Thursday, September 23, 2010

2. Exploring the jungle


Imagine you came down with a parachute in the desert. What to do ? You could at least look as far as you want and learn loving Fata Morganas. For a while, at first sight, it may let you forget your basic needs. But even worse if you landed in the jungles. Your silken umbrella hangs in the trees, and their is no way back ? Where can you put your feet, where are lurking the tigers ? And you cannot look very far. There is water in lots, but can you drink it ?
My silken umbrellas are one-way tickets. When I started for India, the first question of many of my friends was, when I 'll be back. I did not know it and could not tell it. Their quiet assumption, of course, was, I would explore the beauty of the country and then turn back. The beauty or the beau­ties ? The beauty of the country is mixed up with a lot of dirt. Even in Indian newspapers you can read the open confession that their country is one of the filthiest in the world. And the beauties of the country ? I soon gave up to struggle with a medieval mentality. My own fault ?
For me, the one-way ticket is the confirmation that the traveler is really open-minded. You did not decide in advance, without knowing what will happen. Instead you are decided to let you lead by what will happen. All of a sudden, it overcame me to fly to Bangkok. I bought the ticket on Decem­ber 26, in the morning about 9 or 10 o'clock, almost exactly five years after the moment when the awful tsunami buried by far more than hundred thousand people in South-East Asia.
Memory in our short-living world ? For my feeling, this was active memory. Active means to do a step forward. And I did it, leaving Christmas behind me.
Not only a new country, but a completely new way of life awaited me, infectious, at the first glance superficial, where adrenaline plays an important role. What a degree of diversity ! Knowing about the horizon crammed full with skyscrapers, I landed in the old khlong quarters left behind by the development of our times. All seems to be exaggerated by this monster of a city. The more it aston­ishes how its inhabitants remain friendly, caring, laughing in a way unknown in India. Dancing appears to be an element of life.
I discovered a little restaurant, the Green Bar, just two corners from where I was living. Two very nice sisters in their early twenties, Nana and Apro, own and manage it. It is painted in various sha­des of green tinges, decorated with green plants daily watered by large amounts of the necessary liquid, and attracts a lot of inter­esting looking people from various countries. The main character­is­tic, apart from the tasteful surrounding they had created was for me the kind they served their guests, - almost dancing. I rarely saw young women serving with such a grace and charm, moving around, yes, like dancing. Adding to the lightness of the atmosphere was the music they played on a good sound equipment, mainly of Southern European provenience. Although I would prefer to listen in Asia to Asian music, it perfectly fitted the frame they had set. A cat lying on a table was carefully covered with leaves of flowers just bought and did not move in the heat.
All this does not mean a backwarded style. The place is equipped with modern WLan installation, and those who like to use their notebook can do that. Sorry, it does not feature low prices. At the outskirts of the city you can eat for a third of the money you have to pay here. They have business in mind and show this overtly. All the European touch they adopted does not mean they accepted the European way of life. Our intention to look for new experiences in life remains evidently strange to them. They have business in mind, and experiences seem to be of secondary interest.
Breathtaking, - that is the first word when I intend to say something about the hot jungles of Bangkok. In Thai language the city is named Krung Thep what means “City of Angels”. Not only once, almost without interruption, this city is breathtaking, - and not only in the literal meaning of the word. We see and feel the smog and the heat, the calmness and the speed, the friendliness and the cool way of life, which at the first glance seems to be behind the keep smiling. We see the slowness of the life of those living in the old quarters and the wild velocity of the modern traffic in the modern parts of the city, the backwardness of the khlong quarters and the unrestrained height of the skyscrapers in the downtown areas, the three-wheeled tuk-tuks and the sky-train running swiftly on piers higher than many roofs. We see the completely Asiatic life of the Thais and the herein inserted American way of life, the old world of temples and a modern art and culture, which express themselves visibly in the architecture and invisibly in new forms of life.
