The Bow Can't Always Be Relaxed (Part 6)

John Wittenberg gives a number of personal reflections on his journey through Thailand, which were previously published in the short story collection 'The bow can't always be relaxed' (2007). What started for John as a flight away from pain and sorrow has grown into a search for meaning. Buddhism turned out to be a passable path. From now on, his stories will appear regularly on Thailandblog.

Overwhelming Anchor

Rocked back and forth by the elephant's slow but persistent steps, under a parasol on its broad back, I envision the mighty temple of Anchor. With a small stick, the keeper calms the elephant. He sits on his neck, between his big flapping ears, the most comfortable spot, because the neck barely moves. I pay the price for my prestige. Guards humbly bow their heads to me and I take my seat in a gilded wooden palanquin and am carried across the long bridge that spans the 300-foot-wide moat. I am plagued by seeing only a glimpse of the mighty towers, but once through the gate, where stout roaring lions keep eternal watch, I see the towers in all their power and majesty.

I am overwhelmed. Four proud towers surround a central mighty great tower designed like blooming lotus flowers. The sun reflects off the gilded copper plates of the towers. Around me, hundreds of beautiful dancers and musical sounds reverberate against the sandstone walls covered with blankets of gilded copper. Everywhere colorful parasols, banners and carpets of delicate silk. Fine perfumes fill the room and high priests make offerings to the Gods and especially to their patron, the God-king on whom all eyes are focused.

At the center of this allegory universe, down a stairway leading through three great terraces (flanked by four roaring stone lions) on the highest terrace sits King Suryavarman. He looks down on his subjects. In this palace and temple his ashes will enjoy eternal worship out of respect for his divine lineage and expansion of his empire. This building must be an eternal testimony to this.

But we no longer live in the 12th century. And most likely I had not been received by the king, but had been employed until my untimely death as one of many hundreds of thousands of slaves. They built this temple, were taken captive and paid with their lives for exhaustion.

A special canal of sixty kilometers long has been dug out to transport the blocks of sandstone from the mountains and to drag them to this temple with the help of elephants. No dancers now, no gilded copper blankets, no gilded wood ceilings, and no more god-king. But seven hundred meters of flawless incisions in the encircling walls that testify to his conquests and divine descent.

We can still actually scramble up the stone steps and brush the roaring lions over the mane, the now silent witnesses of grand rituals of old and take a seat where only the king was allowed to stand. Little is closed off and much can be touched with the hands and that is a great experience when you can pair it with the events of yesteryear. Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the 12th century.

I've been to Pompeii, Taormina, Delphi, Ephesus, all beautiful, but this amount of temples together surpasses everything. I bought a three day pass for forty dollars, twenty dollars a day and the third day is free and I rented a tuk tuk for three days, for thirty five dollars. Necessary, because the temples are sometimes miles apart.

I apply sunscreen factor fifty to ward off the scorching sun. With that white cream I look like my friend Wouter on a sunny winter day on the golf course in Rijswijk. Armed with this war color I attack the temples and I fully enjoy the beautiful incisions, being allowed to really enter the temples and covering them with my hands. This allows me to freely let my thoughts run wild about how things must have been in the past.

And so I stroll around for three days, at a leisurely pace in one temple and out of the other. Some are just ruins, but many are in recognizable and interesting condition. Every king built his palace and temple in this way and sometimes up to a million people lived around it. And that in the twelfth century! This rivals the grandeur of ancient Rome.

The temples were awakened from a deep jungle sleep of more than five hundred years by French settlers in the late 19th century and have only been properly accessible for the last fifteen years. Each temple has its own charm. Anchor What is colossal and mighty. Anchor Tom is masculine and sturdy. Krol Ko is elegant and delicate and the distant Banteay is to me like a beautiful unapproachable woman, modest, modest, but opulently present. She, like any beautiful woman, is definitely a thirty-mile bumpy road. worth.

Many go to Anchor Wat at sunrise or sunset, but just outside Anchor Wat is a hill where the first temple was built and from there you have a beautiful sunset. The orange sun slowly disappears behind the temple and shines a divine glow as Mother Nature's encore. To emphasize every day that she too is impressed by this human work, worthy of a master. Filled with these impressions I let myself be driven tiredly to my hotel and I know, whatever happens to me, this has been received with great gratitude and unforgettable.

