Thamkrabok

Today was my final day in Thailand! So sad. I’ve loved being here and learning about a part of the world I knew very little about.  Since we were in Bangkok for a day before I left. Kari, Cathy, and I went to a little town called Thamkrabok. It houses a Temple (of course), and has an interesting history.  The temple houses a rehabilitation center that is quite reputable (giving success rates that are quite high). Treatment involves living at the temple, and an initial process of purification that lasts 5 days in which you can only drink water and this herbal drink that makes you throw-up (they say it’s to rid you of the drug toxins).

Additionally, it was also the site of a “refugee” camp. I put that in quotes, because it was never officially classified as a refugee camp, but for all intents and purposes, it was one. All of the families were Hmong (mostly from Laos), and there were thousands of families (estimates range from 13,000 to 50,000 – so I don’t know how to size it for you).  But about 3000 of them came to Minneapolis/St. Paul as refugees. Because of this, Kari studies the young men and their school achievement, adjustment, etc. So this is how we ended up here today.

There is a student here studying the Thamkrabok history for his Masters’ thesis at University of Wisconsin, so he was able to show us around and talk with people (he’s fluent in both Hmong and Thai).  We talked with a Monk all morning about the history of the temple, the town and the camp. It was really interesting and we talked of some of the current challenges. 

Monk we talked to

David, Monk, Me, Cathy, Kari, with a statue of the Abbot who founded the temple in the background.

What the camp looks like now. There are a few foundations left (and this squatter), but mostly it's over grown now.

In the afternoon, we talked with three current Hmong refugees living in Thailand, but from Laos.  Due to the sensitive nature of their situation, I’m not really willing to put up a lot on the web, where anyone can read it (or put their pictures up for that matter). While the likelihood of anyone reading this is minimal, I wouldn’t want to unintentionally make things worse for them either. If you’re curious, I’m happy to talk about it in person.

We had dinner back in Bangkok with Cathy’s family. And it was lovely. We got to eat on one of the rivers.  

View from dinner. Perfect way to spend my last night.

More Artists, More Temples

Today was a day of temples. The guy who owns the B&B was really helpful and got a driver for us to go over to the White temple (from the 3rd famous artist of Chaingrai), while arranging that he told us about a tour of the city that was free and we could stop at several spots in the city (mostly temples), so we decided to do that too. I had until about 3 before I had to fly back to Bangkok.  So off we went.

You would think (after seeing the Black Temple) the White Temple might be a little less creepy. Well, I’m not sure that you’d be right. While it definitely had a different feeling to it, there were parts that were of a similar tone to the other one. There were several skulls everywhere, and a couple of things that were pretty graphic.  Apparently though, we missed the sculpture of all the hands reaching up from Hell to grab everyone (not sure how that happened).  Anyway, I’ll let you look at the pictures for yourself. 

White Temple

The building with the bathrooms, no joke.

Practicing my Thai greeting.

No really, they don't want you to smoke here (note the cartons of cigarettes in the hands).

Our driver took us to the start of the tour and helped us talk to the tour people. Since it is free, they don’t actually give them unless there are at least 5 people there to take the tour. It was just Matt and I (Kari and Cathy decided to take the day off), and so we needed 3 others. The driver didn’t seem to think that he could just leave us there (even though we were only a few blocks away from the B&B where we had to be later. He was really funny too. After he’d gotten everything straightened out, we tried to find a place to eat lunch and our driver kept following us, worried that we would get lost.  He was trying to be helpful, and was, but it was pretty funny. It felt a little stalker-ish. 

One the tour we got to see several temples with different stories. One of them had a replica of the Emerald Buddha (remember, the one made out of Jade).  It was exactly to scale except, it was 1cm smaller, so as not to confuse the real one. Why at this temple you ask? (Okay you probably didn’t, but I will ask it for you.) The story goes like this: Several hundred years ago there was a lightening storm that struck the pagoda at this temple, and it cracked open the pagoda. Inside of it was the Emerald Buddha. Since it had to be placed in Bangkok at the Grand Palace, they put the replica here. I don’t know how much of that is truth, but that’s what the Thais say. We also went to a temple that let you hit their gong; that was fun!

Jade Buddha (Emerald Buddha's replica)

This one is over 700 years old and made of wood!

That was pretty much the day. After that we got back to the B&B, and said good-bye to Matt (he’s staying on for a couple of weeks by himself), and Kari, Cathy, and I flew back to Bangkok.

