Heaven and Hell

Pai - Chiang Mai - Chiang Rai, 7/8/11 - 7/9/11

I would love to stay longer in Pai. Continue motorbiking, staying cheaply in my private bungalow, eating hearty northern curries, and drinking and singing by the Pai River. Pai feels like a hamlet untouched by time, which is why it's no surprise that so many people come for two days and stay for weeks.

Pumkpin Hummus

I head back to Chiang Mai and enjoy a quick lunch at the northern branch of May Kaidee. I chow down on pumpkin hummus with brown rice, tofu summer rolls, and a mango passionfruit shake (125Baht = $4). Immediately following lunch, I board the bus to Chiang Rai. My intended guest house is fully booked, so I stay at the nearby Boon Bun Dun hostel, slightly dodgy and dirty by comparison, but it is centrally located and has a large room with a private bath, queen bed, and plenty of outlets.

I wonder over to the Night Bazaar, which has two stages of live music and dozens of food stalls and hand craft hawkers. I buy a whole snapper, grilled over charcoal with a chili-infused nam plang (fish sauce) accompaniment. It's cooked in a tiny stall not much bigger than an airplane bathroom and is crisp, fresh, and moist (100B = $3). I go shopping afterwards and try on multiple pairs of sunglasses. As I proceed on, the atypically unfriendly Thai owner angrily shouts, "you take too long! Too much time! You no come back!" Her loss as one of her competitors sells me two.

Post-shopping, I head to Tee Pee Bar around the corner, one of the oddest establishments I've been to yet. It's decorated like someone just hung up every item he found at an estate sale -- there are rusty bicycles, black and white photos of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, dart board, album covers, street signs, bird cages, and oddly, nooses aplenty. I sit Indian-style on small pillows and toast my neighbors as a local strums his guitar. I meet James, a young Brit who's just gotten back from hiking to Everest Base Camp. We discuss hiking, climbing, and altitude sickness before heading out to the inevitable local reggae bar. Upon entering, we meet Katie, a leggy, blonde Brit and her friend Polly, her petite, brunette, giggle-till-she's-red friend. Both are on gap year from England. We flirt, dance, didgeridoo with the band, wear wigs, and drink until the sun comes up. Plus I befriend all the locals as I'm able to give them a run for their money on the pool table.

I run into Wade and Kristen the next morning an we hop on a bus together to visit the White Temple, 30 minutes outside Chiang Rai. The temple is of the most unique in the country, created by a revered modern Thai artist, who's also designed all of the city's ornate gold clocktowers. The expected completion of the White Temple complex is 2070, during which time the main temple will be joined by fifty other buildings. Unlike the other wats in the country, this temple is pure ivory white in color, decorated merely by pieces of broken mirrors like a mosaic. Even the bathrooms are ornate, located in a giant golden carved palace.

 

 

Clock tower by the same artist

While other temples are purely ornate religious sites, this one has a distinct theme -- heaven and hell. The main temple and its surrounding moat are split in two: The half farthest away from the holy temple center is hell, the half closest is heaven. Farther from the center are demons, dragons, monsters, serpents, shrunken heads, cigarettes, whiskey, and pools of sinners reaching up for salvation from the depths of hell. As one crosses the moat and enters the temple, the motif changes. Inside the temple, there is a huge three-story fresco of hell, with images of Satan, demons, fire and brimstone, and the condemned. Satan's face takes up roughly two stories and in his eyes are paintings of George W. Bush and Osama Bin Ladin. Oddly there are also images of Hollywood heroes (Batman, Superman, Spiderman, the Hulk, Neo, Star Wars protagonists) as the artists felt these heroes were never around during times of utter desperation (e.g., war, 9/11 also pictured in the mural) and therefore should be vilified.



Flip 180-degrees towards the temple's main altar and the scene transforms from Hell to Heaven, with a giant Buddha statue in front of a mural depicting Heaven. In the artist's mind, heaven in a magical land in the clouds basked in the purple and gold hue of the setting sun, with flying carpets, monks, butterflying, waterfalls, blooming flowers, majestic trees. I must say heaven looks a hell of a lot better, although I always liked superhero movies. Outside the temple on the Heaven side, there are more Buddhas, monks, flowers, and large elephant-dragon-swan creatures protecting the complex.

Bathroom

It's pouring rain when we head back to Chiang Rai, so we quickly enter the day market for shelter. I grab a piece of fried fish with garlic, basil, and chilis. It's possible, wait no definitely, the worst and only truly bad meal I've had to date in Thailand. The fish is beyond rancid -- blood red, off-smelling, and so unfresh that it tastes like sour milk. It was probably caught months ago and has been sitting at the same street vendor for weeks. I spit it out immediately and pray that I don't get food poisoning. I clear my palette with a big bowl of noodle soup with barbequed pork, scallions, tofu, and beet juice before boarding a bus with Wade to Chiang Kong.

Even my eyes are saying, "don't eat it!"

Note: Some photos from Theresa