Flying Colors

Jon Anderson- Fimo clay

The first time I walked on to a Thai Air plane, going from Manila to Bangkok, I flipped out. Visual overload. The cabin was a complete riot of color. The seats and carpeting was a mix of deep purples, fuchsias and golds and the female flight attendants were dressed in gorgeous long skirts of woven silk topped with snug fitted jackets or shorter purple suits with bright pink blouses. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It's the colors man. As you land and taxi to the terminal, you are presented with a corsage of 3 purple orchids.

That was almost four years ago, only a week or so after arriving in Asia. Thai Air was my first taste of Thailand and since then Thai design has always blown me away. Even the airport is, well, as wonderful as an airport can be, with heaps of orchids everywhere and huge statues of costumed performers arranged in vignettes of scenes from the Ramayama. I love the gold kineree statues  and the bursts of bougainvillea along the highway on the way in to Bangkok. Once there it just gets better and better with fantastic art and interior design greeting you everywhere you look. Or so it seems.

On this latest trip on Thai Air going from Manila to Vientiane, Laos, I stumbled on to the plane after the usual excruciating airport experience, sat down, fussed with my stuff, pulled out noise-canceling headphones, silk wrap - all the usual in-flight stuff - and it was a full ten minutes before I remembered where I was and looked around at the surroundings. I hadn't even noticed any color at all but there it still was. Oblivious. Am I getting jaded? Am I looking without seeing? (Moron)

I've been visualizing Thailand and Laos as colors. Thailand is vibrant, the brights of the color wheel. Last time I was in Bangkok I ordered dozens of silk pillowcases in a whole range of gorgeousness that I associate with the place and that I completely adore. They are piled on couches and beds and we change them up every month or so, finding that the different hues change the look of the room in interesting ways and highlight certain art pieces differently.

The bed doesn't really look like this, there is SOME editing of color. I collected pillows  from elsewhere to line up for their portrait.

Laos is full of color as well but it is a different palette. Still rich, it is more subtle and, I feel, more connected with the earth. I see Laos as earth-centered, with its mountains and forests and rivers and gardens. Terra cotta and smoke, temple maroon and gold. Laos produces the most outstanding silk weaving and we find outselves collecting beautiful pieces on each and ever trip over these past years. The silk threads used in the weaving are colored with natural dyes in our weavings at least. Turmeric root, rosewood bark, annato seeds, betel nut, breadfruit, ebony tree berries, tamarind leaves, indigo, iron nails and lac insect scum are all used to boil the silk thread into the most wonderful colors.

I've been doing an inventory of our Lao silk weaving collection (along with our other possessions) in preparation for the coming  move and have been photographing each piece. (I'm using what is turning out to be a pretty good inventory program, developed by a guy in northern Virginia, for Mac only, available from him directly or through the Apple App Store). Here are close-ups of some of the wall hangings:

The Colors of Laos...

The Romance of Train Travel

Well it seemed like a good idea at the time.

We were meeting in Bangkok. My friend was coming from eastern Canada, a journey of over 24 hours. I was coming from Manila, less painful of course, but still stressful as all air travel is these days. We would spend a few days in Bangkok, allowing those of us who were jetlagged to recover and to visit the tailor to place some orders. Then, instead of going back to BKK airport and flying to Laos, we would take the train. A much more gentle way to travel. Furthermore, we would take the First Class overnight train, where we would sleep in a private cabin, arising the next morning, rested and refreshed, ready to spend a full day in Vientiane.

Sounds great. We like trains, don't we?

So one drizzly Friday afternoon, after our shopping days in Bangkok, we packed up and headed for the train station. It had been raining all day, washing out (!) our plans for a morning boat trip through the city's canals (klongs). I had my eye on that wet sky as I tend to do in this part of the world, still uneasy after last year's experience with Tropical Storm Onday (see The Trip from Hell and Blackout to Lighten Up), wondering about the traffic to the station. Once we were there it would be OK. After all, trains could safely drive through rain, no?

 It took awhile through Bangkok traffic on this rainy Friday evening (not as bad as Manila traffic would be on a similar day) but we reached the station with plenty of time to spare. We sat up on the second floor  drinking beer and people watching, waiting till it was time to board the train. There were lots of travellers in the station, some stretched out on the floor getting some shut-eye in the midst of the noise and activity.

