| Submitted by: Mark R. Leeper United States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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Perhaps they were killed by invaders; perhaps they could not pass
the secret to anyone they trusted. Nobody knows, but the secret was
forgotten.
In 1953, workmen were looking at an ugly plaster Buddha that had
slipped from their crane and was now broken. There was metal inside.
Inside an ugly plaster Buddha was one of the great treasures of Asia.
It was a Buddha, three meters high, five and a half tons. It was solid
gold.
We saw US$83 million worth of Buddha in a wat that had surprisingly
little security. I am now sure how they are protecting the Golden
Buddha, but it must be something non-obvious. I frankly would have been
happy with a few fingernail parings from the Buddha.
Well, after seeing the Golden Buddha of Wat Trimit we headed off
for lunch. Walking into the heart of Chinatown we asked directions.
Someone told us there were restaurants in the direction we were going,
though we might have to eat with chopsticks. I think four of us said in
unison, 'No problem.'
We went off in that direction and eventually did find a restaurant.
The restaurant we found was not all that good unfortunately. Not that
we had problems communicating, though we did. To get chopsticks we had
to hold the knives and forks like chopsticks. But the food was only
mediocre with small portions and not a very auspicious final meal for
Bangkok. Barbara and Steve went off to see the local zoo. Evelyn,
Binayak, and I went to see the Royal Barge Museum. That involved
walking a fair distance through Chinatown to the river and there
catching a ferry up the river a way. The Chao Phraya River is sort of a
rapid summary of Bangkok. You see some skyscrapers, but a lot more you
see corrugated metal shacks and every once in a while you see a
beautifully ornate wat or a Burmese prang. The ferries come up to the
piers for just a moment or so and passengers jump on over what is often
a widening gap. The deck is generally crowded so you have to jump fast
and aim well.
We docked at the proper place and from there did not know the
proper way to get to the Royal Barge Museum so inevitably 1) went the
wrong way and 2) were better off for having done things wrong. What
they were expecting is that, like most tourists, we would take a water
taxi to the museum. We could not figure out how to do that so instead
walked the distance the narrow back way through a poor Muslim
neighborhood. The community lives in moderate poverty in what are
basically shacks. There were dogs who looked a little sick running
semi-wild.
We found the barge museum and it looked a little like a submarine
pen with ten or twelve parallel barges dry-docked. Each told when it
was used. They would have decorations like fierce-looking Naga snakes
at the front of the barge. They each were very long and narrow, maybe
sixty feet long but only eight or ten feet wide, rowed by muscle power
with oars. They gave the impression of water serpents. Several were
equipped, incongruously, with a cannon sticking out of a hole in the
figurehead. I am not sure what sort of battle these boats were expected
to get in, but they were hardly maneuverable to be much of a threat to
any attacker. It was like giving a ninety-year-old woman brass
knuckles. The concept of a boat aimed mostly by oarsmen maneuvering
about is not going to strike terror into too many people's hearts.
Apparently it is a family that runs the museum and lives at the
back of the barge pen. We could see that there were rooms back there
that I at first took for being part of the museum but someone was
cooking back there. At one point two kids came out and walked around
carrying a puppy who was still very young. On this trip Evelyn and I
are the only people who do not own cats. There are few mammals I don't
like and I like cats, but I am not as fond of them as many people are.
Dogs, on the other hand, I both like and respect (I don't respect cats)
and through some biological glitch I am fonder of puppies than of human
babies. This was an unexpected place to find this little ball of fur
and it really upstaged the Royal Barges of Thailand.
We came out of the barge museum and found Binayak was in the
process of bartering with a water taxi driver. The deal he struck was
for one hour of taxiing around the khlong. So we hopped in and got a
chance to see what it life is like on a bangkok khlong.
The khlong seems to be all water but drinking water to these
people. At one point we saw a child sitting over a hole in a dock using
the khlong as a toilet. Further on we saw a woman washing her hair in
the same water. While none of the houses on the khlong will ever show
up in House Beautiful, some looked quite comfortable. Others seemed
very poor. The people were all pretty friendly. Many of them waved.
We started experimenting with waving and seeing who waved back. About
two-thirds of the American boats going by would have at least someone
wave back but 100% of the groups of Thais would wave back. The Thais
are a very friendly people.
Actually we saw the least sanitary usage of the khlong was furthest
from the Chao Phraya but it smelled the worst as you got closer to the
main river.
The taxi-man's tip-maker is to take passengers downstream of their
actual disembarkation point and past the Grand Palace and the Wat Arun,
an 86-meter Khmer-style prang across from the Grand Palace. The taxi-
man then guns his engine and speeds past these majestic sites giving the
passengers a cool ride and a most impressive one. It is really essence
of Thailand in one short dose.
