Ruins Part II: the Indiana Jones Version*

So after my slightly less than stellar experience in the ruins of Old Sukothai (and the making of some new Dutch friends while watching the Brazil-Holland game on Friday night) I set out Saturday morning for a similar kind of adventure but one that would turn out to be much different in several key ways.

North of Sukothai by about 50 km or so is a small village called Si Satchanalai. There are probably no more than a few thousand people living there between the muddy Mae Nam Yam River and the highway.

I hopped on a early bus to Chiang Mai and told them where I wanted to get off. After about an hour the bus pulled over and the conductor told me this was my stop. There were a few small houses and shops along the highway and one lonely sign that pointed though a small archway and said “Si Satchanalai Historical Park”. I walked down a narrow sidewalk between more little bodega-type shops and homes until I came to this:

I knew then that this day would be very different from the last.

I crossed the bridge – which in the end wasn’t all that rickety but swayed and wobbled just as much as you please – and saw a large wat with two huge chedis. One in the multi-faceted Khmer style and another in the smooth, bell-shaped Sinhalese style. Just on the other side of the bridge was a small corrugated metal booth. A little window swung open and a kindly looking older woman poked out her head and said with a smile, “Sawaidee kap! 20 baht, please!” Yeah! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!

She even told me that there was no extra charge for bringing in a rented bicycle. I asked where I could rent one and after a few misfires I realized that she was directing me to a little tchotchke stall where another woman arranged to rent me what I am pretty sure was her own bicycle. Just fine by me.

Now at this point I walked up to the first wat, giddy with anticipation, and whipped out my camera. Turning it on my heart sank as I realized that I had forgotten to put my memory card back in my camera since the previous night. At first I thought, “what a disaster!” And then I walked a little further and I told myself, “Well, Gabe, maybe this is just the Universe telling you that today you should not experience this place from behind a lens. Maybe the Universe is telling you that you should embrace this experience to the fullest without trying to record it and just live it.”

This made me feel better though still a little sad as the first wat, The Unrecorded Wat, was pretty spectacular and there were no bars or gates blocking off the stairs that climbed the chedis so I went up and down them and got beautiful views of the temple grounds and the river slowly chugging away nearby. I even had a quiet moment at the top of one, sitting in an empty niche that at one point likely housed a seated Buddha statue waiting for a quick rain to pass.

Luckily for me (and for you) the Universe didn’t take long to knock me upside the head and remind me that I had a phone with a perfectly decent camera in it. Moron. Anyway, the rest of this post will be visual like the last one which no doubt must be pleasing any illiterates who happen to follow my blog.

On to the next temple, The Sunken Wat, which also pleased me immensely, primarily because half of it was flooded.

What I liked about this was not the flooding itself but the fact that it had been allowed to flood. This was what Old Sukothai was missing. Things had been a bit too manicured and spruced up. Yes, the Sunken Wat (and most of the others) was swarming with mosquitoes and other bugs, but it was a fair trade off for the experience of wandering between the columns and seeing the moss coat the old stone and brick. There looked to be very little restoration or disturbance of the site by modern humans.

I shot this pile of stones in sepia because why the hell not?

A tip of the ol' hat to Mr. Anthony Paletta.

One contemporary touch was a small covering over one section of the wall that still had a bit of the original stucco. Apparently this curlicue style and medium is a borrow from India and is intended to look like carved wood.

The next wat I’m calling Crowded Chedis because it had easily as many shrines as the Main Wat in Sukothai but in a third of the space. So many different angles and views to see.

The tower in the background is another example of a lotus-bud chedi which I realize I didn't show very well in the last post.

Most of the chedis, particularly the minor ones are built with architectural niches on the sides to house Buddha statues. Because of the out-in-the-open nature of the site many of the statues were dramatically broken, much like the stereotypical Greek statue missing an arm or a head.

This was Elephant Wat even if they may look like lions from a distance (I dunno, that was my first instinct).

Get a bit closer though and their elephant nature comes through in the few details that remain.

The Buddha statues on the wat’s second level, somewhat protected by their niches, were unsurprisingly in much better shape than their animal counterparts below.

