The Trip From Hell

Before I tell my story I will say that reports as of now (Tuesday morning) are that the typhoon that hit the Philippines on Saturday, including Manila, caused over 250 confirmed deaths and 500,000 people are displaced, their homes destroyed. Relief efforts are completely overwhelming government capabilities. Images on Aljazeera news on Sunday showed horrifying video of people being swept away by raging rivers perched on the debris of their former homes, yelling for help. Also images were shown of dead children who had been pulled from the water.On Saturday over 350mml of rain fell in six hours. This was equivalent to the rainfall in the entire month of September which was very rainy. Flooding was massive.

On Saturday we were at the airport waiting to go to Hanoi via Hong Kong. At first it seemed like any ordinary rain storm, When we left the apartment to go to the airport it didn’t seem to be that bad. Planes were taking off. But once there, our 11:00 flight was announced as being delayed. The plane was incoming from Hong Kong but hadn’t arrived.

It never did. Diverted to Clark airport, it eventually returned to Hong Kong.

We were in the CX lounge all afternoon. At one point the entire airport lost power. No lights, no air conditioning. There were windows in the lounge so we had some light and could see the rain, but it was impossible to tell the extreme devastation that was actually occurring outside. They lit candles in the lounge and I read my book with a little flashlight I had with me.Waiting. Waiting.

Finally CX announced that they would put us up in hotels overnight as the airport was closed and no flights would leave. It took more hours until vans arrived to get us. By then was 6:00 in the evening. We had been at the airport since 9:30 a.m. We were happy to finally leave the airport, but had we known what was ahead...

There were nine of us in the van, including the driver and as we pulled out of the airport we saw an amazing sight. It was dark and wet. Thousands and thousands of people were walking, some under umbrellas or with plastic covering their heads, through water at least ankle deep.  Very few jeepneys or buses were on the streets – all those people, leaving work perhaps, no means of travel, nothing for it but to walk. It was still raining but not too hard. The further we went, the more we saw the flooding in parts of the city. Our driver kept changing his route, talking all the time to the dispatcher. We’d go a short distance, find traffic halted, rushing water, now up to the knees, u-turn.

But there was no way through

.

The main streets were jammed and our driver took us, or tried to take us, through side streets, where we could see what people were enduring. Up close from inside the van we saw them walking through water, in some places past their knees. Some shops had a foot of water on the floor and the candles flickered on counters. No power. Cars were getting stuck. In several spots we thought we too were goners.

Then we came to a street where we just stopped. Complete jam. It took an hour to go a block. And then we found out why. We plunged into yet another flooded intersection and this time it got worse and worse. Water was seeping into the back seats of the van, those of us on the side were getting our feet wet. Then, the driver couldn’t move. Revving the engine, no movement. We collectively held our breath. Thankfully, just in time a couple of enterprising boys came and pushed us through.

We made it to the end of the street, turned right onto Osmena Highway and Part 2 of the nightmare began. 100% gridlock. Our van was wedged between thousands and thousands of huge trucks. The air was stifling from the engine fumes. It was about 10 or 11 at night and we’d already been in the van for 4 or 5 hours. We edged along, stopping completely for 30 or 40 minutes, then moving 20 meters. Maybe. Through stretches of highway there were lanes blocked with stopped cars, probably run out of gas and abandoned. Some were trucks, whose drivers just pulled over to sleep and wait it out. We were 6 hours trapped in this van on this road. At some places we could look down at other roads that were waist deep in water. It was a complete nightmare for us, but all the way through I knew that we were nonetheless the lucky ones. I knew, for sure,  that there were people out there dying this night.

We pulled into the hotel at 3:40 in the morning. 9 ½ hours after leaving the airport, a trip that under normal circumstances would take a 1/2 hour. 19 hours since we started our journey.

They woke us up in a few hours to load us back on a bus (a big one this time) to return to the airport. The building  was still partly without power, some systems still were down, and it was completely crowded, with evidence of where people had spent the night in the terminal without power. However, after some delay, we boarded a plane and left for Hong Kong. No Hanoi connection available, the airline once again put us up in a hotel at the Hong Kong airport. Monday we finally made it here to Hanoi.