Then, time to go. We found the train, found our cabin and settled in. So far so good. A man came in and took our drink order. Two beers please. Oh, I should mention, beer in some places in Thailand and certainly throughout Laos is, much of the time, sold in quarts with a bucket of ice, to share. We had brought our own food from the deli cafe in the Bangkok hotel so we were all set for a picnic on the train. Soon we were off, pulling out of the station very slowly. By this time it was dark. We could see passing streets as we went through Bangkok and occasionally lights from buildings near the tracks but that was about it. We kept going. Slowly.

We ordered another couple of quarts of beer. It didn't take long, maybe 5 seconds, to explore our cabin and it took maybe another second to realize that these First Class cabins didn't have their own washrooms, only a sink. The shared bathroom was down at the other end (of course) of the train car. But that's OK, this is feeling like an adventure, no problem, right? On first exploration,  we found that this only toilet on this First Class car was a typical Asian squat toilet. I was pretty sure I had heard there was also a Western style toilet on board but it wasn't until the next morning that I found it. That would be the one behind the locked door.

Now I find the squat toilets daunting at the best of times, but trying to navigate one on a moving train that is swaying back and forth and side to side turned out to be quite an experience. Even Claudia could not help with this one. (see Thank You Claudia). Those beers we drank were all of a sudden looking like a very bad idea.

Eventually we turned in to our bunks. The train was moving painfully slowly, it never went much above the speed we had gone through the city. I settled in, invoking a wee prayer to the deities that oversee middle aged women to please please let me sleep through the night without a bathroom break. Damn, I don't even like beer that much!

Now I don't sleep on planes, at all. This voyage was shall we say a learning experience as I discovered that, guess what? I don't sleep on trains either. I failed to experience the expected gentle, mesmerizing, hypnotic rhythm of the wheels on the track, lulling me into a dreamless sleep, to awake rested and energetic. No. I was on the lower bunk and instead, all I felt was the bashing of the wheels two feet below my back. It was like being trapped in an lurching, rattling aluminum can, my body being jolted around this hell on wheels. It got so bad I was even looking forward to getting up for a trip to the bathroom! Well, almost. And all that was when it was still moving. It was about to get worse, if that were possible. The train had been going pretty slowly most of the time, and around midnight it stopped cold. It wasn't possible to see anything out the window other than that it was still raining, Now I really felt trapped. No idea why or how much longer we would sit there. Even though we were stopped, it was still noisy and the time passed excruciatingly slowly.

I survived the night, what was the option? We had stopped for a few hours (found out it was because of the downpour), but eventually we were underway again and as it got light, I sat up, pulled up the shade and watched the passing Thai countryside through the window. The rain had continued and I soon noticed the streets of some towns within view of the tracks were completely covered with water. Something was going on. Turns out it was the first day of what was to become severe flooding in parts of central and northeast Thailand later that week with vast property damage and loss of life - we were lucky to have passed through at the very beginning of the rains and floods.

We were going to be arriving more than four hours later than scheduled, but I really enjoyed those daylight hours, watching the scenery, walking around and talking to our next door neighbors who had just come from Burma. It occurred to me that even if it hadn't involved an uncomfortable, sleepless night, what's really the point of a night train, when you can't see anything? May as well take a night plane and get there faster, for all you can see in either case. As we got closer to the border, the skies cleared  bit and we found the rain had stopped in Vientiane. After passing through Thai immigration, crossing the Friendship Bridge and going through Lao immigration we shared a van into town with some fellow train travellers. Despite being pretty wrecked and sleep deprived,  I very soon found my rest and peace just by the joy of being back in Laos. Train already a memory.

Note to Self. Do NOT drink 2 quarts of beer when embarking on an Asian train trip.

Fish Spa

In Chiang Mai, the world's capital of massage, a new (I'm told) business has sprung up, with lots and lots of these "spas" along the streets in town.

The Fish Spa

Here's how it works. You pay your money and then you sit on benches and stick your feet into a fish tank. Filled with fish. Hungry fish. You sit there for half an hour or so while the toothless fish eat the dead skin off your feet.

This is NOT an April Fool's joke, but you may not believe that.

Patron photos from Smiling Albino 
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Night Market Art

On the ground floor of the Night Market building in Chiang Mai is a fun, and impressive, group of stalls. The Artists. Here, you can get everything. A portrait of your kids copied from a photograph, the National Geographic green eyed gal from Afghanistan which seems to be popular now, tigers for this Chinese Year of the Tiger, the Mona Lisa - you name it, they'll paint it.

