot a look at Debra
and winked, indicating that I understood what these corrupt government agents were doing. Then I reached into my wallet and handed the man two $100 bills. “I will not have the same problem coming out of the country?” I asked.

  “No, don’t worry,” he said as he led us back to his booth, stamped my passport with an entry visa, and sent us out to take a cab to our hotel, solicitously explaining which taxi to take so we wouldn’t get ripped off. It was an unpleasant introduction to what would otherwise be a fruitful and enjoyable visit to a fascinating country.

  The cab took us to the Kiridara Hotel, perched high on a hill overlooking Luang Prabang. Before entering the open-air lobby to check in, we wandered through the hotel’s well-manicured gardens. Breathing deeply, we were aware of the strong, sweet smell of jasmine and other tropical flowers we couldn’t identify; there was also a mild smell of smoke from the burning fields in the distance. It was a stimulating mixture of scents, and not unpleasant. We settled into our comfortable hotel room and drank cups of smoked Lao tea, the kind the villagers in the Laotian highlands drink. The next morning we ventured into town.

  Luang Prabang is a jewel, an interesting mix of perfect architecture left over from its French colonial past. It’s one of the few towns in Asia where virtually all the buildings have been left as they were a century ago. These are two-story houses with second-floor verandas and wooden shutters on windows painted white or light blue; the lower-level living areas have French doors that open to the streets, with large ceiling fans reminiscent of the movie Casablanca. French cafes that wouldn’t be out of place in Paris serve fresh croissants and superb coffee. In the mix of buildings there are some upscale stores that sell local handicrafts, some restaurants, and travel agencies offering adventure tours into the surrounding jungles and boat cruises down the Mekong. Flimsy bamboo bridges cross the Nam Khan River, a small tributary of the Mekong, and the streets are a mixture of tuk-tuks, tourists, and many saffron-robed Buddhist monks. At night the town turns into a market, with local vendors and rural villagers selling gorgeous Laotian silk, handmade jewelry, and dead cobras in bottles. A local restaurant advertises that its specialties are buffalo, deer, and crocodile steaks.