There were also two wats on the top of a hill on the northern edge of the site. I had hoped that would give me an awesome vista of the whole complex but unfortunately the trees were too thick and there were no real views to be had. On the plus side, these two temples were the most deeply embedded in the surrounding jungle and its wildlife.

ost fascinating was a very large flock of herons (or egrets). Some were small and white, others large with gray and dull-blue feathers. Don’t know if they were two different species or what but they congregated together without much problem. I tried to get some shots of them but they were extremely skittish. I couldn’t even get within 100 yards of them, even when they were in the tree tops, before they started winging away. But there were a lot of them and this little clip gives you a sense of their song which was this weird gargling warble (also shows the steps up to the hill temples).

SS – stairs and birdsong edit

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But I think the aspect of the Si Satchanalai ruins that I liked the most were the “buddha ghosts”. That’s the name I gave to the dozens of statues and reliefs of seated and standing Buddhas that had become so weathered that they had melted away to just their laterite cores, leaving behind featureless but nonetheless haunting shades of their former selves.

I walked passed this large ghost in the Crowded Chedis several times before realizing that it was not just a platform but the core of a former seated Buddha. The diagonal line showing where his two folded legs once rested together and the very short stump rising from the top the beginning of his torso.

But this particular ghost was my favorite and probably the most breathtaking thing I saw all day. It’s hard to describe how it felt to turn the corner of this large chedi in a minor, outlying wat and discover this bare expression of the former statue. There was just something about the shape and form of this one that I found very moving. It seems almost primal, like a figure from a cave painting, which added to the spectral feeling I got from being around it. And for the art historians reading it clearly demonstrates that many of the statues are not free standing but are actually extremely high relief.

All in all, Si Satchanalai blew (and drew, Travis) Sukothai out of the water. It was the experience I was looking for and then some. Throughout the whole day I saw only a small handful of other tourists and for most of the time I was totally alone to explore the ruins and contemplate their ancientness and the ancients for whom they were once sacred sites. It was quiet, beautiful and properly ruined.

So if I recommend Old Sukothai – and I do – I recommend Si Satchanalai 100 times more.

* Ok, so there were no rolling boulders, poison darts or Nazis but this just felt so much more badass than Sukothai, and thus the Indiana Jones-ness of the experience. Also, right when I walked into the first wat a snake went scurrying up a column into a big hole right next to me, so I feel the title is justified.

Ruins Part I: the Disney Version

Here at the IRC we are blessed with a smattering of observances of both Thai and American holidays. Sunday being the 4th of July we had a nice little 3-day weekend which I took advantage of (dangling prepositions be damned). I have been enjoying living and having fun here in Mae Sot but it’s a small pony and it only knows a few tricks, so it was time to put on my travelin’ hat and hit that ol’ trail again.

I decided to head out to Sukothai, an ancient Thai capital. Indeed, it is considered to be the first true Thai kingdom. Founded in the 13th century as the mighty Khmer (Cambodian) Empire was losing power and shrinking back to their great capital of Angkor (of Angkor Wat fame). As the first Thai kingdom and one of considerable strength and cultural growth, the Sukothai period is often looked back upon as a golden age for the Thai people. Many of the temples whose ruins I visited were constructed under the auspices of this dude, King Ramkhamhaeng (modern statue).

The King schools the People.

He is credited with devising the first Thai alphabet, which is an agonizing 44 letters long (“I think. Not sure.” confirmed a Thai colleague of mine).

The modern city of Sukothai is unremarkable but just a few kilometers out of town are the ruins of the ancient city, primarily the temples and one or two rather sorry remnants of the old city walls.

The site of the old city is fairly large, about 5-6 square kilometers with most of the ruins concentrated near the center. I rented a bike at the gate and got an immediate rush of excitement as I rode up to my first wat. Turning a corner at the entrance gate I came down a shady avenue and saw the structures of the wat through the old and twisted trunks of a line of trees.

Being a history nerd I was geeking out pretty hard and I had only been at the site for 5 minutes. It was shaping up to be a fine day indeed.

Before I continue: a very brief glossary. A wat is a temple and can refer to all of the buildings associated with the main shrine. A chedi is a shrine within or near a wat – I think the word is more or less equivalent to stupa which is Indian(?). It is the holiest part of the wat. Often a symbolic “bone” of the Buddha will be placed on the top of the main chedi. Finally a wihaan is a long assembly hall where most of the rituals and prayers take place, there is usually a large Buddha statue at the end of the wihaan. Now in this post and the next I visited a lot of wats and to be honest I can’t keep track of all the names in Thai, nor do I imagine you would if I listed them all, so I will be using my own personal mnemonic terms in these posts.

I began walking through that first wat – the Main Wat – and it was quite impressive.