No luggage arrived, surprise surprise, NOT,  – I’d checked it this time (the last time I’ll do that). I’ve been wearing the same clothes for three days, doing laundry in the sink.  We are finally starting to get over our fatigue. I watch the images of the aftermath on BBC news and know that my trip from hell is nonetheless minor, compared to what millions of others went through last Saturday.

Laughing Memories

I've been sorting through the gazillion pictures I took during our recent trips and smiling, sometimes laughing, at some of the memories they inspire. Here's some of them:

The Boat Trip on the Mekong

Our boat trip took two days travelling from the Thai border to Luang Prabang in Laos. We spent the night at a lodge on the banks of the Mekong:

The view from our cottage window of the Mekong and the mountains on the other side. What a peaceful place for a good night's sleep in the fresh air...

After an excellent dinner that night we were treated to a traditional dance show. A group of children in the nearby village is learning the dance and perform weekly for the revolving group of tourists. There were about 12 little boys and girls, plus the adult musicians. They were all made up and dressed  in local garb of Lao and several of the local hill tribes.

At one point, watching them, I started to laugh. They were so cute, bumping into each other, turning in wrong directions, giggling and generally trying their best to remember what they were supposed to be doing. I wasn't laughing AT them. I was laughing at a memory...

When I was a little girl growing up in Montreal my parents gave me every lesson imaginable. Skating, swimming, piano, art, violin (yuck), Scottish dancing (I have been known still to do a few steps of the Highland fling or the sword dance when drunk enough) and ... ballet.

One memorable day our ballet class was putting on its recital - all the parents were in the audience. We had been rehearsing for weeks and were nervous and excited. I remember standing up there in front of all those eyes, in a row with my fellow performers, all of us dressed up in pink tutus. Proud as punch. So what happened, what went wrong? At a key point in the performance 9 little girls turned left...the tenth little girl turned right. Yup, that would be me, screwing it up completely. I laugh now at the memory but it was one of the most mortifying experiences in my young life. (Another one comes to mind but I would have to get up the nerve to share it in print.)

Many years ago, my friend sent me this card which I have framed on my desk. I love it. Obviously a metaphor:

The mountain resort in northern Thailand near the Golden Triangle.

At night we saw stars and stars and stars. 

Our cabins were made entirely of bamboo and had large covered porches where I sat one afternoon, protected, watching and listening to a torrential downpour through the trees. It reminded me of being in one of the cabins at Minden so many years ago. It felt like being in a treehouse...

We stayed at the lodge for two nights. On the second night I was awoken at about 3 in the morning by the most horrible sound - some kind of wild animal attacking another something. It went on for several minutes and was totally scary. I went over to the window but could see nothing. My first thought was "bear", but my next thought was "really?!". There was silence afterwards but no way could I go back to sleep. Silence. Silence. Then, after another 30 minutes or so (who's counting?) there it was again. Primal scream, huffing and puffing, blow the house down. The sound was so close, perhaps directly outside the cabin, who knows. The large picture windows on the cabin are screens only. My spooky, alone in the middle of the dark night thought was...well if it is something that wants to get in, inshallah.

Chiang Mai temple on the mountain:

Luang Prabang watering hole:

In a few days we once again leave the mother ship on a trip to Hanoi. This will be my first trip to Viet Nam and I am Beyond Excited. The camera memory card is erased, the camera batteries are new, the guidebook is in hand, friends' recommendations recorded - away we go.

Bo Pen Nyang

There's an expression in Laos, bo pen nyang, which reflects an important part of Lao culture, and in my view a great philosophy to aspire to. It means "never mind", "it doesn't matter", "it's all right", "it's not important", "no problem".  This culture is, of course, profoundly influenced by Buddhism. Here's how one writer describes it:

Acceptance is the key in the Lao 'view' of the universe. Things are as they are and should be. You cannot change this inevitability, so why would you wish to try? I am responsible for myself and you are for yourself.  There is nothing to be gained by discussion or confrontation.

The Lao believe their world is in a state of continuous change, with one incarnation flowing into the next. This is why there is so much patience. If things are not right at this time, maybe they will be better later.

In other words, there is nothing in life that is important enough to get your knickers in a knot. Bo pen nyang.

Roger: Tell me, does Lao life have anything like the Spanish manana in it?