The city not only is breathtaking, but also deprives us of our language. The Thai language confuses and enchants our ears. It, certainly, is difficult to be learned in the second half of life. At the same time, more languages than ever existed in Babel penetrate in our ears and cause to ask myself, how I should express myself, - in English, so that as many people as possible understand, or in my own language, which allows me the best to express myself, or in a polyglot mixture, which possibly reproduces best the multilayered structure of this city.
On the coast of Goa, there was enough occasion to find again the own forces and myself. Here, how­ever, the forces are needed at maximum. In India, the apparent calm has left me unfulfilled, here the hectic life seems, all of a sudden, to lead me back to myself. Again and again the own breath is almost halted, even at night in dreams which still then persecute me because so much is to be digested. Never words will be able describe this experience. At the end, we are left alone with rich new insights.
I was told to live in Banglamphu, - in a quarter being for me as unintelligible as the word. Only slowly I opened the eyes and realized: Ah, - that the quarter of the khlongs (until I later found khlongs in other quarters, too). What khlongs are, the gazing into the tube or bored by his flat-screen Middle-European consumer already knows. Aren't they romantic quiet channels like in the old Venice, as menaced by flooding, a consequence of the climate changes, as that beautiful city ?
I thought, I cozily can “skipper” on them, the same way as the German actor Hardy Krueger once had enchanted me on such a screen. Later, after having done it, I wanted to travel further on quickly, because Bangkok was listed as one of the most expensive cities of the world and said to be contaminated by prostitutes infected with AIDS. However, to what extent are all these reports distorted and even absolutely false ! One should whip all these journalists for evil onesidedness !
Beginning with the last argument, it most drastically underlines the uselessness of such reports. After living for one week in Bangkok and having traversed it as far as my certainly only limited forces allow, I did not see a single prostitute, and did not observe a single disagreable approach by a women of that kind. The same moment, I would like to say that in almost no other city I experien­ced such a frolicsome and joyous life in the streets like here.
Yes, - what about the keep smiling ? Is it only a mask behind which people hide themselves ? Again such an almost ugly prejudice ! While the Indians bear the adversities of life with stoical faces, here people smile. They do this even then, when their life is really difficult and the rising water is almost reaching their neck. They don't want to aggravate the life of others with their own problems. A friendly smiling eases the daily load, improves all a little bit. Here nobody would get the idea, this could be a dishonest behavior. Not as a mask, but as a shelter for not allowing to others a too exact view of the own situation, the smiling makes sense. They well know that a too exact knowledge of the own weak situation can be used by the “dear” people around them for their advantage and to the own disadvantage. To be brief: symbiosis yes, exploitation no !
After having found an unbelievable cheap accommodation not far from such a khlong, it was neces­sary to extend the antennas. At the beginning, good information plays an important role. Where to obtain it ? In India I had made the experience that German travel-guidebooks lead simply on the usual travel routes of tourists. They want to avoid mistakes, and contribute de facto to avoid essen­tial points of genuine life in the country. Already earlier I had heard, that the Americans are leading in this field with their “Lonely Planet”-guidebooks what could be attested here, too. They offer well founded information by persons who for a long time lived in the country and often penetrated deeply into the culture and the mentality. In addition, the English language challenges the reader to engage with this language which is so indispensable for a more than superficial contact with the culture. At that, it brings back to the surfaces forgotten own knowledge and forces us to really being able to use it. This is especially important because Thais (this is said without critics !) have a wide spectrum of knowledge of the English language, - from “nothing” till “brilliant”.
Amidst the jungles of Bangkok lie many very beautiful Buddhist temples. The first one I visited was the “Golden Mountain”. Its golden elegantly curved main cone towers the city with superb splendor and shine. On Sunday many Thais climb up the long spiral way around it to venerate above the impressing golden Buddha figure. The religious life seems to be much more integrated into the daily life than in Europe. The transition from one to the other appears to be much easier than we are used to. With joy they generate strong sounds on long rows of bells after having prayed, and then dedicate themselves with the same devotion to good food.