Standing behind these artists, watching as they work on their paintings or charcoal drawings is quite something.  They all have a photograph in their hands, some peering through clipped on magnifying glasses to see the details. They are very very skilled copyists.

This trip to Chiang Mai, I came with a quest. To find an artist to do a very special project. No, not to paint The Boys, although maybe one day I will. This time I was looking for someone to help me with a part of my own art project. My miniature theater. (See previous post). I had built a foam board prototype to figure out the dimensions (20 inches wide, 15 inches deep and 15 inches high), found the photo of the Venetian canal scene I wanted, and was looking for someone to paint the theater backdrop for me. So, photo in hand, I went looking.

I wandered through the stalls until I found Him. Dusit. I produced my photo, consulted with the boss, negotiated the price...

As an aside,  I'm not a big fan of bargaining. To say the least. In Asia I get excited if the shops HAVE fixed prices. For me, paying the bill is not a sport. And indeed it seems pretty pointless for things of small value (unlike this painting). For example, in Viet Nam, the bargaining gets absurd, in my mind, when you're looking at things like simple silk scarves for $2.00.  Like, what's the point of getting your you know what in a knot over 25 cents? Obviously I'm missing whatever point there is to the whole exercise.

When I'm not in the mood, which is often, what I do is listen to the first asking price and then ponder at some length, which usually means I'm desperately trying mentally to figure out what country I'm in, what the currency is, and what the U.S. dollar exchange rate value is. This, for me, is harder than it might seem. I stay quiet a long time, because if the truth be told, I'm a complete dummy without my calculator - but the vendor often can't handle the long silence and the wait for a reply. My ineptitude seems to be marginally effective. Sometimes they even reduce the price before I respond. "Oh and those items are 20% off today", they say, before I even ask. (This happens often in River City in Bangkok - especially when the airports have been closed by demonstrators and the tourists have vanished.) Very often, I'll just ask for a better price, which they give me, and close the deal. I mean, 10 more percent off $2.00 is, what? Do I care?

Sometimes trying to bargain can backfire. Across from our hotel in Chiang Mai there is an art shop where we found a long coveted Burmese prayer book for sale. How much? 7000 baht. Wow. Really? The saleswoman says that prices are fixed in this shop. My partner in art says, how about 6000. The young woman says, I'll have to call my boss. She does and it turns out she's made a mistake. The piece is really for sale for 15,000 baht. We left, and through clenched teeth I announce "you are not allowed to bargain, ever again". What happened next? Well...you see, we really wanted it so went back later and bought it. Close to double the initial mistaken asking price. Turned out it's still a complete bargain, if you look around, which we hadn't beforehand.

So where was I before I got digressed? Standing in the Night Market, negotiating my Venetian theater backdrop painting. I didn't mention a single price. All I did was stand there, once we had determined that they could do the job within the timeframe I thought I had (this was before I knew I'd be there for longer than we'd thought) and hummed and hawed and frowned and pursed lips, and without a word out of my mouth, the price kept getting lower and lower.

A week later I returned. Dusit was putting the finishing touches on the painting and I was thrilled. Completely. Exceeded expectations. Brilliant. As I said to my companion, "now I have to step up to the plate, get at it, and  make this theater project worthy!" Now I'm inspired as well.

Thank you Dusit and all the artists of the Night Market. One of these days I may even have them paint The Boys - or perhaps, the Mona Lisa.

Beauty and the Chiang Mai Flower Festival

Our arrival in Chiang Mai  coincided with the annual Chiang Mai Flower Festival, a big event in the city. The festival headquarters was set up in a park on the edge of the old town, where hundreds of booths displayed the most gorgeous flowers in bloom, mostly orchids. A riot, as they say, of color. Exuberant musicians and dancers performed on outdoor stages around the city and on Saturday morning there was a huge parade. Huge. It started around 8:00 in the morning and was still going through the city at noon. Dozens and dozens of large, flower-bedecked floats, marching bands, costumed people and many many spectators snapping pictures. Including me. Later, on Saturday night, in the carnival-atmosphere park,  families gathered to socialize, eat great stall food, see the floats up close and generally enjoy themselves. It was fun. There were festival prizes given out for everything. Best float, best floral displays and, of course, most beautiful women. The Miss Chiang Mai Festival Queen.

No, not him. But I think this little guy was the star of the show.