Keo: Well, the Lao have the bo pen nyang attitude to life.

Roger: How would you translate bo pen nyang?

Keo: Well...it's a bit like manana...but without the urgency!

Luang Prabang is the most laid back place I've been to so far. The old part of town, which is the only place to stay, is on a peninsula at the junction of the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers and there's something about sitting by one of the many outdoor spots with a drink or a bowl of noodles, watching the movement of the water that is guaranteed to take your worries away. Even the way people walk around the streets is relaxed, half speed. I call it "the Luang Prabang Stroll".

During the time the French colonized Laos, the few Frenchmen who found themselves stationed in Luang Prabang became completely useless.  (During the colonial period there were never more than about 1000 Frenchmen in all of Laos). Some of these Luang Prabang French went bamboo and never left. In the interwar years Luang Prabang was a byword for colonial hedonism, where rules of behaviour found in other colonial towns such as Saigon and Phnom Penh didn't apply.  English author, Norman Lewis described the French officials as 'Laos-ised Frenchmen are like the results of successful lobotomy operations - untroubled and mildly libidinous'.

Sign outside a gallery in Luang Prabang

I love the bo pen nyang sentiment and try to use it as part of a meditative practice, but unfortunately this time it didn't travel with me back to the Philippines. Re-entry to Manila this year, after almost two months away (Thailand, Laos and British Columbia), has been difficult. Living in Manila requires a lot of patience, a lot of "bo pen nyang", but unfortunately I didn't bring it back with me. I found myself getting so irritated with some of the things about living here that normally I just put up with that I deliberately stayed home for awhile. For example, the practice of having to open your handbag at the entrance to shops and malls for some security guard to supposedly look inside. How stupid is that? I found myself almost snapping at people and only barely containing my impatience and disgust at stuff like this. It's not their fault, it's their job, it's the way things are. You can't always control the way things are, but you can control your own attitude towards it. Or so they say.

However, after a few weeks I'm OK now. Harmony 和 has been restored, I'm back in balance. I'm smiling again and laughing at the insanity instead of letting it bother me. Bo pen nyang.

It does well to cultivate the sentiment of the famous 20th century philosopher, Alfred E. Neuman.  "What me worry?"

Quotation from The 'Heart' of Lao Culture.
Manana joke from The Lao, Laos...and You by Robert Cooper

Buddhism on Acid

When we were in Chiang Mai recently we hired a car and driver to take us to the mountain resort north of Chiang Rai where we were going to stay for two days before heading up to meet the boat which would take us along the Mekong to Laos.

The night before we were to leave, the driver called us to ask if it was all right to bring his mother along. She wanted to make an offering at a special temple near Chiang Rai that she had never been to before. Well, by all means.

So the next day the four of us, including Mama, headed off. Northern Thailand was something of a surprise to me. Great roads, very modern - it would be easy to drive oneself, (although much better with an English speaking driver to pester with our questions). Thailand is so rich in comparison with its Lao and Cambodian neighbours.

Just outside of Chiang Rai we pulled into the parking lot of the temple, and the sight literally took our breath away. A BIG WOW!

" It was my strong intention to build a temple in imitation of heaven. I wanted it to be a heaven on earth" Chalermchai Kositpipat

The White Wat is officially known as Wat Rong Khun and is the brainchild of celebrated artist Chalermchai Kositpipat, a native of Rong Khun village. The temple complex was begun in 1997, at first a 10- year project of one building, but now he anticipates that it will take several more decades to complete as the scope of the project has spread to include an entire temple complex of about 9 buildings. He now doesn't even intend that it will be finished within his lifetime (he's now in his 50's) and has put in place the funding and management to ensure that it will continue without him. The buildings are covered in a white and glass mosaic, reflecting the purity of the Buddha and the spreading of his teachings. Construction is a slow, painstaking process and he has recruited and trained many young people from the area to become artisans. The result is a totally spectacular site sparkling in the sunshine.

It is also major weird.






The inside of the main temple building is no less amazing. The walls are covered with as yet unfinished murals with quite surprising contemporary images - missiles, the twin towers, demons guzzling from gas pumps, George Bush, Keanu Reaves in his Matrix coat - in-your-face commentary about our world.







