the friendly bar owner in my last post, who apparently played a game with his waiter and bartender trying to guess my nationality that when i joked i was from thailand, the waiter exploded in burst of joy as if he had just won a bet, insisted that i spoke very good english, different from the kind of english spoken by most filipinos he knew, asked me what i thought about the taiwanese, and here was my response: i found them to be warmer and friendlier, as compared to the chinese i have encountered in hong kong, malaysia, and singapore. i know it isn't fair to build on stereotypes, because bigotry and racism have the same elements, but these boxes are based on fact, although they are rather sweeping generalizations. having said that, i felt that despite the language barrier, and perhaps because of it, i found my encounters with the people of taiwan to be rather pleasant: they are always smiling and respectful. you can walk inside a store, look around and linger, and leave without buying anything and not hear anything disparaging from the store owner. nonetheless, if i were to describe them, i would say that the lines between many east asian countries continue to blur. i am not a fan of these dubbed, imported soaps, but what we've seen in meteor garden are nearly exactly what you'd find in taipei. men dress like the men in singapore. they like to squeeze themselves into tight-fitting shirts, have short haircuts, and seem to be spending a lot of time in the gym. the women are trés façonable, like those in macau, and take public transportation in strappy and high-heeled shoes and attention-grabbing clothes. in general, the people are lithe and small boned, which makes me tend to think that among asians in the far east, filipinos probably tend to be more prone to being overweight. nevertheless, and perhaps due in no small part to the fact that all of taiwan was once part of the japanese empire, the japanese influence is quite apparent, from old, ancient practices, to current pop culture and fashion. some women look like they'd just given life to some animé characters, while a lot of teenagers like to walk around in these outrageous outfits: it's a small circus in some parts of ximending.


now anyone remotely aware of taiwan's history would know basically the following: that it's considered by the PRC as a rogue province, that the one-china policy sort of isolates taiwan diplomatically, and that it is a fairly recent development, resulting from the triumph of communism in mainland china. for this reason, taiwan, and in particular, taipei, is a new creation, whose recent, rapid growth and development is far too obvious but also provides stark contrasts. as it is, progress in the 1980s is different from progress nearing the 20th century. so there are all these buildings with their narrow frontage squeezing each other like rows of books on a shelf. it's a pastiche, really, with the ultra-modern mixing with the post-modern, and simply, the past. there aren't any grand ancient structures as one might find in beijing, but there are grand structures nonetheless. the chiang kai shek memorial hall is a case in point. it was built in chinese imperial style, with sprawling grounds, high staircases, and a big room filled with nothing but a big bronze statute. in the same complex are two other monuments: the national theater and the national concert hall, both built in traditional chinese style, from which period i can only guess. the gate itself is something to behold. but all these are only about 30 years old, if not younger.


the only other person important to taiwan's young history is sun yat sen, who also has his own memorial hall, which is admittedly less grand, but no less impressive. it has its own museum. while i was there, i noticed some members of falun gong meditating outside the hall and i took pictures. an elderly lady approached me and she happened to speak rather good english so we spoke briefly. she asked me if i was familiar with falun gong, and i said yes, only in so far as knowing they were being persecuted in PRC. she found my knowledge remarkable, and added: in china, there are no human rights. she pointed out that it was very peaceful. i couldn't agree more. there were about 5 persons holding these poses for a few minutes, changing when a small electronic timer sounded a gong.


apart from these two places, taipei tends to keep its most interesting parts in secret pockets. people would suggest a number of things if you'd like to see fine examples of chinese architecture, but anyone who has been to china might not be impressed. i haven't, so i wouldn't say i was disappointed. but i was rather impressed with the contrasts that taipei presented. one might be walking past a stack of identical buildings, then suddenly, from out of the bushes of concrete, a temple pops out. and oddly enough, i didn't find any male monks in taipei, but women with shaved heads in many-colored garbs who didn't want their photos taken. the temples themselves are rather odd, and i really could not put a finger on it. taiwan is supposedly multi-denominational, and there are statues of buddha in the mahayana style, but there are also a lot of other elements that drown out any basic knowledge i've gained about this religion from my travels through southeast asia. in longshan temple, for example, i watched as the faithful flipped wooden chips, burned incense, thumbed prayer beads, and submitted themselves to a routine of bowing and rising. i was possessed by an inner peace which i couldn't describe, and i could have spent the better part of the day there just observing people.


another thing about taipei is that it doesn't seem to have a very defined center. it's a large, sprawling city, and i couldn't say that one place is more accessible than the other. it does not have a backpacker's quarter such as bangkok or vietnam. its business district isn't confined to a specific area such as in manila and singapore. shopping centers are disjointed and they have an entirely different concept of malls. modern architecture isn't as astounding as kuala lumpur, but an efficient metro has resulted in few traffic woes unlike manila and bangkok. nevertheless, the skyline of taipei isn't as impressive as singapore or bangkok or kuala lumpur. remove taipei 101 and we have taller buildings in makati. in fact, it would seem like it was intentionally done that way: taipei 101, the tallest built skyscraper in the world, seems to be a spire or a needle in the middle of buildings of less stellar height. there is nothing, absolutely nothing, around it that would seem to challenge its height. the design itself fuses asian traditions with modern technologies. unfortunately, i only got to walk around the mall as going up to the top to look at the damper costs a lot. why would i pay NTD400 to ride on one of the world's fastest elevator? it didn't seem right to me.


finally, let me conclude my observations about taipei. it is a lot different from the few expectations i had formed prior to my visit. which, i suppose, added to the thrill. i didn't encounter any filipinos there, probably because most of our workers who are in taiwan are employed by booming factories and growing industries based in taichung and kaoshiung. lastly, i never realized that it was possible for me, with my big eyes and deep tan, to be mistaken for chinese. but in the end, my incomplete picture of taiwan left me wanting, desiring to find the details that would allow me a better view.