SK – main wat walkthrough edit

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The Main Wat is very large with a three or four story central chedi and many minor ones around it. Apparently the main chedi is in the “lotus-bud style” which Sukothai is credited with starting. I’m not really sure what a lotus bud looks like so I’ll take their word for it.

The main chedi had some high-relief sculptures in friezes around it’s base. Some of them were quite beautiful even though the restoration seemed a bit hap-hazard.

I’m certainly no expert in Buddhist temple art but I had never seen anything with nearly the amount of movement and grace as in this frieze of walking monks. My guidebook said that like the lotus-bud towers this flowing style is a Sukothai speciality and is quite famous in Thailand.

Guatama strikes a pose.

There were many minor chedis and wihaans throughout the Main Wat complex with lots of standing and seated buddhas of various sizes, allowing for plenty of interesting contrasts and compositions.

The bell-shaped chedi behind the statue here is apparently in the Sinhalese or Sri Lankan style.

The temples in Sukothai were made with brick, stucco and laterite, a kind of clay that hardens into these awesome swiss-cheese patterns.

I noticed a few columns throughout the site with different tags nailed to them with letters on them. This one got an “F”. Seems a bit haughty to be giving out letter grades to the ancients.

One of the nice things about the temples is that even though they are clearly tourist sites and no religious services happen in them, they are still a place of active, if infrequent, worship.

This buddha got slightly fresher flowers. He seems pleased.

Beyond the Main Wat were about a half dozen other wats and chedis. My favorite was this awesome little shrine sitting by itself that was covered with tiny figurines which reminded me of the prizes you get in an New Orleans-style Mardi Gras king cake. So this was the King Cake Chedi.

Another cool spot was this wat which looks totally different from any of the others for two main reasons: 1) it’s not Thai and 2) it’s not Buddhist. Well, at least not originally. I was lead to believe that this was probably the oldest wat in the old city and was originally constructed by the Khmers when they controlled the area and was built as a Hindu temple. Thus the three tower style representing Mt. Meru, home of the God Brahma.

As well as depictions of creatures from Hindu mythology like the many headed snake god, the Naga. Eventually, the Khmer Wat was just transferred over to being a Buddhist site as the owners changed, no smashing needed. I like that.

There were also lots of unmarked and unremarkable ruins scattered throughout the large area inside the walls. Often times just a base and a few stumps of columns such as Some Wat here.

In fact, most of the area in Old Sukothai is empty space just taken up with grassy fields, large ponds and reservoirs and stands of trees. This along with the dozens of small wells all over the site reminded you of the fact that this was not just a religious place, it was a city, it’s just that only the temples (and the wells) were important enough to be built with a durable material like stone.

However, a few things nagged at me. For one thing, several of the sites, particularly some of the larger Buddha statues seemed to have been in remarkably good shape for being made of stucco and left exposed to the elements for 700 years. In fact, that doesn’t look like stucco at all, I’m pretty sure that’s cement.

There was quite a lot of restoration at Old Sukothai. The grass was as immaculately mowed as a golf course and lines of carefully planted trees and flowering hedges ringed many of the wats. I had hoped for a wander through the jungle to find stunningly untouched ancient temples. What I got instead was a very well-scrubbed version of ruins, hence the “Disney Version” sub-title of this post.

And that annoyed me. I suppose the debate about whether or not to restore old pieces of art or architecture is one with proponents on both sides. I myself am not always for non-restoration. For instance, I thought it was a great idea to restore Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes. The difference for me is that the reason I went to see the Sukothai ruins was because they are old and decrepit. That is, in fact, their appeal for me. I want to walk around a place that has obviously been there for a very, very long time and had unknowable thousands walk on it’s stones as it slowly disintegrates. When you make it look new, that magic is totally lost. The point of the Sistine Chapel frescoes is to see the paintings. If they’re all covered with soot, you can’t see them and thus their magic is lost. Or at least so says I.

The other thing that bugged me was that Old Sukothai was kind of expensive, certainly for Thailand. Just beyond the city walls were two others areas with some nice ruins but you had to pay a separate entrance fee for them. There was also a separate entrance fee for the museum on site. Now each ticket cost 100 Baht (plus 10 more to bring a bike in) meaning to visit all 3 areas you pay 330. Now that’s only about $10 (less than the MoMA) but that’s a lot for Thailand, or anywhere in Asia for that matter. And I think it’s the way you have to keep on paying each time you want to see something new. It felt like hidden fees or an extra charge for wanting to appreciate more of a country’s heritage. I don’t know, it just sort of rubbed me the wrong way.