But the most impressing temple is the Wat Phra Kaew in the heart of the old part of the city. It con­sists of a large number of those typical cones called chedi, many of them really tall, and several big temples with their typical bell-like roofs. It is simply impossible to describe the beauty of this ensemble. Migrating through it, one falls into higher and higher states of admiration. Even photo­graphy seems almost unable to reproduce the extraordinary architecture.
But, nevertheless, I would like to mention the collection of photographs by the Italian Maria Grazia Casella “Bangkok” (White Star Publishers) which gives a good impression not only of this central masterpiece, but of many facets of this city, extending over a huge areal and including unbelievably different forms of life amidst the curvatures of the river Chao Phraya. Speedboats bring the passen­gers very fast and in exciting way from one part of the city to a completely different other one, where, for instance, life pulses between high skyscrapers and modern art expositions and all kinds of vital life take place like in most other modern capitals of the world.
Especially beautiful is the sight of the big temples along the river. Besides those already mentioned, the Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) is the most impressive one. It lies on the other side of the river in Thonburi. At this point a few words about the history of Thailand and the foundation of Bangkok have to be said. In 1767 Ayutthayá, the old capital of Thailand about 80 km north from the actual Bangkok and at that time probably the biggest city of the world, got completely destroyed by a Khmer invasion. Thonburi became the new capital of Thailand for a short time, after which this title went over to Bangkok on the other side of the river.
The visit of the Wat Arun followed only after a while on the return from the floating market at Taling Chan, situated in the outskirts of Thonburi. In former times the extended khlong system played an important role for the transport within the vast area of the city and its neighborhoods and the delivery of the daily supplies of food and other things. Large parts of the offerings were sold from boats on these channels. The actual floating markets are certainly only a weak mirror image of what they were about hundred years ago. Most of them are even not the original ones, but nevertheless impressive places with a strong traditional identity.
On a Saturday morning, as was announced on the Internet, there were performances of traditional dances. It was possible to go there by taking a bus. But it was right to have catched a taxi and thus arriving on time to watch this beautiful event and to take a series of photographs of the almost magical dance competi­tion between different groups of local youngsters. The main part of them were carefully and color­fully dressed and painted girls in their teens, but also boy groups were present, more looking like young sportsmen. The dances they performed clearly had their origin in old temple dances, not hesitating, however, to integrate modern pop music elements into the sound which was played on old Thai instruments in front of the scene. All this took place under an open tent only a few steps away from the floating market. Not far from here trains were passing to Northern Thailand.
After the performance large parts of the groups came aboard the boats on the khlong, which here looked rather like a river. There they got the same delicious food as I did, salad with huge prawns or chicken meat, and all kinds of drinks ranging from self-made juice to Coke. The food was sold from smaller boats coming along the restaurant boats. The vendors continued their usual local chitchat with the farangs (this designation of the foreigners is derived from the German word “Franken”), seemingly not being aware of the non-understanding. The only but continuous message of this kind of communication was friendliness.
On the way back from here, I finally came to the Wat Arun, but from the backside. Monks were sitting around tables and having their food. Surprisingly they invited me to take part in it. I always had been told that monks get their food from other people. Here the opposite seemed to be true. Then they left and a carriage with a coffin on it appeared, followed by a crying about 45 years old woman and a few other persons, evidently being family member and friends and colleagues of the woman. While the carriage and the people slowly circled three times a small quadratic temple with a high platform in the middle and a chimney nearby, the monks came out again and did the same. Then the coffin was brought up to the platform and disappeared in its surface.
When the woman now appeared again, she surprisingly was laughing, and all grief seemed to have melted away. Was this also “keep smiling”, just kind of a show, or did the ceremony somehow bring about a very quick digestion of all the grief ? The only fact I could find out was that the dead man was a monk of the temple and her father. But Asia does not tells us all its secrets by just asking questions.





hans.j.unsoeld@ars-una.net