Tags: architecture, religion: buddhism, religion: taoism, taipei, taiwan, travel, wanderlust

i was still groggy when i stepped into chiang mai’s international airport after a flight which i slept through and nearly missed (having slept on a bench outside of the boarding area). pitsa was already there with family and friends, having taken the night bus the previous day. he had arranged a van as well as an itinerary to make most of my 3 full days in thailand’s second most important city after bangkok. when he saw me, he immediately suggested that i just catch some zzz's in the van, but this was futile, of course, since after 15 minutes, we had breakfast at a popular congee restaurant behind pitsa’s alma mater: chiang mai university. plus, pitsa’s friends, chu and ruby (a filipina teaching at an international school in bangkok), are extraordinarily glib. as i have said before, pitsa is an accredited guide, and his interest in promoting thai tourism has allowed him to amass ideas and contacts about how best to explore his country. i surrendered my 3 days to him without question.


after a very short while, we arrived at our first stop: the mae sa elephant camp, and although i hadn’t managed to catch up on sleep and hadn’t even changed from what i had worn to bed supper club the night previous, i was jolted by the sight of these playful behemoths: i remember my first visit to thailand in 1999 when i suddenly screamed upon seeing an elephant in khao san road. but there i was, in the company of more than 10 of them, grabbing bananas and sugar cane from visitors with their trunks. and although one of their hind legs had chain on them, they weren’t behind bars, or separated by a dike, unlike in a zoo, for example.



i hadn’t managed to play with the elephants when they suddenly stampeded to the canal where their handlers gave them baths. pitsa told me that asian elephants are much smaller compared to african elephants, although they are smarter. the elephants frolicked in the water as men washed their thick hides with brushes. the giants dropped their heavy bodies into the stream and blew water onto the curious and happy onlookers. it was a lot of fun just watching them enjoying their baths.

then they marched onto the arena for the show. i really didn’t know what to expect, but i was excited. what followed was an amazing hour where elephants played soccer, held tails with their trunks for a merry go around, demonstrated their contribution to the now defunct logging industry, challenged a human to a contest of darts, and painted! of course i’d seen this on television before, but to see it live, unfolding in front of you is something else. yes, elephants probably cannot perceive color, and their handlers have to hand them brushes which have already been dipped into paint, and they send subtle signals by holding on to their ears, but the effect was completely awesome.


i know that there is an ongoing debate about elephants being in camps such as mae sa, which is ISO-certified. but when pitsa told me that they had been rescued from the logging industry which was banned in the late 80s, the elephants, and their handlers from one of the northern tribes, lost a form of livelihood. so rather than pursue illegal activities, the camp was created to provide jobs: both for the tribespeople, and the elephants: yes, the giants eat hundreds of kilograms of fruits and grass and drink gallons of water everyday that each one has to literally work for food.


now i don’t know if elephants left in the wild would willingly engage in games such as kickball or log-pushing, but i am amazed at how human beings discovered that they could be trained, taught, and domesticated: weren’t they even daunted by the size of the elephants? the commands are strange to the ears: single-syllable yelps and half-growls that have no meaning, even to native thai-speakers. but the elephants understand them. and they respond with screams, or raise their trunks to the air and show off their tusks.

after the show was the mandatory elephant ride: we just had to do it. i had doubts about the carriage built over the giant animal, because it wasn’t bolted in place, and the fall would have been at least 12 feet, but this is one chance in a thousand. we walked through an excavated mountainside, parts of which were steep. at one point, the elephant rubbed its body against a wall of earth, and proceeded to a stream where i feared getting sprayed with water and snot.



after the ride, we rode to our next destination: the doi angkhang royal agriculture station: hectares of garden sculpted from a mountain valley which used to be an opium plantation. this is one of the royal family’s projects, and i was just amazed at how beautifully manicured the whole place is, which had colors and flowers beyond what i thought possible. now i’ve heard of opium before, but i’ve always thought it was some kind of powder, like flour or cornstarch, i would suppose, much like other dangerous drugs, and never did i imagine it had been derived from a plant with a very beautiful bloom. it made me wonder how humans of old discovered it had hallucinogenic qualities. did they routinely boil all the flowers to find out if they would have a kind of effect? was it discovered as an addictive drug just by the way it looked, or the way it smelled? it boggled me without end.


afterwards, we moved further north to look at myanmar. thailand of course shares many kilometers of border with the union of myanmar, and ban nor lae is just one of them. on the hilltop was a military base with a helipad. it must be the islander in me to very naively assume that a concrete wall must stand between these two countries, but much of what separates thailand from its neighbors are natural boundaries: rivers, mountains, forests, cliffs... in this particular case, the delineation is marked by a bamboo fence on either side. in between is at least 30 meters of no-man’s land: borders are imprecise. on the thailand side are places dug into the earth for machine guns: a vestige of a troubled past, perhaps, and in preparation for a future where you never know.


that night, we slept at wat thaton, which had a guesthouse that didn’t charge: visitors were asked merely to give a donation. it also had a temple/museum which contained various depictions of the buddha in different cultures. it was at this time that pitsa informed me that the first buddha image was actually built by the greeks, neither by the indians nor the chinese. trivia can sometimes shatter perceptions.