Still, there’s no denying that Old Sukothai is quite beautiful and it was extremely pleasant to spend a few hours biking down wide roads lined with trees and grass and temple ruins. So if you’re in Thailand, and you like old stuff, I’d say it’s worth a visit.

Main Wat as the sun begins to set.

In the end, the most enduring mystery of ancient Sukothai was this old man resting by the statue of King Ramkhamhaeng. He has a slingshot. But why?!

Tune in next time for a rougher, tougher and better version of ruins!

Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head

A couple of years ago I was quietly obsessed by the dream of owning a motorcycle. I’m not exactly sure why I was so intent on this but for awhile I would go on to Craigslist almost daily and drool over what I perceived as my dream bikes. Nothing too fancy, just simple cruisers of certain era like this. Being here in Southeast Asia surrounds one with innumerable opportunities to get on a pair of motorized wheels. Rarely motorcycles exactly they inhabit some kind of ground between something like a Harley and something like a Vespa.

The point of saying all this however is not to revive my interest in motorcycles – which still exists but, to the delight of my mother no doubt, has remained unfulfilled. No, I bring it up because back in the day, at the height of my obsession, I was talking to a friend about it and he pointed out the very practical problem of what to do if you were riding and it started to rain. I hadn’t really considered that but being here in Thailand during the rainy season has afforded me the opportunity to see many possible answers to that question.

Most people here get around by bicycle or motorbike and as I mentioned in my last post, it’s raining a lot these days. So what to do? Here are the most common coping strategies on offer in town.

The most practical is a simple poncho. It covers clothes and a bag if you’ve got one. I pack a poncho in the basket of my bike for quick-draw protection if I’m caught out in a deluge.

one-man poncho

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There are some that are specially designed for motorbikes and have extra material that drapes over the front basket and includes a “window” of clear plastic for the headlight to shine through.

The most amusing set-up I’ve seen is the two-person, one-poncho routine, or as I like to call it “the beast with two backs” (extra points for whoever nails the reference).

two-man poncho

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Seems like it would be rather disorienting for the one on back, but I’m glad they do it anyway for the amusement of the rest of us.

If you don’t have a poncho, a simple umbrella will do.

solo umbrella

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This requires a fair amount of balance and skill and I think rather increases the risk of driving a motorbike in the rain when you’re only using one hand to drive and the other hand to hold up what could amount to a giant sail.

Much safer is the got-a-good-friend umbrella method. This is actually my personal favorite. I like the kind of symbiotic relationship between driver and passenger.

gotta good friend

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These guys are using the Shirt Method which seems sort of pointless to me but hey, who am I to judge?

The Shirt Method

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And then there are some folks who just deal.

dealin’ with it

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Stay dry out there, everyone.

Tis the Season for Miasma

Back in an early post of mine I described – excuse me, complained about – the weather here in Mae Sot. When I first got here it was the tail end of the dry season. And it was indeed dry and HOT. Beautiful blue skies and blazing, merciless sun every day. Now the dry season has yielded to the rainy season and the monsoons are here.

The monsoon is pretty awesome actually. That old adage about pouring when it rains really applies here. It usually doesn’t rain for very long. But when it does it does with a vengeance. A few weeks ago I was in a car when the clouds decided to do their thing. And do it they did, it was like driving through a swimming pool.

Anyway, like I said, I think the rain is groovy. The temperature has gone down nicely and many nights are pleasantly cool. But as we all know in this world nothing comes for free. In payment for the more reasonable temperatures and the beautiful green fields we get a great cloud of bugs.

buzzzz

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Now I don’t know what kind of bugs these are but they are not mosquitoes (thank god) but I think this nicely exemplifies conditions generally.

I stress that they aren’t mosquitoes not only because of my own strong personal aversion to that particular pest but because here in Mae Sot mosquitoes are more than just pests. As in many tropical places “rainy season” is synonymous with “malaria and dengue season” both of which are transmitted through mosquito bites. I’m taking anti-malaria pills but there is no preventive drug for dengue (charmingly known as break-bone fever or bonecrusher disease due to the intense joint pain that is a common symptom). Only way to not get it is to not get bitten, a difficult prospect these days. But I persevere.

I actually have to admit that there’s a part of me that half-wants to get dengue or malaria just to have the experience and live to tell the tale (both can be deadly but are fairly easy to treat). It seems kind of a like a world-traveler red badge of courage. Like I said I half-want this to happen. You can leave your rating of my naive insanity on a 1-10 scale with 1 being “very” and 10 being “dangerously” in the comments.