So what did Mama think of all this? Hard to say as we couldn't speak each other's language. Did we detect a slight "I can't believe this" shaking of the head?


In any event, even though this temple and its murals are spectacular, surprising and even shocking in their Gaudi/Bosch whacky political and social commentary, they are nonetheless this artist's own vision, his own artistic dream and interpretation of Buddhism. Good for him. And he comes by the excess honestly. Thai temples are in so many cases Way Over The Top. This one is special.



I took a ton of pictures at this temple complex but most of them don't begin to do this place justice. Also, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the murals inside and there were too many people around for me to break the rules. Some of these images I found at http://www.universalfellowshipoflight.org/gallery-wat-rong-kun.php
and http://www.earthportals.com/Portal_Messenger/watrongkhun.html

Visiting the Hill Tribes

Among the tourist offerings in northern Thailand and Luang Prabang, Laos are trekking trips and/or visits to hill tribe villages. These are very easy to arrange as in Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang there are numerous shopfront tour operators – you can take your pick of day-long trips or multi-day slogs through the hills and forests.

Trekking doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest and the reports of the young couple who were staying at our guest house in Luang Prabang upon their return from an 8 hour trek who had a close encounter with a bunch of leeches did nothing to whet my enthusiasm. I was also not keen to go visit the hill tribes for a number of reasons.

However, as it turned out, we did have occasion to visit a hill tribe village, an experience that was very interesting and not a little unsettling.

This was part of our two-day boat trip down the Mekong. One of the stops was at a Khamu village on the banks of the Mekong. As we disembarked we were met by two little girls on the river bank. One of the first things I noticed was how they were actually posing for the cameras. Further up the path were a group of young boys who were watching us at least as much as we were looking at them. All of a sudden there was a shout from one of them and they all took off, running down toward the river. As it turned out, they had homed in on the children who had been on our boat and the little French boy spent the entire time of our tour splashing around in the river with his new Khamu friends.

It was a village of children. There were a few adults present, some older grandparents seemed to be keeping themselves out of sight for the most part, but most of the adults were away for the day, tending hillside rice fields. Our guide from the boat told us not to give the children any candy or any money. The boat operator apparently supports the village school.

The children were obviously used to visitors. The children were laughing and prancing around, teenage boys were playing musical instruments, young children caring for even younger children. They were more than just used to visitors, they knew when the cameras were on them and you could see them striking poses. I watched one young girl carrying her baby brother who was poised over the water tap, cupping water in her free hand to drink. She would look around to see if anyone was watching, and then repeat the pose.

I watched another young woman, in her mid to late teens perhaps, again at the communal water tap, taking a - long - shower wearing her bathing sarong. My first thought was, “we’re only going to be here for another 10 minutes, can’t you wait?”, but then, as I stood and watched, I realized I was actually watching a show. Her shower was precisely for the benefit of the tourist cameras. I too snapped a picture and it was only later when I looked at them in larger format that I realized it was indeed the money shot.

I’m glad that we stopped to see the village. I’m glad that I had the opportunity to see the houses they lived in, to get a wee bit of a sense of lives lived. But at the same time, it was a bit surreal, like an enactment of a hill tribe village where the villagers were putting themselves on stage for foreign eyes and cameras. I don’t feel that visiting hill tribe villages as a tourist in that kind of setting adds much to a real understanding of their lives. Au contraire, I found it unsettling, discomforting and voyeuristic, and noticed back on the boat when we were once again underway, there were several quiet conversations going on, where others were voicing their feelings of ambivalence.



In northern Thailand one of the tours that is available and promoted, although we didn't do it, is a visit to see the Long Neck Tribes. The Palaung are a sub-group of the Karen and originally from Burma, although in fairly recent years they have fled across the border to northern Thailand, fleeing from the persecution of the Burmese army. Custom prescribes that girls before puberty begin to wear coils that are augmented until they weigh as much as 11 pounds. The coils force the chin upward while pressing down the collar bones and ribs. The neck is not so much elongated as the collar bone is pushed inward creating the illusion of a longer neck. An estimated 10,000 Thais and foreigners visit the Long Neck villages each year, paying an entrance fee that allows them to photograph and mingle with the smiling, colorfully attired long-necked women and girls. The villages are actually owned by Thai tourist operators who collect the revenues from admission fees.