Villages and Local Artists

The next day (June 30), was really cool because we got to visit some of the Lahu (another hill tribe) villages.  We had two translators with us for the day, Jbah and Nasuka, (they are both from the second village we visited), and they were so great. Both were fluent in Lahu and Thai and Jbah was quite good with English too (he taught himself).  In the first village, Baanbukai we met with a man that the two translators knew, and the village leader and holy man (like a medium) came by also.  We talked about the challenges for Lahu people and their migration (forced) to where they live now. They talked about the difficulty of economic growth that they face currently. We also discussed the fact that it’s the rainy season and it hasn’t actually rained yet (the one time in Bangkok has been the only time we’ve seen rain), and there is a concern about the crops (mainly rice, which needs a LOT of water). It was a pleasant conversation; we sat out on the balcony of his kitchen hut (you may have seen the picture that Jut posted on Facebook). After that they took us on a walk through the village, showing us their hut that is used as a sacred space and town meetings.  This village is situated right one the mountain side, so they have been impacted quite a bit by the tourist industry recently. There have been resorts (relatively small compared to American resorts) that have been built there (just a km or two away from the village), and it is also a good lookout spot to see Chaingrai at night (so this has become a touring spot). They have gotten used to the whole thing, but you could tell the village leader was a little  nervous about it.

Flooring of the kitchen hut (we met just outside of this).

Kitchen

Man we talked to and his little boy (pay no attention to the toy gun in his mouth).

Sacred space/town meeting place, and the holy man in the corner (you can see about half of his body, oops!).

Look closely, in the background you can see villagers working on their new Coffee Co-op.

Before we went to the second village, we took a few detours. Chainrai is evidently home to three main artists (none of which I can remember their names). There is a “White” artist, “Black” artist, and a potter.  We went to check out the latter two’s work between village visits.  The potter was first, and it was absolutely amazing! He does all kinds of stuff, plates, bowls, vases, lamps, mugs, etc. Some of the broken stuff he’s made into sculptures for the grounds where his studio is. One was of a bunch of broken plates and then there was this wall that was cement with plates, cups, and bowls arranged in various ways in it. It was so cool to look at. He had several small buildings that housed display rooms for selling stuff. It was really fun to look around at all the artistry.

After that stop, we went to the “Black” artist. He’s obtained this nickname because most of the stuff he does is in black/is quite dark. By now (if you’ve followed the blog) you’ve seen a lot of gold and colorful architecture for temples. Well this guy did a temple that is all black, and inside of it (instead of images of the Buddha) there are these massive displays of animal skins and horns/antlers on everything. The whole length of the temple was these long black tables arranged end to end (at least a football field long), and each one had a python (or other large snake) skin (with head intact) lying on its surface. There were a few small Buddha statues that were all white and had huge replicas of bugs lying on his knees (while he is in the typical lotus position). It was all very creepy. He also had several buildings on the grounds that he built in similar fashion.  One of which he lives in. It’s up on stilts and the whole underside is decorated with lots of tables and chairs made from animal skins and horns.  It isn’t my style, but I was impressed by his work.

Black Temple

One of the snakes and all the tables...

This one was his house

This has nothing to do with the Black Temple. This man was sweeping the grass. Mom and Aunt Katy, you know why I posted this...

The second village that we went to was Jalay, which is also a Lahu village. This particular village, is up further in the mountains. We talked with the leader, Jihsee, and an older member of the villiage spontaneously joined us too; his name is Jbah. We talked with them about a lot of things, and to be honest, it’s getting hard to keep them all straight. This one was particularly chaotic though. There were so many different conversations going on at once. Jbah (the elder) kept talking and telling stories the whole time in Lahu. The leader kept trying to answer questions in Thai. Jut, Cathy, and Jbah (the younger) kept trying to translate as much as possible. I’m pretty sure there were several conversations going on at once, and I’m not sure I could have understood it all even if I had understood Lahu and Thai (in fact that may have actually made it worse, now that I think about it). Anyway, while we were there, a BUNCH of tourists came into the village for a home stay. It’s a program for tourists who want to experience what a village is like. They come in and spend the night. It’s a good thought in theory, the tourists get a better understanding of village life and the villages make money (something they desperately need), but in practice, unfortunately the tour companies often take most of the money, leaving the villagers with 10 Baht per person per night ($.33), which doesn’t even cover expenses.

Matt teaching the kids about glow sticks

Kari brought a Frisbee for the kids, so he's learning how to catch...sort of...

This little guy was my favorite. He was super shy, but you could tell he totally wanted to get in on the fun.