Humble Pie

Since I have gotten here to Mae Sot I have been encouraged by many to be more active on this blog. It’s true, I haven’t posted very often and I’d like to be writing more, but I’m not. It’s not for want of things to say – those of you who know me and my ever-flappin’ jaw know I never lack for things to say. Nor indeed is it because there’s nothing interesting here to tell you all about. This has been an extremely thought-provoking experience.

So why am I wasting your time with descriptions of stray dogs and promises of tropical fruit (the fruit is coming by the way, I promise)? Well, let me see if I can express my predicament with an old slogan: “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” The program I’m working for, the IRC’s Legal Assistance Center, provides some legal services for people living in several of the camps for Burmese refugees here in Thailand. Doing this work means that LAC works in partnership with a lot of people: there are the refugees themselves, there are the various elements of camp leadership, there are all the different Thai authorities involved in various aspects of the administration of the camp – police, army, municipal and provincial officials and others – there’s the Thai Ministry of Justice who is obviously an important partner in a program concerned with legal services in Thailand, and then finally there’s UNHCR.

That’s a mouthful already, and I’m probably forgetting some. Working with all of these groups together with their various interests and priorities is a delicate and political task and some of them are in rather precarious positions. In some ways we ourselves are in a precarious position. So you’ll have to forgive me for not saying more about what I do or indeed even showing you where I’m working. I do not want to unravel many years of hard work by other people just because I have an urge to share cool stories about what I’m doing and seeing out here.

“Oh, c’mon, Gabe, who’s going to read this blog anyway? Aren’t you being a tad paranoid?” I hear you say. Well first of all thanks for the encouragement. And second, I believe the Internet has been teaching all of us some important lessons for the past few years about putting information out on it. Once it’s posted, it’s public and it’s no longer yours. I intend to heed that lesson.

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But that’s not really what I wanted to talk about in this post. Problem is that all of the issues I referenced above (and a few more to boot) are standing in the way of really saying what I want to say. But I will do my best to express this appropriately.

Last night I had a conversation with someone I met recently. We talked for a long time about his life, what he’s been through and where he’s going. He grew up as a minority in a country that pursues a systematic campaign to marginalize his people. He has lived as a refugee, an immigrant and a fugitive. He has put his life and liberty on the line for his family and his community several times. Despite having no formal education until college he went to college and is now pursuing an advanced degree (his classes are taught in English which he learned as an adult to compliment the three other languages he already spoke). His story involved some incredible twists, setbacks and close-calls. At one point he said with a light in his eyes, “Actually, I’m glad I don’t exist,” which, even out of context, I think illustrates the Sinbad-the-Sailor-amazingness of his life story.

This is awfully abstract, I know. I could be talking about anyone, I could’ve made this guy up (which is sort of the point of telling it that way, savvy?). But I know what I heard and what I heard last night was one of those stories that is hard for me to wrap my head around. And the kicker for me – the real lesson – was when he explained with a smile (he often wears one) that this is just his life and he has never known anything else. He fights against it, but he isn’t particularly bothered by it. By the end I felt, well, humbled.

And he’s not the only one, of course. I look around and see so many people whose lives make my “hard-knock” childhood on the “mean streets” of Jersey City look laughably cushy. And it’s really gotten the gears turning in my head. Reminded me of what I’m trying to do with the rest of my cushy life. Hope I can live up to those goals. Until then I’m taking my cues from the title of this post. Yum.

“]

Mmmm... humility... [drool

Babel

Well, it’s been awhile since I last posted but you see I was busy trying to figure may way out of the maze of languages I’m surrounded by here.

Before I came out to Mae Sot a lot of people asked me if I spoke any Thai. I don’t. They asked me if I was going to study any before I left. I said probably not. I said I wasn’t sure how useful that would be. They though that was crazy. You, dear Reader, may be thinking the same thing. But Thai really isn’t the most useful thing to know out here. Well, it’s useful, sure, this is Thailand, but it’s only one of about 7 languages that are spoken regularly here in Mae Sot.

A shop sign with Thai on top and Burmese below.

A good portion of the population in town – I would guess half – is indeed Thai and they speak Thai. Most of the shops on the main streets are owned by Thais and have Thai signage. The other half of the people living here are a hodge-podge of people from across the border – mostly Burmese and Karen. Most of the beneficiaries that we work with here in the refugee camp are Karen (which has two mutually unintelligible dialects) with a healthy population of Burmese and a smattering of communities representing other ethnic groups in Burma: Chin, Shan, Karenni (not to be confused with Karen), Mon, etc.