the following day we went to wat phra that doi tung, one of the oldest stupas in northern thailand, in mae sai, already in chaing rai province. fashioned from real gold, the original twin stupas were built in the 10th century, and it may have undergone a few facelifts since then. bells are attached to a walkway towards the stupas, and there is some buddhist ritual involved in banging them, which i had forgotten. mostly, it had to do with blessings and good luck.


wat phra doi tung is also an important place for buddhists because it has one of the buddha relics, and a place visited for religious reasons. clearly, i was the only tourist there, and i felt privileged to be witness to everyday life in northern thailand. the best way to travel is to avoid the tired roads treaded by all visitors, but to walk on the same paths of the locals.

but then again, it wouldn’t hurt to see what other tourists want to see, so we moved to the doi tung royal villa, the residence of the princess mother, her royal highness princess srinagarindra in the mae fah luang district. now don’t be impressed with my grasp of places and their latinate names: pitsa wrote these down for me. doi tung is in mae fah luang: the name given by the northern tribespeople to the princess mother, because she often came to this place via a helicopter. it means something like mother from the sky. once again, the area used to be an opium plantation, and it was turned into the princess mother’s summer villa, with acres of landscaped garden, and the house itself melds european and thai styles: it’s like an ornate log cabin. we had a brief tour inside, but could only see a few rooms, because much of it was cordoned off.

after doi tung, we sped off north for mae sai, the border town with myanmar, and the northernmost point of thailand. having a van to deliver us to all these places is just cool, and the daily fee isn’t even unreasonable. it was a cheap and efficient way to travel and see as much of thailand as we could.

this area is already part of the golden triangle: so called because it was close to the borders of the 3 countries (including laos) where opium was cultivated in large numbers. there was a time that opium was valued in gold, hence the name. although pitsa admits that opium is still possibly grown illegally in parts of thailand, and maybe even in the 2 other countries, great strides have been made in converting the plantations, and in diverting the sources of income of the northern tribes.

it is possible to cross-over to myanmar from mae sai, to tachileik. thais can step onto burmese soil for free, but other nationals have to pay THB500 for a day pass. i could see tachileik from mae sai, which are separated by the mae sai river, and although there were flags of myanmar there, i really felt that i would just be paying for the stamp on my visa: there was nothing so uniquely burmese about tachileik; even the transactions are in baht. so i just went around mae sai, watching the beginnings of song khran, and tried vainly to find a fedora hat that would fit my head. before we left for chiang rai city, we had fried milk. it was weird, but i liked it.

in chiang rai, we stayed at a hotel where one of pitsa’s friends (who works for the city’s tax department) managed to get us a discount. below the hotel was a disco where young people went to, and outside was a pro-thaksin rally. it was peaceful: people were seated watching video feeds from bangkok. i dropped in to see what was happening, and i happened to be also wearing red. they thought i was part of the group. later, pitsa told me not to wear this color again for the remaining days as violence escalated. earlier that day, the protesters blocked the highway, and prevented land traffic to chiang mai. thank goodness i flew!

we had steamed chicken at a sidewalk joint, and then we parted ways at the chiang rai night bazaar, where i could not resist temptation. i bought 6 t-shirts there. i worried about the weight of my luggage, but convinced myself they were very good buys because i wouldn’t find them in manila. i spent a full hour just weaving through the narrow paths of the nightmarket, pausing to watch a transvestite show, and smiling at vendors who always mistake me as local. i just smile at them and don’t tell them i’m foreign, unless i need to ask a question. sometimes i wonder whether they find me stupid because of that. haha.


the hotel is about half a kilometer from the night bazaar, but i walked that distance so i could see the famous clock tower in the rotunda: an elaborate structure built by one of thailand’s national artists, chalermchai kositpipat. it was a gloriously lit piece of artwork which served more like a landmark than a place which people consulted for the time. apparently, it would not be the last of my encounters with kositpipat’s work because the following day, our first stop was the famous white temple he built in muang chiang: wat rong khun. pitsa said that it probably was the most beautiful temple in all of thailand, and i clearly saw why.


as if thai craftsmanship isn’t stylized enough, kositpipat drew deep into the imagination to fuse ornate asian sensibilities with rich byzantine pageantry. the wat is modern, and therefore has no historical importance, but it is a testament to how an ancient religion copes with modernity. there is a depiction of hell at the entrance, and demons hold their palms out at the causeway. not to confuse this place as evil, but in hinduism, there are actually good demons. the white structure is studded with tiles of glass, reflecting the sun, and makes it shine ever more brightly. inside the wat is a still unfinished mural of buddha with hints of pop: superman, star trek, transformers. pity i was not allowed to photograph the wall.

kositpipat’s hand is truly blessed because inside his gallery are some of his religious illustrations. i don’t know jack about buddhism nor hinduism but i was drawn to his drawing of ganesh, an elephant-headed deity, and the son of shiva and parvati. the details are mind-blowing, and i bought a print. normally, new structures, unless they be mega-structures, do not interest me, but this fusion of art, faith, cultures, and devotion was spectacular. on my way out, i saw a sign which proclaimed that foreigners weren’t allowed entry unless accompanied by a local guide. thank goodness i look every inch a local.

finally, it was time to head back to chiang mai for song khran. but it seemed that pitsa still had many tricks up his sleeve, and we passed by suan charin, perhaps the most famous pie restaurant in all of northern thailand. it served fresh pies with fruits harvested from its own garden. we also dropped by mae khacharn hot spring in wiang pa pao where vendors shoved eggs in baskets to me. nearby, a steaming well was surrounded by people dipping the eggs into the hot spring. of course, the sulfur in the hot spring tends to smell like a rotten egg at times so boiling eggs in it felt kind of odd. it also actually made me wonder if thailand had volcanoes, or any active fault lines underneath it, when it sits far away from the pacific ring of fire.

of course, i had questions, as most travelers do: the ones that remain unanswered drive us out of the zones of our comfort and find meaning where we aren’t understood, and where we often get confused. i travel for these simple pleasures: to be humbled by ignorance, and to be mesmerized by the infinite possibilities perceived by the human mind.