After we went home that night, Jut brought over some young people from her NGO (an organization promoting traditional cultural arts among hill tribes) to play some music for us. The played some traditional stuff, but they really wanted to play some of the oldies. So eventually we ended up singing along to “Blowin in the Wind” and other folk songs like that. They got Matt to play along eventually, and then one of the owners of the B&B brought his guitar out too. He had been taking pictures of us (obviously enjoying the music), and when we invited him to play with/for us he was so excited. It was an idyllic moment of singing in that setting. Maybe you had to be there, but it was so peaceful and I will look back at that night as a great one.

Singing traditional songs for us.

Our B&B's owner jumps in.

Chaingrai

We started out Friday morning by coming back from Chaingkong to Chaingrai. I was sad to leave the place that we were staying. After so much urban/touristy business, it was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere for a couple of days. I’m definitely more of a city person (or at least not a rural one) but I also am not out constantly crossing the city, seeing everything there is to see. So waking up and getting to sit next to the Mekong River while drinking a mango smoothie for breakfast was pretty amazing.  The owners of the B&B also were wonderful. We ate breakfast there (obviously) and a dinner and after each meal they’d bring out fresh fruit (that they’d grown themselves) to share with us as a dessert.  They were wonderful people.

Chaingrai has been, as I said, really fun also. We’ve really had such a good time here. Yesterday we went to talk with Mr. Seng to talk about education for the hill tribe people and various aspects of human trafficking that happens throughout Thailand. It was helpful to hear about some of their literacy and advocacy work.  And it is wonderful to hear about the things that are community members are doing to stop the trafficking. It mainly happens with Thais taking children/teenagers from the their home villages (or sometimes their parents give them with the hopes of giving their children a better life and not knowing what is really happening).  It’s a huge problem here, and it’s good to here about the efforts to stop it.

After our meeting, Jut, a friend of Cathy’s took us to the village of Pui Kham which is a Lesu tribe.  There are lots of different ethnic groups here that are here in the mountainous regions of Thailand. They mainly come from Southern China, Burma/Myanmar, and Laos.  Some are indigenous to Thailand, but it seems to be the case that most are not. Most have similar stories to our American Indians in that there are several instances of forced relocation and “reservation” types of stories.  However many of their stories are more recent (last few decades).  We talked with a few members of the village. First we stopped and talked with a woman who shared some of their customs. She was working on a traditional dress and talked about the need to where it on the Chinese New Year, because that means good luck and good fortune for the rest of the year.  It reminded me of my Grandma Dore’s rule that you had to where a new item of clothing on the New Year or you wouldn’t get any new clothes during that whole year (it was an embarrassingly long time before I realized how much control I had over getting new clothes that year, and that it didn’t really have anything to do with wearing new clothes on a specific day). 

Granddaughter of the woman we talked to, I never did catch either of their names.

Our driver, and all the kids flocking to him. They were curious about this new stranger.

This is how the store water in the rainy season.

Cathy and our interpreter. And all the kids following along as he showed us the village.

After we talked with her for a little bit, we walked around the village. While the adults were more tentative, it didn’t take long for us to have quite a following of children.  It was funny how they gravitated towards the visitors and there curiosity was driving their actions.  We also went up to talk with a leader of the village. Pui Kham is close to Chaingrai (obviously because we visited it while staying in Chaingrai), but far enough that most people leave them alone.  However it also makes them prime targets for storage for trafficking drugs.  This also helps subsidize the economy a little bit too, because most young people have to leave the area to find work. This often means that they leave their children with the grandparents, and they go to the southern part of the country to work on shrimping boats/factories.  They can only afford to come back once a year, and the rest of the time they’re working and sending money back to their families. 

Rice paddies, these were much more wet than most we saw.

That night we decided to check out the Night Bizarre of Chaingrai.  This is a night market, primarily for tourists, but there were some Thais there too (mainly at one of the food courts). They had a couple of places with live music/performances, which was pretty cool. One of them, where most of the Thais were, was set up so you could buy a pot of broth with a little fire-type thing to keep it warm and you could go around and pick things out to put in your broth to make a soup.  A lot of families seemed to pick this option. This is one thing I’ve yet to figure out, Thais eat soup constantly. No matter how hot it is outside, they are always eating hot soups. I suppose if you live in a place where it never cools off, there wouldn’t be a chance to have hot soup when it’s cold, but this is such a different concept to me that it makes me laugh every time. 