Apparently there was some controversy this year prior to the festival when organizers decreed that you had to be a woman, born and bred, to enter the beauty contest. Some said that this was blatant discrimination against the katoeys, the ladyboys, the transgendered.

Others observed that allowing katoeys to enter the contest might put the "real" women at a disadvantage because the ladyboys were actually more beautiful than they were. Here's some pictures from recent Miss Ladyboy contests held every year in Pattaya. You judge.

 

 

In a high school in northeastern Thailand the administration has constructed a third washroom for its boys who identify as transgendered. The headmaster estimates that in any given year this represents something like 10-20% of the boy student population.

The Trip That Wasn't

We returned this evening to Manila after our trip to northern Thailand, Laos and Bangkok.

Well, not really. This particular trip lies within the category of "shit happens".

One of our party, while on the early part of our motorcycle tour of northern Thailand, had an accident while trying to avoid hitting a woman on a bicycle. A broken collarbone, bruised ribs and scraped flesh later, we had an inside view of the Thai acute care medical system. (Excellent, I might say, even in our little hospital way up north, close to the Burmese border). But that was the end of our adventure (TOO much excitement) and we went back to Chiang Mai to heal and recuperate.

We all split up and went different ways and I ended up spending about 2 weeks in Chiang Mai. Which I may say, turned out to be a good thing. I can always go back to Laos, and for sure I will, and I can always go back to northern Thailand - even on a motorcycle - and I probably will, but I don't think I ever would have gone back to Chiang Mai and spent 2 weeks there - and I am SO glad it happened that way. Shall I say that the city has grown on me, big time? More to come.

By the way. Every visitor who has come to see us in the Philippines has remarked on the people on motorcycles. Particularly the fact that whole families, including little kids, ride with no motorcycle helmets. Sometimes you will even see Mom and Dad with helmets, but the baby in between is completely unprotected. In Vietnam, Ground Zero for motorcycles, they have laws requiring helmets. Some don't like to wear them - they are hot and mess up the hair - they call them "rice cookers". But tough - you have to.

In Thailand, no such laws it seems. If we had not been wearing helmets...this would be a much much sadder blog post. For sure.

But all is well.

On the Road Again

Tomorrow morning we're off on another adventure. A few weeks in Thailand and Laos (again). This trip includes, among many other things, a motorcycle trip in northern Thailand. Yikes.

I feel like I've been back to Laos so many times that perhaps I should start shopping for a pied a terre. I say that I am on the list for the first Laos retirement visa, should they, when they, start issuing them.

I think I am joking. Sort of.

Maybe not.

Take care my friends - netbook travels with us now so email access occasionally.

Back end February.

Spirit House

The Spirit House has arrived.

Last July when we were in Chiang Mai, Thailand I bought the most beautiful Spirit House in the world and shipped it home to Manila. It finally arrived this month.

Ever since I started travelling in Southeast Asia I have been intrigued by these little houses. Perhaps because they resemble dollhouses and I'm passionate about miniatures. Or perhaps because they are cared for on a daily basis and obviously mean a great deal to those who do care for them. In any event I was determined to have one in our house and went looking for just the right one in Chiang Mai.

You can see Spirit Houses in every garden (sometimes on balconies) of every house or office building or shop or temple in Thailand, and also in Laos and Cambodia. They represent an old practice rooted in the animistic religion that predates the arrival of Buddhism. Old animistic beliefs and practices co-exist with Buddhism today (even here in the Philippines certain old beliefs exist alongside the widespread Catholicism of the country). Apparently, Spirit Houses are shrines placed to provide an appealing shelter for the spirits that inhabit the property, to make them happy so they won't cause problems for the inhabitants. Daily offerings are made to appease these spirits and if you look closely at the Spirit Houses, you will see all kinds of things placed in front of them - food, flowers, incense, candles, water, little statues, cigarettes, wine.

They can be made of wood, stone or concrete. Some are painted beautiful colors. They can be very modest, or very elaborate. Big or small. I've taken many pictures of them walking down the streets of Thailand, Laos or Cambodia.

The idea of house spirits is not unique to Southeast Asia and can be found in many other cultures as well, including in European mythology and practice. I bought ours as art and while I'm not at all sure that potentially malevolent spirits inhabit our 30th floor apartment, nonetheless it doesn't hurt to provide a constant supply of fresh flowers, along with those given to The Elephants and The Buddha (Welcome to the Elephants).

Just in case.

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.