Chiang Saen

You are currently browsing articles tagged Chiang Saen.

House of Opium

Thursday, September 19, 2013 in Chiang Rai, Thailand

The House of Opium in Chiang Saen, Thailand. Photos by David Lansing.

Unbeknownst to me, Ketsara evidently decided last night that we were not going to the opium museum in Chiang Saen today.

“But why, Khun Ketsara?”

“Why you want to go?”

“I think it might be interesting.”

Ketsara doesn’t say anything. I think she’s protecting me. I think she’s worried about the effect certain dark things on this trip might have on me. It’s true I’ve been a little moody lately. But what does she think is going to happen at the opium museum? Certainly they’re not giving away free samples, are they?

In the end, she relents. “Quick stop,” she says. “Fifteen minutes.”

Diorama of an opium den. Photo by David Lansing.

The museum is dark—literally and figuratively. In small rooms they house hundreds of opium pipes, many charred and thick with old opium paste, porcelain jars for storing the drug, and the elaborate scales used to measure the opium. But what I find particularly spooky are the dioramas of opium dens, some so realistic looking that it takes you a moment to realize that the drugged out Chinaman lying on his side lighting an opium pipe isn’t real…is he?

I walk briskly through the museum. Ketsara was right, I really don’t need to see this. Or at least, I don’t need to linger. After about ten minutes of wandering around, I am dying for some fresh air. And light.

Tags: , , ,

Finding my sanuk

Wednesday, September 18, 2013 in Chiang Rai, Thailand | 2 comments

 

Perched atop a faux elephant in Chiang Saen, searching for my sanuk.

These last few days I have not been myself (or maybe I have been myself; remember that Khun Ketsara, in revealing the dark side of my Buddha nature, said that I do not know nearly as much about myself as I think I do). My mood has been as dark and heavy as the monsoon sky.

This morning as we were walking around Chiang Saen, trying to make sense of this oddly empty Buddha theme park along the banks of the Mekong River with its faux dragons and faux temples and faux elephants, Ketsara asked me what had happened to my sanuk.

Sanuk is the Thai word for happiness or pleasure. But that is just the half of it. Sanuk is a central part of Thai life. In Thai culture, you find sanuk in all of life. Daa sanuk means to enjoy giving someone a hard time; thuuk daa sanuk is to be the person to whom someone is giving a hard time and enjoying it.

If you’re someone who just likes to talk it’s called khui sanuk; if you like to work it’s thamngan sanuk. The concept of sanuk goes way beyond just enjoying a good laugh or having fun at a party; in Thailand, sanuk is almost like a form of religion (and, really, sanuk is part of Buddhism—finding the enjoyment in all of life, the good and the bad).

So when Ketsara asked me what had happened to my sanuk, I knew what she meant. I’d lost my mojo.

But I had a solution. I handed her my camera and told her to take my picture. “Where?” she said. I told her to just watch me.

I jogged over to a pair of 20-foot-high bejeweled tin elephants and climbed up the rickety stairs to the top, climbing in to a golden basket perched atop one of the faux pachyderms. I sat down and looking down at the plaza that was empty except for Ketsara standing there holding my camera, began a royal wave, as I imagined the queen did it, to my single loyal subject. I waved and smiled and Ketsara, giggling, took my photo.

My sanuk was back.

Tags: , , ,

Thai soap flowers in Chiang Saen

Tuesday, September 17, 2013 in Chiang Rai, Thailand | 1 comment

A selection of soap flowers in the market at Chiang Saen, Thailand. Photo by David Lansing.

When our longtail boat got back to Chiang Saen, I went for a walk in the village. There were a number of stalls along the river selling the usual tourist crap. But there were no tourists. Most of the vendors had abandoned their stalls and were instead sitting in the shade of a café along the Mekong drinking tea.

One of the vacant stalls had hundreds of hand-carved soap flowers. You can find soap flowers all over Thailand these days but they say the carving originated in the villages around Chiang Rai. It’s one of those odd little tourist trinkets—like wildly-painted geckos in Mexico or soapstone elephants in Kenya—that makes you wonder, Who was the first person to do this? Who was the Thai guy (or, more likely, gal) who, with nothing better to do, sat down and used an exacto knife to carve a round piece of soap into the shape of a jasmine flower or a blooming lotus?

And then, how did others learn how to do it? I could sit and watch a guy carving soap bars in to flowers all day long and still not have a clue as to how to do it myself. When that first Thai made a soap flower, it must have been precious. And then they made a few more and sold them to passing tourists for a dollar or two and thought, Hey, maybe we can make a living doing this. And now every tourist area in Thailand from Phuket to Chiang Rai has guys selling soap flowers.

I took a few photos and then the stand’s owner came over from the tea shop and tried hard to sell me a soap flower. They cost about $5 each and come in little round wooden boxes hand painted with flowers and elephants and such. I didn’t want one. But I was still feeling depressed from the boat trip up the Mekong and bad about all these vendors with no customers. So I bought a very delicate soap flower, a jasmine soap with just a few petals instead of some of the more intricate, overwrought designs.

I don’t know what I’ll do with it. Maybe I’ll give it to Ketsara. Or hand it to a monk. As part of my education in dana parami, generosity.

Tags: , , ,

Buddha and the snake

Friday, September 13, 2013 in Chiang Rai, Thailand

 

Stairs, protected by Nagas, lead to a ruined temple in Chiang Saen along the banks of the Mekong in Thailand. Photo by Elizabeth Hutchins.

I am sitting on some moss-covered stone steps leading to an ancient temple in the jungle along the banks of the Mekong River in the Golden Triangle. The whole thing looks—and feels—like something out of the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland. An old creeping fig tree grows out of the ruins of a long-forgotten temple; a barely-recognizable stone Buddha head, four or five feet tall, sits upside down, half-buried in the rich soil, vines and moss growing on it.

To get to the ruined temple you have to climb those very same moss-covered steps upon which I am sitting. The stairway is protected on both sides by undulating nagas, those mythical snake figures that figure prominently in Hinduism and, at least in this part of Thailand, in Buddhism as well.

They say that many of the hill tribes that live along the Mekong River use nagas in their creationism stories; nagas live in the river and give life. They also take life. Some time ago, the villagers along the river started seeing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of flaming orange balls rising above the river. They attributed the flaming orange balls to the nagas that lived in the river and started a folklore about them. Then a Thai TV show picked up on it, investigated, and determined that the flaming orange balls were actually tracer bullets fired by soldiers in Laos over the river. Which really pissed off the hill people who continued to believe that the flaming orange balls had something to do with their sacred river snakes.

Perhaps the most notable naga in the Buddhist tradition is Mucalinda, King of the Nagas. They say that shortly after Buddha achieved enlightenment, he was meditating in the forest when a great storm came up. Mucalinda came to Buddha’s rescue by covering the Buddha’s head with his 7 cobra-like snake heads. Which is why, particularly in Northern Thailand, you’ll often see a Buddha statue with Mucalinda covering his head. It’s a little bit Hindu, a little bit Animism, and a little bit Buddhist. Like so many things in this part of the world.

Mucalinda protecting Buddha

Mucalinda, King of the Nagas, protects the Buddha at this temple in Thailand. Photo by David Lansing.

Tags: , , , , ,