Tags: architecture, art, chiang mai, chiang rai, religion: buddhism, retail therapy, thialand, travel, wanderlust

i woke suddenly when the rickety aircraft of airasia entered a dark plume of a thunderstorm and shook with so much violence it felt that the wings would snap off. nevertheless, and despite the brewing storm, we landed at suvarnabhumi airport with no incident. a bus fetched us from the far-away parking lot of the budget carriers, and deposited us at the glorious terminal which drew me in like an awestruck visitor. not long after, ai, jojo and myself were driving through kilometers of elevated highway as the sky let lose buckets of rain. traffic was extremely bad in parts, and the nighttime lights of bangkok's skyscrapers lit our views. thanks to very specific instructions from my friend pitsa, we were deposited to our guesthouse near the national stadium of bangkok, and less than 150 meters from MBK and the nearest BTS station. it would have been easy to be seduced by the idea of staying at khao san road, bangkok's backpacker district, but pitsanu had decided our guesthouse for us, taking into consideration things like accessibility and cost. after we had checked in, pitsanu appeared and before we even had time to shake off the dust of phnom penh and siem reap, he had already given ai a complete itinerary for chiang mai. we took him to a late dinner at MBK, and we prepared for culture shock with iton, who also timed his visit to the city of angels with our trip.


ai and jojo dressed casually and i put on a shirt and we took the BTS to sala daeng where iton had already been waiting. these all sound helplessly greek to many, but that station is near what many visitors to thailand associate bangkok with: pat pong, its red light district. this was already my 3rd visit to bangkok, but for some reason, i have never completely explored pat pong, nor have i willingly jumped into its enticing pools of muck. it may largely be because my local friends themselves regret the suggestion that much of bangkok's charm has to do with sex tourism. no one ought to be proud about the fact about abuse and prostitution being part of the attraction. but it may have been the curious horns growing on our hard heads that convinced us we had to see what many have been talking about, no matter that the stories bordered on disgust and shock -- we secretly desired the same: to have our libidos siphoned off by the sheer spectacle of naked bodies performing otherwordly circus acts. we wanted the sensory overload that would blow our minds, in ways too different from the way angkor wat took our breaths away.

so we descended on pat pong, and within 2 minutes, commissioners flocked to us, offering all sorts of sex shows, some of them already bringing a folded price list for drinks in their pockets, and the more eager ones encouraging with words and a slight tug at the elbow. we walked and walked through makeshift stalls of clothes and curious, past doors with slightly open red curtains, under bright neon lights proclaiming kingdoms and queendoms of pussy and cunt. it doesn't get more graphic than this, and we are offered a peep into a stage with faint lights, where whispers of cloth cover only the smallest of areas: the vagina, the nipples. suddenly, you ask yourself whether by partaking in this exhibition of skin and sin, you are directly abetting a trade that neither makes you happy nor thrilled. would it have been better to say that prostitution had been around before all other professions, and that pat pong had already been there before i even knew of bangkok? i repeated that mantra even as i checked on one second floor bar with dim lights and smoke swirling just underneath its low ceiling, mixing with the pungent air produced by fake leather. the seats surrounded a bar which also doubled as the stage. the ugliest things on earth were standing there, shuffling their feet lazily from side to side. i decided to stay there: since we wanted a shot of shock and desired to be desensitized, it seemed like a good place.

after ordering our beers, the show started. a young woman came up and inserted a straw into her vagina, while a transvestite threw inflated condoms into the air, which burst with a pop as needles flew out of the armed and aimed straw. when she missed, the needles flew to the ceiling and stayed there. our jaws were perpetually open as a middle-aged woman was disturbed from mending her bra to open bottles with the same orifice she uses to urinate and give birth. and the bottles popped and fizz flowed out when she had opened them. a third show took place when another woman came to blow out candles on a cardboard cake. all along, ai and jojo would ask: oh my god how do they do that? and does it hurt? i responded: i wouldn't know, i don't have one.

but when you willingly submit yourself to the tentacles of the devil, be prepared for more temptation. suddenly, one of the floor managers insisted that we should order more drinks, but i said we haven't finished our beers yet. so she flips out a price list where the beers were listed at THB300 each. i said: but no, i asked earlier, and you said one bottle is 100 baht each. she insisted on her price tag and said: man no work here, 300 one beer. while this went on, the performers and other people at the bar crowded our table in a bid to intimidate, but instead, despite my racing heart, i firmly said: no, i asked one of your managers how much a beer costs and she said 100 baht! so how much you pay? the stern woman asked me. we will pay 400 baht for our 4 beers, i replied. okay you pay and go. and we did. i was about to warn a couple about their scam, but the woman stood in the way. when we had returned to the streets of pat pong, we laughed about that experience, and although we were nearly scammed, it provided what we initially sought, and perhaps even more: the feeling of walking out of something unbelievable. i make no apologies about having done so, because i risk sounding self-righteous. i would prefer to see in its literal sense, and will not romanticize it by saying we wanted to get a dose of culture, even the underground kind. but we were not about to allow bad hospitality to get in our way. so we explored more of pat pong and discovered its other secrets. i would go on giving details about our forays and foraging through markets of sweat and skin, but iton would not approve. suffice it to say that ai and jojo had exceeded their lifetime quotas, and that i became unwittingly tactile in the avenues of the imagination. when ai and jojo left for our guesthouse, iton and i stayed behind and found ourselves dancing in a crowded bar where t-shirts seemed to have gone out of style. we spent an hour at bug and bee for porridge, where our conversations focused on a common desire to return to bangkok. after we finished only half of our early morning meals, we left separately to prepare for a whole day of thai tourism.