We opted for a restaurant, mainly because the food you bought at the food court was sitting out (for who knows how long), which wasn’t very appetizing, and probably not really safe either, and I’d rather leave Thailand without a food poisoning story. (I know; I’m so high-maintenance).   The performances were fun while we ate. First it was a girl and guy duo and then there was some Northern Thai dancing, complete with costumes.  It was great to see some of the old, traditional culture. 

While we're here we should go to Laos...

I'm actually posting something from the day it happened!! First here are some pictures of the place we're staying:

Eating area is from the balcony. Our bungalows are back behind the jungle greenery to the right.

View of the Mekong and Laos

View from the dining area

More views from the dining area

The people who run the B&B are so sweet. After we were done with breakfast, they brought out fresh fruit for us. They sliced the pineapple and then brought out lynchee fruit (background, think Muppet looking fruit) from their garden.

So as I said before, we’re staying at this place right on the Mekong River, which means that we can see Laos. So the logical thing to do is to go to Laos, right? Right! Well more on that in just a second, but first we started out the morning meeting with Kru Ti (Teacher Ti) about some of the environmental concerns of the Mekong. For those of you who don’t know (which would have been be before this whole Thailand thing got started), the Mekong starts in China, runs through Laos (in parts), boarders Laos and Burma, boarders Laos and Thailand, runs through Cambodia, and then finally goes through Vietnam before it deltas into the sea.  The big controversy is over hydroelectric power created by a series of dams.  There are already several dams, many in China, that effect water flow (and fishing) pretty drastically (from last night to this morning the river dropped 50cm, which for us Americans is just over a foot and a half).  There is a push to build 14 more because some countries want more power, okay just one country, but it would be a financial interest to the others to sell that power to China.  So even though there isn’t necessarily a need for more power it could be potentially lucrative to build them anyway. However, as with everything else, nothing comes at zero cost. It would disrupt fishing, water levels, and could drastically effect rice production (this one is just for Vietnam). Anyway, we met with Kru Ti to discuss the concerns that he has about the building of the dams and some of the things that are currently going on to develop compromises.  It was really interesting, he obviously has a bias perspective (he works for an environmentalist organization), but he was able to discuss the pros and cons of the dam building as well as alternatives that would help both the fishing and rice growing as well as the power/financial needs.

After meeting with Kru Ti, we went on a boat ride on the Mekong for a couple of hours, which was beautiful! The mountains here are the very beginning of the Himalayas (don’t get too excited, they were pretty small mountains), and the layers of them in the scenery were gorgeous.   It was fun to ride around for a while and see some people fishing and some temples too.  Our driver made sure to tell us that when we were in the Lao waters, which was fun too.

Our boat driver pushing off. (Then he went to the back to run the motor and steer)

Laos to the left and Thailand to the right

Laotian mountain and temples

Enjoying the boat ride

Laotian Temple, check out those stairs!

Bringing in the day's catch

These little guys were practicing their fishing and having some fun. They were so cute!

We’d hired a driver to take us up here from Chaingrai, so after we got back, he took us up to the Golden Triangle which is where Burma, Laos, and Thailand meet.  They all meet by water, but there is a look out on the Thai side where you can see all three countries at once, which was really beautiful. There was also a ruin of a temple up there, so that was really fun too walk around too.  At the foot of the lookout, there was this gigantic Buddha statue and several shops, so we stopped there too.  I had asked previously if we could go to Burma or Laos (just to step on shore, nothing fancy), and Cathy had said she didn’t think so, but when we got down to the Buddha, there is a company that will take you over to Laos (or at least a little island that is still considered as a part of Laos).  So we did. We took the boat, and our driver got us really close to Burma, but we couldn’t go ashore. So then he took us over to the Lao island. It was fun to say we’d been there. They gave us these little pieces of paper to staple into our passports (they can’t actually stamp it because it isn’t part of the mainland), and there were several shops. Clearly it’s there just for the tourists, but still fun. They did sell a few things that I haven’t seen in Thailand. Mostly alcohol with snakes and scorpions in it.  They had three big vats of whiskey, one had a HUGE cobra in it, one had several snakes, and the other scorpions. Eww. I’m not sure that even if I drank I would want that.

At the Golden Triangle (standing on Thail soil, Burma to the left and Laos to the right).

Steps up to the temple at the Golden Triangle

They actually gave us life jackets for the boat ride to Laos...they were a little big.

Yep that's a real snake in the whiskey...

Anyone from the Dore-clan remember these beauties that Grandma got? There were tons of these hats for sale!