These mini travelogues are the result of an exercise I once tried; writing one hundred words a day for one hundred days, the point being to gain discipline and economy with the written word. Once started, it became addictive. A terse sort of prose is the usual result; in which one tries capturing the essence of time and place. Although I may have been a little liberal with the facts in some, it’s only to better express the spirit of the experience. Some over the one hundred word parameter have been added, just for mischief. Maybe you’d care to count?
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He came alone to the men’s pool, hobbling along with the aide of a forest pole polished bare by years of his use. Wrinkled, white locks now balding and wispy; white stubble outlined his chin. He wore a simple cotton cloth, barely big enough to cover his feeble loins. The young lords deferred to him and moved aside to allow him into the most accessible pool; they did not demean his independence or dignity with offers of unneeded or un-requested help. He enjoyed his bath and refreshed; his meager cloth wrapped once more about his waist, returned to the village.
River life, YauYau |
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AND THE RIVER LORDS BATHE |
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They come mid-afternoon in their ones and twos until there is a small group of them. They bathe first, soaping every part of their glistening, lithesome bodies, vigorously shampooing hair; tenderly scrubbing one another’s backs, rinsing away all suds. They relax, lounging about with nothing more urgent to do than swap gossip about the girls they court and their prowess in hunting. Here men hunt and clear the forest, all other work is done by women. For more than three hundred years young lords like these have come daily, like jungle panthers, to bathe and loll about on this river. |
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At first light, in an ancient wooden chapel, chanting monks provide distant harmony as she pays homage to the Golden Image; her contemplations broken only by the arrival of the bird sellers. Offering a few small coins she takes a tiny wicker basket and releases its two captive birds. For five days she comes, one for each year of entanglement. Ten birds released; one each for herself and the partner she wishes to unbind. Thus from past lives rejoined she now unwinds for the final time, the bonds that have cut them both so deep. How hastily those birds flee.
Karma Birds for release at temple in Chiang Mai |
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High above the plain it shimmers, ochre red in dusty heat. Scorching sun and arid landscape sears one’s eyes. Towering stone edifices thrusting high virulent still; ancient corn cob designs, eerie mystical reminders of kingdoms past, glories lost and time’s passage dominant over all. Climbing giant Naga steps which silently caution pilgrims, one wanders through courtyards and cloisters, ever inwards, stepping further back in time until at the epicenter one enters sudden darkness. Eyes blink to adjust and there in the exact geometric heart lays the earthly Yoni, vulva to Shiva’s now missing mighty Lingam. How sad it’s been removed.
Phanum Rung
Corn Cob Chedis, Phanum Rung
Passage Phanum Rung
Cheddi Phanum Rung
Detail of Chedi lintel |
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NIGHTS IN A TEAK WALLAH’S HOUSE |
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Floating on delicate stilts amidst freshly swept gardens; their wooden shingles and roofs tapering, the old Teak Wallah’s houses look like something out of Maugham. Glassless windows shuttered at night keep out bats and other unwanted nocturnal flyers while we sleep blissfully under mosquito nets. Gazing out the windows, I watch the villagers taking their evening bathes in the river. The patina of polished teak floor and walls glimmers red gold in lamplight. The heady scent of night flowers equaled momentarily only by the enticing aroma of dinner brought by smiling lads speaking in the caressing tones of Lanna Thai. |
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Travelogue