the following day was spent for culture and history. we met at MBK and after breakfast, walked to the jim thompson house in bangkok. jim was instrumental in bringing thai silk to the world's attention. he's an american architect, and he built this house on the banks of the saen saeb, integrating various thai architectural styles. he went missing in malaysia many years ago. for THB100 each, we had a guided tour inside the house along with several other tourists. our guide, who was still on training, liked to repeat certain key words in her sentences, such as: this is the garden. the garden. or this room used to be the storage for the rice. the rice. we walked barefoot inside the house where little details were explained. inside one of the guest rooms, the guide said: do you know where the bedpan is stored? everyone made guesses, such as under the bed or inside the closet. then she pointed to a porcelain figurine shaped like a cat, and she said: that is the bedpan for a little boy. a little boy. how about a big boy? i asked. everyone laughed. i'm filipino. comedy runs in my blood.


after the guided tour, i took my companions to ride the river taxi along the saen saeb canal towards wat saket. from there, we took a taxi to the royal palace. it was a scorching afternoon, and we had put on shorts and t-shirts. but apparently, the complex had rules for what is appropriate clothing inside the palace: pants for boys and skirts for girls. so we were leased these odd-colored pants and sarongs, which really made for bad photos. frequently, we had to instruct each other to just take a photo of the upper half of our bodies, because what we wore from the waist down looked like an ill-advised afterthought: it clashed with everything else. because we had willingly shed our backpacking ideas, we decided to get the free walking tour of the complex. we had an english-speaking guide who made many jokes about everything. the guided tour would last just over an hour, and jojo, having been to the palace grounds before, just decided to sit under the shade of an artful shed. i gave her my lonely planet book to amuse her. we began our tour with explanations on the various thai styles and craftsmanship. there were hints of khmer architecture here as well, and i know pitsanu had once told me that when the siamese attacked angkor, they also captured a number of khmer artisans who introduced many things, from art, architecture, to even dance, into thai culture. of course this is largely denied these days, and i don't know why a replica of the angkor wat is on display on the palace grounds, but the similarities are stark.


i was last at the royal palace in 1998, and nothing seems to have changed, including my memory of it. i suddenly recalled all the small details i had seen over 10 years ago, and the rush of curves and gold leaf filled my mind. i was overwhelmed. once again. the guide pointed out to us the various divisions in buddhism which influenced the artwork and the definitive styles of the temples. there were at least 20 people in our group, and there may have been more than 1,000 tourists at the complex at the time. various tour groups crossed paths, and our penchant for taking photos frequently lost us in our own petty concerns. we took off our shoes at the wat phra kaew and then tried to locate the image of the emerald buddha in the sensory overload that is held sacred by many thais. the green image of the buddha, which we are not allowed to photograph, is actually not made of emerald, but of jade. depending on the season, the image changes its golden garb, and only the king is allowed to disrobe the small statue.


we roamed around the complex even more and looked at the murals which are perpetually being retouched. the guide said that the work of applying gold leaf onto the walls is a year-long activity, that by the time they're done with the entire stretch of wall murals, the other paintings telling stories of ancient thai life and history need to be repainted again. we still had a lot of other things to see. places held sacred by buddhists had been seen, and the palace and other buildings owned by the royal family were next in line. but the heat had become unbearable that if we had spent another 10 minutes walking, we would either have spontaneously combusted or fainted. i was certain that my nose was about to bleed. so we fetched jojo, returned our sarongs and pants, and had lunch. afterwards we went to chatuchak. i took them there chiefly to shop, and the taxi dropped us off at platinum, one of the newer malls in the area, where we bumped into the pinoys we saw in siem reap. but i was more interested in panthip plaza, where i spent over an hour just looking, not buying anything. i had decided on getting myself a digital P&S, and had narrowed down my choices on a few things. afterwards, we decided to walk to the nearest BTS station, and along the way, got lost in another mall where i ended up buying a pair of oakley radar sunglasses, which is vented and hydrophobic.


afterwards, we had dinner at the italian restaurant beside our guesthouse and prepared for a night out with my friend jay. we met up with him outside of bed supper club, where he flashed his VIP card and we all got in for free. both ai and jojo were dressed and made up. i even saw french-thai david (who gave me a hug) and vietnamese-spanish (but french-bred) vincent again. what a coincidence. iton followed a little while later, and they had a lot of fun, dancing and breaking free of the rough roads we'd been treading since the start of our vacation. this time around, we had a taste of the thai-styled glitz and glamor. at 2am, the music was turned down and it was finally time to go home. in my case, i had to rush to the airport for a 6am flight to chiang mai. jojo kept asking why we had to go home. for the first time since we'd started, she was the one insisting on extending the gimik. we dropped by our guesthouse where i had already packed, then jay drove me to suvarnabhumi. i got there even before 4am, so i found the back of a sign, took out my hat, lay down on the cold, tiled floor, covered my face and stole an hour's worth of sleep before the check-in counters opened. i must have slept soundly despite the noise in the terminal because if i didn't wake earlier, my flight would have left without me. which would have been sad because chiang mai and northern thailand beckoned.