Well, it's now about 4:15 PM and we'd agreed to meet the others at
the train station at 5:30 PM which was a full hour before our train
leaves. We have better than an hour to kill. SO what does Binayak
suggest but that we take the ferry all the way up the river to the end
of the line and then turn around. Evelyn is game so I am too. I am a
little concerned about the time but I figure my pals know what they are
doing so I keep my mouth shut. We go quite a ways upstream and it
starts getting to be 5-ish and Evelyn suggests we had better forget
about getting to the end of the line and go directly to the train
station. We get off and wait a while for the boat in the other
direction. Binayak says the other direction will go faster since it is
downstream. By now everyone is concerned about getting back in time.
By 5:20, it is clear we ain't gonna make it. The ferry is taking about
three minutes between stops and at this rate it will be 6 PM when we get
to our stop. Gee, I wonder how Steve and Barbara are taking our
absence? Probably not so good, huh? The trip drags on with the smelly
fumes and the noise of the engine only making things worse. I re-
estimate still 6 PM before we get to dry land.
5:54 PM we dock at our stop and jump off. We start to run toward
the street. The back of the pier is flooded. There is only a narrow
board to walk and people coming in the other direction are carefully
edging their way. We jump sideways, splash a little, and come by
another route. The three of us run to a tuk-tuk--a converted
motorcycle--and jump in the back asking to be taken to the railway
station. Something in our tone must have conveyed some urgency to the
driver, perhaps more urgency than we really felt. The race to the
station can best be described as 'madcap.' The man had incredible
control over his vehicle whether it was on the right side of the street
or not, whether it was cutting into lines of oncoming traffic. The man
could see an opening and take advantage of it. It could be that he was
just trying to have a good time for himself. Maybe he just wanted to
scare the tourists. Maybe he just enjoyed proving that there could be
lanes in the road where one doesn't conventionally think of them.
Suffice it to say that we went a fair distance in ten minutes. And I
got a lot older.
When the ride was over I suggested Binayak run and tell Steve and
Barbara that we had arrived. Evelyn paid the cabbie. My natural
inclination was to kiss solid ground. Apparently Evelyn, who had not
paid sufficient attention to the ride, was more concerned that we might
miss our train than in giving thanks that the taxi ride was over.
We rushed to the left luggage area where Steve and Barbara had just
hit panic mode. It a wild struggle to get the luggage ready to go, the
elastic rope on Barbara's luggage carrier came lose and popped her a
good one right in the mouth. It put her in a bad mood. We rushed to
the train and were in our seats a good ten minutes before the train
started to roll. They came by with menus but the group decided instead
to stroll over to the dining car. How was this a mistake? Let me count
the ways. This was a long train, we were at one end, the dining are at
the other end. It must have been at least twenty cars away. It was a
hot and unpleasant walk. It was interesting in that you saw the inside
of other cars. You saw people stretched on the floor under their seat
on a piece of cardboard. You saw a lot of people very uncomfortable.
There were no first-class cars; we were in a second-class car but it
looked far more comfortable than the third-class cars with four seats
across. We got to the dining car and it was a counter with stools and
the food did not look very good to the group. We ended up going back to
our seats and ordering from the menu. Even then it took a very long
time to be served, probably because the food had to be carried the
length of the train. Barbara was not happy. It also took a long time
for the porter to set up the beds. They seemed to give us service an
hour after everyone else in the car. We finally got bedded down
however.
October 17, 1990: I always wake up early on sleeper trains. While
we traveled the topography started having a lot of limestone karsts. I
had heard karst formations occurred only in China and Yugoslavia, but
here they were in Thailand.
Karsts are limestone formations. Pressure on a limestone bed
causes it to buckle and to force up what looks like huge limestone
teeth. They can easily be 100 or 200 feet high and often green with
trees or bushes that somehow survive with what little nutrient they can
pull from rock. We passed rubber plantations and the occasional water
buffalo. When they came around and offered us breakfast the choice was
American or Continental. I would have liked the Thai breakfast, which I
saw later, but they did not offer it. I wish they would not assume
American tastes are so narrow.
We had been told that we should bring toilet paper which would not
be available most places in Asia. That time has passed. Every bathroom
we've seen has it and in addition it seems to be in common use as table
napkins and Kleenex. Breakfast this morning included a couple of sheets
of toilet paper as if they were napkins. I think it was in Hong Kong
that all the truck drivers had rolls of toilet paper on their
dashboards. I assumed it was because they did not want to be caught in
a bathroom without, but now I think it was just there for general
cleanup.
Our next destination was Krabi. This is a provincial capital. It
is near Phuket. Actually its claim to fame is as a resort area where
the karsts hit the water. The result is giant limestone outcroppings
sticking out of the water. The effect is very pleasant.
One of the train attendants talked to us a while to find out about
us. We told him about ourselves. Eventually he started to ask about
how much we made. I was willing to tell him in general figures but the
others said I probably should not tell. It created an awkwardness and
he walked away.
The train arrived at our disembarkation point, Trang. We tried
calling to reserve a place near Krabi but had problems making the phone
call. We decided to go ahead and bus to Krabi. The bus was four seats
across with an aisle down the center--nothing unusual there, but the
seats were numbered with tags as if they were six across. Sure enough,
they packed the bus with three people in each pair of seats. |
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| Copyright © - "Mark R. Leeper" |
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