A Journey Across Three Borders

Written by: Eunice Phang.

With my fellow alumnis, I took a day trip to visit the Golden Triangle. Considering it would be a long ride with the total of 600km, with no haste, we headed north of Chiang Mai at 7.15am while other pathfinders were still deep in their sleep. Along the trip we made a few stops, namely Laos, Myanmar and Chiang Rai.

First stop was the White Temple (Rong Khun Temple) which is said to be a symbol of holiness and purity. The temple is ornamented with white glass as a symbol of Buddha’s wisdom shining all over the earth and the universe. This temple is owned by Chalermchai Khositpipat, a famous artist from Chiang Rai. The artist used his savings from selling painting to build his dream “Art for Land Project” where he used his interpretations of Thai Buddhist art and culture to form the White Temple; it was his way of giving thanks and contributing to his home country. Situated along the highway, it is indeed an opulent sight from a far. Strolling in and around the temple, one would discover that the landscape design of the temple and sculptures had been given underlying Buddhist meanings and values.

As if descended from the heavens, the White Temple

But what I think was the highlight of the temple (and which I found pretty amusing) was the murals in the temple which unfortunately were not allowed to be photographed. Unlike classical Buddhist murals that show the Buddha’s path to enlightenment, these murals portrayed the context of human history; depictions were aided through the use of popular comic characters and weapons of mass destruction. This juxtaposition of modern symbols and discourse against ancient Buddhist story-telling tries to emulate the “reality” of the modern society which would normally be seen as a threat to traditional Buddhist values, or even to the future of humanity. It is very interesting to see characters such as Neo from Matrix, Darth Vader from Star Wars, Marvel heroes such as Spiderman and Batman etc. These post-modern art works requires the viewers own interpretation for the work to be meaningful; to some it might give an impression of the lack of seriousness, but it could also be a reflection of the modern world affected by globalization and capitalism.

Hands that speak of repent? Or of redemption?

After enlightening ourselves with Thai artwork, we made our move on the Mekong to Laos. There, we visited the local bazaar that sold all sorts of trinkets, silk scarves, wooden carvings, and, much to our surprise, COBRA WHISKEY! Obviously a tourist would have a rage with this exotic drink; the whiskey came in a variety of other flavours from Gecko to Scorpiono, there was also a combination of all poisonous reptiles, but this apparentlt reserved only for the brave. However as these whiskeys are known to be somewhat of a traditional aphrodisiac to make men … strong in places unspoken, it then does not take a brave men to drink the whiskey, but a pretty insecure one! Out of curiosity, I sought for a reaction frommy fellow tourists who tried a few sips; unfortunately, the claimed effect was yet to be felt, but they did feel their body heat rise.

Reptile whiskey

Our next stop was to the border of Thailand and Myanmar where a fellow traveler and I were fooled into illegally crossing borders to Myanmar only to be greeted by Burmese officers who extorted 500 baht from us each because we did not have proper visas; the haunting and evil laugh of the lady officer who found amusement in our cross-border misery added insult to injury as we all knew if we did not pay, we would risk becoming border refugees. And so with the last of my Bahts, I bailed us out.

Of awkward borders

Moving on, and never wanting to look back, we headed to the Karen village situated in Northern Thailand to visit the hill tribes. Honestly, the place has become to tourist-like to the point where all the villagers are already dressed up, made up with flower garlands on their hair, ever ready to be photographed. They make a living from selling crafts to tourists, yet most tourists were just snapping photos away as if at a zoo. The village ladies and little girls are indeed very professional and camera sensitive, posing every time they sense a flash with a “botox” smile as a way of initiating the tourist to buy from them. Indeed they were satisfying the tourist gaze in us.

The price of beauty

The most memorable tribe would be those of the long neck Padaung which has garnered lots of interest in anthropology and feminism. The Padaung women are subjected to wear heavy brass rings around their neck, ankles and arms at the age of 5 onwards. According to ancient myth, it is to protect them from tiger attacks. Some say it is their definition of beauty. The reason that these women still practice this traditional culture could be to preserving their cultural identity or to capitalize on their way of living for the tourism industry. In fact, there is much discussion that these “cultural villages” likened to human zoos, where mistreatments are rife as some of the “villagers” are illegal immigrants or refugees. When asked if the process of adorning the brass rings were painful, they all gave a much scripted answer of it being a painless process and that they are used to it. As much as it should be a cultural heritage, deep down I do feel sorry for the girl who carries such physical burden in their daily lives.

This marks the end of the Thai-Laos-Myanmar exploration. An honest review on the trip? Eye opening but not worth the money, it felt a lot like a scripted reality show throughout and even the guide’s jokes appeared rather unnatural. It does give legitimate bragging rights that you have spanned three countries in one day, but I would rather spend on Thai massages. Enough said.

Alumnis and former student guides unite