Tags: architecture, art, bangkok, bizaare, gimik, photography, prostitution, religion: buddhism, thailand, travel, wanderlust

i had already packed the night previous to the morning of my departure for siem reap. early that morning, i gingerly picked up my bags and went down to the lobby to settle our bill. ryan and patrick were quickly whisked away by the bus company for their 7am bus to phnom penh. i had an extra 30 minutes to wait for my bus. my companions for this part of the trip were ai, jojo, and hanz, who was convinced to join only the previous day. we boarded our sapaco tours bus -- a spacious carriage with a toilet, which i never got to use during the 12-hour journey. i slept through most of the ride, including the part when the bus rolled onto a barge to cross a bridgeless river on the cambodia side. i woke up only for immigration at the border between vietnam and cambodia. for an islander like myself whose nation's borders are imaginary lines out in open sea, i do not quite know the sensation of sharing borders, or stepping into foreign territory with a single bound. i had previously done something similar last november, when i walked into myanmar without a visa by pretending to be thai -- i already looked the part, so i just shut up completely, and nodded when the border police said something. so i've always wondered how a border would look like. nature's fences, like mountains and riverine channels might be obvious markers, but how do you delineate the edges of your territory? is there some wall, or other, erected by vietnam along the thousands of kilometers of land it shares with cambodia and laos? i only caught a glimpse of the border crossing in bavet, and i became only fully awake when we finally reached phnom penh.


the moment i stepped out of the bus for an hour's break, i was immediately struck by the city's polarizing features: tuktuks and scooters share dusty streets with very expensive luxury vehicles, some of which i have not even seen in pretentious manila. to be clear, there are very few cars in phnom penh, but a majority of these few cars are posh. we had lunch at a nearby restaurant. we passed a building which had nothing but pharmacies: perhaps more than 20 of them. lunch was far from inviting, and i wondered whether cambodian food would look like servings of indiscernible objects thrown into a thick, aromatic glob. thankfully, i would be proven gravely wrong much later into the day and that khmer cooking doesn’t always look like a radioactive experiment.

we boarded our bus at 2:00 for the remaining 6 hours to siem reap. the highway connecting cambodia's capital city and the heart of the ancient khmer kingdoms has drastically improved from previous years, as i have read from the little research i've done, although it isn't as slick as, say, the SCTEx, or the smooth stretch of asphalt between singapore and kuala lumpur. nonetheless, the ride was hitch-free, and the sometimes featureless landscape unfolded just outside my window. houses stood on stilts, and the apex of their triangular roofs were adorned by art, like dainty and pointy fingers in bloom. in complete contrast, a square, artless sign along the highway proclaimed that family’s political affiliation. hun sen’s funcinpec party seemed to be popular. at times, erect palm trees with leaves the shape of green halos stood in the perfect stillness of a brown sahara under a scorching sun. dust lifted and swirled as we sped through the highway, until evening crept even as the wooden houses were replaced by sturdier buildings, and modern signs appeared on the highway. at close to 8pm, we arrived in siem reap, and although we were booked at a particular guesthouse, the bus company's accredited tuktuk drivers suggested a place near downtown. of course, it would have been ideal to stay in a place near everything, but this was our first mistake: to accept a tuktuk driver's suggestion of a place to stay. only when we reached the hotel did i realize that lonely planet contained a warning about a scam, and this was it. although the guesthouse wasn't so unimaginably bad, we could have gotten something better for the same price. it's a bit more expensive precisely because the tuktuk drivers get a commission from bringing in customers, in much the same way that taxi drivers here get a tip by bringing tourists to a certain hotel, or couples to a certain motel.

nonetheless, we weren't about to let this small incident snag our vacation. our guide, rathana, who was recommended by pitsanu, arrived and we quickly discussed our plans for the next two days. he began by apologizing for not meeting us at the bus station. he could have gotten us a better deal, he said, but we brushed away his concern and we focused on enjoying our brief stay in siem reap. we told him we wanted cheap dinner, and he took us to his special sidewalk joint that prepared hearty meals for a dollar! in cambodia, the local currency is hardly ever part of a transaction, and items are priced in US dollars, except when they're less than 1. so if an item is a dollar fifty, when you pay USD2, you'd get 2,000 riel as change.

rathana decided our itinerary: the following day we would wake up before 5am to catch the sunrise, and keep only to as many as 3 temples, the best, he assured, because everything else were minor towers, wats, and ruins that would either pale in comparison, or desensitize our initial awe and amazement. the cardinal rule in visiting the ruins of angkor is to refuse the temptation to see so many -- unless you are doing scholarly research on angkorian art and architecture, attempting to see everything: all the fallen blocks of stone, the incomplete sculptures, the temples that lay in ruin, would be no different from a shot of anesthesia: it will neuter your senses and emasculate your responses, and you would be robbed of the awe you came here to find. so after a filling dinner, we walked along the dug-up street to the night market. the excavated road had fine beach sand underneath it.

i only had USD25 in my pocket, and in 30 minutes, i had spent all of them. the night market carries every imaginable cambodian souvenir: these ubiquitous t-shirts, khmer scarves, trinkets carved from jade and ivory, jewelry hammered from silver, ref magnets, etc. if i had stayed longer i would not have managed to refuse temptation. so we hurriedly left, knowing that we still had 2 nights in the old town. we proceeded to pub street for a night cap. we sat down at the khmer family restaurant and watched the evening pass us by. we decided to sleep early to be able to have enough energy for the entire day’s tour of the temples the following day.