Various origins of the practice are cited, ranging from protection against tiger attacks to symbols of wealth and status. One myth tells of a beautiful dragon with a long neck that was impregnated by the wind to produce the first Padaung people.

Whatever the source of this whacked out custom, it was thought that if the women are ever to remove these rings, they would not be able to stand up, as their weakened neck muscles would cause them to suffocate. I'm not sure if this is true or not, as I have read of a woman recently who chose to remove her rings as protest when Thai provincial authorities refused to allow her to emigrate to New Zealand. She also wanted to be able to leave the village to visit a nearby Thai town, without being gawked at.

One of the many reasons this whole thing disturbs me, is that the custom was actually dying out among the tribe until they fled for their lives over the Burmese border to the safety of Thailand and the Thai tourism entrepreneurs saw a way to make money from the tourists to go see them. The young girls are enlisted in the practice to meet the tourist demand. The Padaung no long practice agriculture and the men are mostly idle. Because the Long Necks in the tourist villages have no legal status in Thailand, they have no rights of residence, employment, or freedom of movement in Thailand.

Of course there is the usual argument that they are better off now, earning money, than in their impoverished, fearful lives back in Burma, and better off still than tens of thousands of other refugees who have fled the country, but this “either-or” way to frame the debate just bugs me.

Travelers can vote with their baht.

Land of the ... Thousand Elephants

Once upon a time, Laos was called the Kingdom of Lan Xang - the Kingdom of One Million Elephants.

I don't know if there were actually a million of them but the truth is that now there are only about 1500 - maybe - left in Laos; about a thousand of those are wild.

The other 500 or so work for the most part in the logging industry. However as logging declines, there will increasingly be more and more "unemployed" elephants. Releasing them to the wild is not an option as they would no longer be able to cope and the economics of keeping elephants are such that unless they earn their living they just can't be kept. In any event, the wild elephants are in grave danger as their habitat becomes increasingly encroached on by humans. Elephants eat A LOT and need a lot of jungle territory as they travel miles a day munching away. When they come close to humans, getting into crops and gardens, the results are not pleasant - for the elephants. A few months ago 5 elephants were shot by villagers in Ban Na, south of Vientiane.

This is the situation for all of these endangered Asian elephants and they will likely be extinct in the wild by 2050.

This map shows the shrinking of the wild Asian elephant habitat.

Some people in northern Thailand and Laos are finding some solutions for these unemployed domestic elephants in the tourist industry.

When we were in Luang Prabang we wanted to get up close and personal with the elephants and go for a ride. We chose the Elephant Village and Refuge for this adventure, a place where rescued elephants live. They are able, so far, to provide a home for 7 elephants in a beautiful location on the shores of the Nam Khan River. It's an educational facility and lodge as well as a place to go for an elephant ride. The elephants are well cared for, there is a resident vet, and it provides employment for local villagers.

"Our" elephant, Mae San, is a 30-year old elephant who like the others spent her early life working in the logging industry. When she first arrived at the Elephant Village there was evidence that she had been mistreated. She was undernourished, there were scars and abscesses caused by knife stabs, and rashes on the spots where the logging harness sat indicated that she was pulling logs much too heavy for her. They also suspect that she was given amphetamines and other drugs to induce her to work harder.

One day while she was skidding trees, a chain broke causing Mae San to fall forward into some branches. One branch lacerated her right eye, and since then she has been blind on that side.

The camp has literally been a lifesaver for Mae San. Initially, she was a bit difficult because with only one eye she took longer to get used to her new surroundings and her new mahout. Also it seemed that she was not used to extra food rations and quality care, which actually caused her to feel insecure as well. Now the staff sees that she trusts her new situation, enjoys teamwork, and feels most secure walking in line and they find it truly gratifying to see how Mae San is recovering.

Feeding jelly beans to Mae San.
Actually they were bananas but she popped them into her mouth as if they were jelly beans.

During our recent trip to Laos we travelled by boat from northern Thailand along the Mekong River to Luang Prabang, a 2-day journey. One of the huge thrills for me was rounding a bend in the river to come across three logging elephants on their break - taking a bath.