The other day I held up a mangosteen and asked a colleague in the offhand way I tend to when in a foreign country, “What do you call this?” He hesitated for a second and then laughed, “In what?” He speaks Karen, Burmese and English, but not Thai. I hesitated for a second myself and realized that I didn’t know which language I wanted that translated into. I suppose Thai, since it’s the native tongue of the country I happen to be in, but I was out of luck with my tri-lingual colleague.

So I’m picking up as much of Thai, Burmese and Karen as I can. Generally speaking my traveling rule of thumb for absolute bare-bones use consists of 1) Hello, 2) Thank you, 3) How much?, and 4) the numbers 1-100. Between those three languages I’ve gotten about halfway there with a little extra Thai cause I have a phrasebook with me. But I still end up saying “thank you” and “hello” in the wrong language most of the time. I think I’ll switch to smiles and nods, much more effective

Oh, and everyone, in any shop or restaurant, understands what you mean when you say “beer”. It’s the world’s most international word.

not hotdogs, soi dogs

Soi is the Thai word for “alley” or small street. There are lots of soi here in Mae Sot and the soi are full of dogs.

Whether these dogs “belong” to anyone is hard to say. Most of them are clearly strays. Some wear collars and many of them are mangy and filthy. They tend to stick to certain lots and corners, perhaps because some benevolent neighbor feeds them occasionally or just because that’s their territory. People with more generous views of these animals like to call them “temple dogs” but as far as most of us here are concerned they’re just “soi dogs”. They’re all mutts and tend to fall into two broad categories: short and long weiner-types and slim mid-sized ones. There are a few big ones here and there but they tend to be more clearly “kept”.

Now there are dogs like this throughout Thailand, including Bangkok. Indeed they are a pretty ubiquitous feature of the landscape throughout Southeast Asia. Travelers here like to compare and contrast the relative menace of each country’s respective dogs (Cambodian dogs tend to take first place on account of having the most visible and horrible skin diseases). If you’re planning on coming out to this part of the world for a visit it’s definitely a good idea to get a rabies shot.

Generally speaking the soi dogs are pretty benign. This is mostly because you usually encounter them during daylight hours when, as I noted at length in the last post, it tends to be really, really hot and the dogs move as little as possible. But at night, when the temperature drops to something bearable and the town has gone to bed the dogs get very active and very aggressive. All of a sudden the sleepy pooch that couldn’t be bothered to look up at you when you walked past her at noon begins barking from 30 yards off and growls and bares her teeth when you walk past at midnight.

Now I’ll take a moment here to freely acknowledge my own fear of dogs. It’s not quite a phobia because there’s plenty of dogs that I love and I think dogs are great generally. But I grew up with cats. I know how to read feline body language and I’m familiar with how cats tend to behave so even ornery ones cause me no stress. Also cats are small. But dogs, especially BIG dogs, especially big, AGGRESSIVE dogs frankly just scare me. Approaching an unfamiliar dog on the street is a moment of pretty acute anxiety for me and as the old maxim of “smelling fear” predicts, this tends to put me at a disadvantage when heading home after hours.

But I’m not alone. The dogs have a well-established reputation for barking at and biting foreign travelers and workers here in Mae Sot. And I’m not just talking about rumors of the I-heard-someone-say-that-this-one-time-when-this-Aussie-guy-was-walking-home-type, I’m talking about several people that I know personally showing off the scars from their dog-bites. Indeed the intern who occupied the position I now do was bitten while riding her bike. Riding a bike seems to make you markedly more desirable as a target compared to walking. Not sure why but it has been confirmed by many of the other foreigners who share soi dog stories at the bars.

So what to do about all this? Many people carry a few good sized rocks in their bike baskets to be launched if necessary. I personally prefer what I call the “Teddy Roosevelt strategy” which on the one hand involves not molesting the dogs when I pass them – giving them a wide-berth and avoiding direct eye-contact – and in the other hand involves a sturdy bamboo stick for knockin’ dog-noggins as needed.

And for the dog-lovers out there, don’t worry, there’s been no need so far to actually hit anything, the stick’s more of a deterrent than a weapon. Woof.