before dawn, we were onboard our tuktuks, chasing the sunrise. the cold morning wind in the forest kissed my skin, and i thankfully had a scarf tied around my neck. we paid our temple pass of USD20 at the gate. it would have been possible to pass myself off as cambodian, who can of course visit the ruins of angkor for free, but i had the wrong outfit, and the starstruck look on my face was undeniable. so other than the color of my skin, and the almond shape of my eyes, i looked pretty much the part of the tourist. besides, since the evening before, and the days that would come, it became evident to me that a huge chunk of siem reap’s income and its ability to generate jobs for the locals are anchored on tourism. everyone seems to be making a living directly or vicariously from the influx of visitors eager to see the world’s most amazing religious structures. hotels, guesthouses and restaurants are so commonplace, the supply has come close to surpassing the demand. and tour guides, although a regulated profession, are also extremely common. cambodians, from a very young age, are eager to learn english and speak it every chance they get to cash in on tourism, since no other local industry seems to be able to provide as many opportunities.


when we arrived at angkor wat, i was surprised to see a stream of people crossing the bridge into the temple proper. angkor is surrounded by a huge moat, dug up by slaves of an ancient kingdom whose ruler was inspired by his hindu faith to build this glorious structure for vishnu, a task which wasn’t completed in the nearly 40 years of its construction.

from this distance, the gates of angkor seemed just like a drab arrangement of stone bricks, but an explanation of how these stones found their way here is already a chance for much reflection. and upon closer inspection, the detail with which they were artfully carved is mind-blowing. we walked along the causeway and passed through the high walls of the gate and found that many other tourists were already awaiting to catch the sun rising over the temple. most of them were perched near the pond where a faint wind was disturbing the angkor’s otherwise perfect reflection.

i set up shop there myself, no matter that it seemed thousands of other travelers with cameras have taken the same photo as i have. these days, everyone is a photographer, which makes you ask and wonder: where were they before the digital age?

slowly, the sun tore the gloomy sky without drama, refusing to reveal its colors. it poured over the five towers of angkor, one of which was surrounded by scaffolding. when the sun was fully up, and tourists began to depart the pond, we took breakfast, then proceeded to inspect the temple proper in greater detail. we walked along the platform whose railings are the slender bodies of the naga: a many-headed hydra present in both buddhism and hinduism. at angkor’s doors were decorated lions, at guard.

rathana had a clearbook with him containing photos and illustrations, and he explained ancient construction techniques to us. at one point, there was a family of americans admiring the bas relief which told the story of the search for the elixir of immortality, and they provided several guesses about why the wall was adorned that way. that is why it seemed nearly solomonic to hire a guide because i am spared my silly theories and hypothesis, or worse, leaving behind questions and mysteries over things which had clear and definite answers. i walked through angkor wat armed with knowledge, and not with an ignorance which threatened to rise to the level of my awe.


angkor wat was put together by connecting stones cut into smooth blocks from a mountain a hundred kilometers away, following which an artist devoted his days to a wall, or a column, or a ceiling, chiseling fine details, like curlicues of flowers and leaves, women with round breasts and shapely hips who are called apsara, or sometimes, something as grand as an entire people’s history. you can tell which parts get touched most often by passing tourists and visitors. the walls with the intricate bas relief, for example, has been cordoned off, so that they may be admired by the eyes, rather than felt by hand.

inside, there is construction: wooden stairs are being built on the otherwise steep steps onto the highest tower, whose steps are small and high, to depict the long and difficult road to paradise. on the cobbled floor lie pieces of a puzzle, parts of the towers toppled by lightning. construction of angkor began in the 12th century and efforts to restore it are still ongoing. i began entertaining ideas about ancient art and inspiration, but while angkor wat is a visual feast where i could possible spend an entire day just studying the lines and curves etched by ancient chisels, but we still had others thing to see and feast on. i feared an overdose. before leaving angkor wat, rathana took us to see his “girl”, the only apsara, of the thousands carved around angkor wat’s inner and outer walls, who didn’t have a mona lisa smile.






we next moved to bayon temple, inside the fortified city of angkor thom, whose ancient walls, and its narrow carriageways adorned with graceful elephants still exist. the king who built this temple had changed religions, and the temple, which looks like a pile of stone jengas from afar, is carved with more than 200 giant faces of buddha, his eyes closed, and a mysterious smile curving his full lips. outside as well as inside are blocks of stone, some of them with numbers, pointing to further efforts to restore the ruined temple structure. despite that, however, the structure is still no less amazing, and although smaller in scale compared to angkor, it is far from being less ambitious.

bayon was built later than angkor, at the turn of the 13th century, and there is an apparent competition between later cambodian kings as they attempt to outdo each other in building these inspired monuments. bayon’s faces are intriguing, and its arrangement is a lot more confounding, perhaps becase some passageways have been made inaccessible by ongoing work or destruction wrecked centuries ago. inside bayon, some of the bas relief are missing. these phantom buddhas, replaced by the scars of random chisels and pointed objects inflicted by soldiers, artists and ordinary folk who believed in a different faith, still retain the shape of what may have been an intricate sculpture of the great man in a meditative pose.

i listened to rathana while he answered my questions, although at one point, i felt awful for another guide who brought along an italian tourist who may have been a historian, an archaeologist, or a couch potato who had seen the discovery channel’s feature on the ancient khmer kingdoms at least 10 times, because he amused himself with his own explanations on bayon temple’s purpose, design, and art while his guide listened helplessly and nodded. i don’t know how long rathana has been a guide, because i can imagine he must see the ruins as many as five times a week if he’s lucky (there is stiff competition among guides), but he does know what visitors look for, and many times made many suggestions on where we could take photos, even the campy kind that we mostly associate with japanese tourists. he insisted that we pose for a kiss with a god, and i very willingly agreed. he pointed out angles where we could see five faces at a given time. he pointed to places we may have not noticed unless we spent one whole day at bayon. so although i am an advocate of intrepid and independent travel, there are times as well that the insight of a local, or even that of a guide with his tired, if not, recycled ideas and routines, may be very helpful.

after bayon, we had lunch. rathana brought us to another special place, where the food was reasonably priced and very good. outside the resto was a 300-meter pond where ancient kings used to bathe and swim. i listened to rathana’s stories, and not once did i challenge or question him, since, after all, nothing sounded too incredulous. the experience of walking through these temples, of returning to an ancient time where great men were possessed with grand ideas and unparalleled devotion to an art as well as to religion, even the impossible seemed ordinary, and the astonishing, mundane.

we proceeded to ta prohm after lunch, by far the best meal we’ve had in cambodia since we arrived. the afternoon sun was beating down upon us with great might, and burned grass and leaves and twigs right before our eyes. the khmer sun was relentless, but we were too excited to give in to its heat.

ta prohm is surrounded by high walls a forest. we walked about 400 meters from the gate where locals hawking shirts and scarves and musical instruments making odd sounds. ongoing restoration efforts have been funded by the indian government, and i could have totally missed the temple if i didn’t look closer at the pile of rocks crumbling under the weight of huge trees. ta prohm was recently made famous by lara croft the movie, but i may have forgotten angelina jolie’s action flick because nothing quite prepared me for the visuals of blocks of stone, carved with intricate detail, taken apart by the gargantuan roots of old trees. at times, the roots are so large they may have actually been prostrate trunks. they run along the walls, and in many cases, the stones have cracked, or have completely fallen apart. this temple was built inside a forest, and when the khmer kingdoms abandoned angkor and transferred their capital city to phnom penh to escape the scourge of repeated attacks from the chams, the burmese, and the siamese, the forest took over ta prohm. and with the help of birds and wind, seeds found themselves on top of the temples, and some found places to grow and develop into proud, erect trees. it is possible to imagine that the jungle might be responsible for much of the state that ta prohm is in, but it is also possible to conclude that some of these trees might actually be responsible for keeping the ruins together – that is why they were left there, and a certain magical feeling is created: traces of an ambitious ancient temple, overrun by nature. angkor wat is spared this intrusion precisely because of the moat that surrounds it.

the trees inside ta prohm have taken a life of their own. one appears like a giant snake. another looks like a beam built at the edge of the wall. one tree broke through a ceiling, creating a row of broken stones the shape of a tidal wave, although rathana called it a waterfall. rathana also took us inside a hollow tower where he instructed us to beat our chest 8 times, for good luck. the tower multiplied the sound of our closed fists, it sounded like the beat of a base drum. and the ritual may have worked, because although this was our last temple, the remaining days we spent in siem reap were the most memorable i would ever have.

as we returned to the city, less than 5km away, i wondered whether there was space in my impressionable mind for all the memories of the day at the temples. little things stay, such as the toothy smile of a single apsara, the wall of demons and gods churning an ocean of milk, the thick-lipped buddha faces at bayon (of course, whether the faces are actually that of buddha, or some other god in buddhism, or the king that constructed them, is subject of debate and discussion), the spreading tentacles of giant trees, the blocks of stone that literally lay in ruin, the stories told in intricately carved walls, to bigger things, such as the ambitious architecture, the pompous dreams of ancient kings, the infinite possibilities that could be conjured by the human mind, the great human cost involved in chasing these fantasies, and the ultimate result of such delusions in this day and age. my mind was filled to bursting with images and ideas, and my gadgets were as well exhausted, although i had cards enough for 28GB of storage and data.


we rolled back to the city of siem reap, past huge buses carrying japanese tourists with their oddly dressed women: wide-brimmed hats shading a face covered by big, round sunglasses, and an odd-looking mask that resembled a puppet duck, and clothes that concealed every square inch of skin (not even the wrist is revealed, which makes them more covered than women wearing a burqa), as though they feared that the streets of angkor contained the dust of ancient civilization and a history of unknown diseases.

i would have given in to these reveries when suddenly, rathana snapped me from my daydream as we stopped by a sidewalk stall for snacks: beetles of every unimaginable kind, one resembling a cross between a cockroach and a spider, were on display. earlier, he asked whether we’d be interested to try insects, and i very casually said sure – i am rather adventurous with food, but seeing them there made me slightly regret my sense for adventure, and my big, talkative mouth. but i do not easily take back what i have already said, and so i accepted his offer, and ate two bugs: one of each kind. first, he snapped off the carapace that covered the wings, took off the ends of the serrated legs, and popped it in. i followed suit, put it in my mouth, and chewed. the taste itself isn’t so disgusting. it resembles fish: crunchy, and the flavor hinted of the sea. but as i chewed and chewed, i could feel insects caught between my teeth, and i realized: it’s revolting, i had to fight tears. i kept chewing until i had nothing in my mouth but masticated insect, but could not get myself to swallow. a girl on a scooter came to buy some of these insects, in much the same way that a girl back home would come to buy roasted peanuts: very ordinary, nothing exotic. i wanted to spit out the last remaining insect which didn’t transform into juice from my repeated chewing, but i had given my word. and rathana looked at me approvingly, and thanked me for being such a great sport: he’d taken many many tourists here, and i was the first to accept his challenge and actually try an insect without fainting, of backing out at the last minute. pride forced me to swallow the last gulp of mashed bug in my mouth, and the rest of our stay would be pure adventure.

Tags: ancient civilization, angkor wat, architecture, art, bayon temple, cambodia, khmer, photography, religion: buddhism, religion: hinduism, siem reap, ta prohm, travel, wanderlust