Mae Sot

So after a few detours in England and Bangkok I have arrived in Mae Sot where I’ll be living and working for the next two and a half months. As most of you know, but some of you may not I’m here working for the International Rescue Committee in their Legal Assistance Center which works with refugees from Burma in several of the camps here in Thailand.

A view down one of the main roads.

Mae Sot itself is a small city of perhaps 75,000 people (I think). It sits just 3 miles from the Thai-Burma border and is one of the most important points of trade between the two countries. The population is an extremely diverse mix of Thai, Burmese, Karen and other ethnic groups along with a visible (and audible) minority of foreigners most of them backpacking through or working for the many NGOs, schools and NGO schools that work with the local migrant and refugee populations.

The city itself feels small but it has more energy than you’d expect. In fact, I’ve noticed that that’s a common first reaction for new-comers. I think a lot of people come here expecting a sleepy, one-horse town and are taken aback by the level of activity here. I mean, it’s no Bangkok, but it ain’t nuthin’ neither.

My ride. Note the knockoff Playboy logo on the basket. Pretty sweet, huh?

The heart of the city lies along two main streets that run parallel through town and are packed with shops, restaurants, bars, banks and other businesses. The two streets merge out at the western end and continue on through a large Burmese market and then to the Thailand-Myanmar Friendship Bridge which is the official border crossing. Markets trail off down side streets and residential areas spread out north and south off the main roads. Physically though Mae Sot isn’t that big. Walking the long way from one end of town to another would take about an hour and you can get almost anywhere on a bicycle in 15 min or less. Pedal to the edge of town and the rice fields begin almost immediately, reminding you of the agricultural character of the area.

One of the town's Buddhist wats. There are also a few churches and at least one mosque.

As I type this it’s raining outside. Hard. The rainy season has just gotten under way this week and it couldn’t have come soon enough. Before the rainy season is the dry season which is, you guessed it, very dry and very, very hot. The province that Mae Sot sits in, Tak, is notorious for being both the hottest province in the country during the dry season and the wettest during the rainy season. Yippee. I was warned that I may very well get sick of the rainy season but right now I’m thrilled that it’s here. For the first two weeks after my arrival in MS it was 95º+ every day

without the faintest fart of a breeze and clear, blue, unrelentingly sunny skies. One coping strategy I’ve developed with the consultation of some other friends is to take a cold shower and then stay perfectly still for as long as possible to avoid any exertion. Problem is eventually I have to blink and then the sweat just starts to pour again. On the plus side everyone is just as sweaty and smelly so you don’t get singled out!

Mmmm... rice. Well, eventually.

I don’t mean to say that it’s not hot anymore because it’s still hot. It’s just high 80s hot instead of high 90s and now the humidity is high so yeah, maybe I won’t like it that much pretty soon. Sorry, I know it’s lame to go on and on about the weather like this but I really don’t like being hot, so this has been fairly constantly on my mind.

Otherwise things are wonderful so far! The food is great, I like the people I’m working with, I find the work interesting, I’m making friends and I haven’t been bitten by a dog yet! (More on all these subjects in due time, I promise). For now, hope you enjoyed this little virtual intro to Mae Sot.

I don't know what 7-11 has put in the water here in Thailand but it's working cause these things are absolutely ubiquitous. So far I've only found 5 here in Mae Sot which is very, very few.

Fruit! There's tons of awesome fruit here. I'm planning a whole post on the subject, believe me there's enough material.

What Are You?

A lot of people have been asking me lately if I’m ok. Their asking quite reasonably due to the news of the serious social unrest that is gripping Thailand at the moment. To answer quickly: I’m fine and should be safely distant from danger.

For two months a massive group of protesters (at one point tens of thousands of people) have camped out on the streets in the center of Bangkok and effectively shut down several main roads and shopping malls. They have also raided the Parliament Building and (briefly) occupied a big hospital in the center of town. The police have made various attempts to dislodge the protesters and there have been several clashes which have resulted in almost 60 deaths and several hundred injuries. During the protests there have been more than a dozen mysterious bomb and grenade attacks on seemingly random targets throughout the city that everyone agrees is connected somehow to the protests (or at least taking advantage of the chaos) but no one is sure who is doing them or why.

The protesters are called the Red Shirts after their symbolic color of choice and they are demanding the that current Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejajjiva, step down, dissolve parliament and hold new elections.

The back story here is that the Reds are supporters of a former PM, Thaksin Shinawatra and his allies. Taksin (pronounced toxin) is a billionaire businessman who ran on a platform of populist reform and his party won a huge majority in parliament. He polled especially well amongst the urban and rural poor. This didn’t suit the traditional powers-that-be in Bangkok at all and in 2006 Thaksin was ousted and exiled in a bloodless coup by the army. Thaksin was charged with corruption and the army has seized as many of his assets as they can.

This didn’t hurt his popularity much, though, and his party (under a new name and leadership) went ahead and handily won the next election anyway.

So They tried again, the new PM was again accused of corruption and other naughty things. People came out in support of him in Bangkok, wearing red and clashing with police. But the elites had a color-coordinated mini-army, too: the Yellow Shirts. In 2008 they occupied Bangkok’s international airport for two weeks, F’ing up travel throughout the region and effecting a body slam on the tourist industry which is essential to the Thai economy. The Yellows’ pressure paid off and the PM was forced to step down.

In his place was put this Abhisit fellow, who, though he seems like a nice enough guy, was not elected. This is what the Red Shirts are pissed about and why they’re calling for new elections.

Follow all that? Don’t worry if you didn’t, the particular politicians aren’t really the important thing. The real struggle that’s playing out in the streets is between the Haves and the Have Nots; the traditional power center and the traditional margins.

As I type, things have gotten very bad. A few days ago, a renegade general who goes by the name Seh Daeng (Commander Red) and had sided with the Red Shirts was shot by a sniper while he was giving an interview to a reporter. There has been fighting – and dying – since then. This afternoon Seh Daeng died in the hospital and the government declared that the Red Shirts must leave their encampment by 3pm or – as a Thai colleague translated for me – their lives can no longer be guaranteed.

That’s a pretty dire warning and both sides seem ready and willing to fight and die. Sadly, it seems certain that many more will do both in the streets of Bangkok before the immediate crisis is resolved.

When I was Bangkok two weeks ago, the situation was tense but non-violent. I did my best to avoid the main protest areas and was very careful about the topic with the host family who I stayed with. But I was put on the spot unexpectedly by their 5 year old daughter who demanded within the first 15 minutes of meeting me that I declare my loyalty as a Red or Yellow. She is a self-proclaimed Yellow. I pointed out the shirt I was wearing and said I was a Green, an answer she accepted for the dodge that it was.

To put a more specific point on my situation the city where I’ll be living and working for the next two and half months, Mae Sot, is quite far, both geographically and socially from Bangkok. Mae Sot is located right on the Burmese border and at least a third of the people who live here are from Burma. It is a true border town, very much on the edge of Thai politics and perfectly happy to be there. People here get much more agitated by the periodic fighting that happens across the frontier in Karen State than what’s happening down in the capital. Indeed, if I didn’t actively seek out news on the situation I probably wouldn’t even know it was happening.

So I should be fine. Thailand, on the other hand, is not fine. This is just the most recent manifestation of deep-seated social and political struggles that have roiled for 30 years beneath the polished veneer of luxury beach resorts, ultra-modern subway systems and nominal democratic processes. Don’t worry about me; worry about Thailand.

Down in the Valley

But wait! Before I leave Sheffield behind completely (well, I’m already in Thailand as I write this, but digitally speaking) I want to just add a few more words and pictures about it because it really was a great city.

Some streetscapes for starters. These from the center of town.

Now call me crazy or a little obsessive (I won’t be the first time) but I think interesting public fountains are just great. Too often fountains are completely interchangeable but Sheffield somehow boasted lots of attractive and unique examples that I felt really used the sculptural potential of water very well. So here’s two pictures of some fountains right next to the train station that I thought were nifty.

Like Baltimore and any other great medium-sized city with a charm all its own Sheffield was full of endearing little oddities.

Maybe Mary Poppins is to blame but I always think of brick chimneys when I think of England.

The tower on the right is part of town hall and next to it is the Wheel of Sheffield which I recommend riding if you're in town.

This one starts out at about knee level and then let’s the descending ramp of the sidewalk fall away and ends up towering over you.

See, isn't that nice?

Not sure what this building is but it's owner/builder apparently likes vultures.

This was an absoltely ace bookshop/cafe where we had breakfast one morning. And have you ever heard of a better name? I hardly even get it!

There were several places around the city where the Sheffild-centric poetry of one author was displayed in these big, shiny steel letters. Text on the left.

A view of downtown from the top of a hill whereon was built the city's largest council flat complex (read: public housing).

And finally, who couldn't love a city where animals come neatly prepackaged for the consumer's convenience?