Cambodian side note

For now I have no desire to return to Cambodia, I generally do not like the people. They can hardly be flexible with tourists and generally refuse to accommodate their wishes. A lot will have to change in this country if they want to be able to keep the spoiled tourist longer than the three days in Anchor. Unlike Thailand, they lack a sense of decorum.

When I enter a small post office, I see no one there until I spot a stretcher behind the high counter. A tentative 'hello' is of no avail and when I put on my deepest voice one eye slowly opens and with an utmost effort a young body rises to yawn and sell me a stamp with the greatest reluctance.

When I enter my hotel lounge around eleven o'clock in the evening, everyone is hanging in front of the TV and with a sweeping hand gesture towards the key cupboard, I am given permission to pick out my key myself. But woe betide if payment has to be made. Everyone quickly rises to receive the gold-rimmed dollars with glittering and bright eyes. When this makes me laugh heartily, they look at you with great incomprehension. They are rarely friendly to you, and very occasionally you can detect a faint smile.

Buddhism plays a much less prominent role. I do not encounter the wave greeting (hands folded), although there are monks walking around, but they are not greeted and respected as in Thailand. I feel more like a spectator than a participant here. Cambodian cuisine is less peppery and spicy and you will find baguettes everywhere. Cambodia is interesting enough for a first acquaintance with beautiful nature, but a second time will be a long time coming for me. Tomorrow I fly from Sien Riep to Saigon.

A honking Saigon

What a scooter! Thousands and thousands of scooters in an endless stream, with the occasional car. They drive at a disciplined speed and make seemingly reckless turns, but that's only appearances; it is all very well thought out and practical. I have rarely experienced how smoothly everything goes together. Everyone gives each other space by maneuvering skillfully and against the traffic you just turn left (they drive here, unlike Thailand, on the right) and everyone drives oppositely streamlined around you.

Thousands of scooters sound their horns every ten meters they travel, a great cauldron of witchcraft. When you want to cross in the middle of this swarming mass, you just walk across very quietly and everyone (you hope) drives around you, until to your amazement you have made it across alive.

But now my taxi, also honking loudly, is trying to make its way to my guest house. This time not a hotel, but a studio in an ordinary house. With domestic traffic as you used to see in advertisements for boarders. It is a luxurious four-storey house with a father, a mother, a studying son, a daughter and son-in-law, two grandchildren, four dogs and two housemaids.

All houses here in Ho Chi Minh City (=Saigon) are built under the same architecture. Almost everything is new, because a lot has been bombed flat. They all have a garage on the street side, which can be closed with a large gate and behind it the kitchen and the stairs to the upper floors. No one has a window downstairs facing the street like we do. During the day, the garages are used as a shop, restaurant or storage space for the scooters.

My host is a very friendly gentleman and fell into disgrace after the communist invasion in 1975. The Americans finally threw in the towel in early 1974 and on April XNUMX, Saigon fell into the vengeful hands of the North Vietnamese who still had a bone to pick with the imperialist traitors. The entire South Vietnam cadre was replaced and sent to re-education camps.

The Netherlands is not that crazy after all

For three years the red rascals tried to rid my host of capitalist elements and then sent him back because they were in desperate need of engineers to pull the economy out of the communist doldrums.

The Soviet Union kept the country afloat for years, until the wall fell and the course was drastically changed to save what could be saved. Before that, many fled the country in extremely rickety boats, including my host's father-in-law, who spent three years in prison as governor of the province.

But the whole family drowned. A separate room has been set up in the house to commemorate the deceased family. Photos, flowers, glasses of water, lights, candles and some fresh fruit. Since the family has not been granted a dignified burial, their ghosts wander and find no rest. My host goes to this room every morning to pray for their souls. Very sad everyone.

After the fall of the Soviet Union (happy Gorbachev), the government chooses eggs for its money and very slowly loosens the economic reins, but clings tightly to its own political power. A wealthy middle class is now developing. Politics is still kept silent for fear of the secret police.

My host carefully (little by little) tells me more every day, as I gain his trust. He accepts his fate better than his wife. The son-in-law is from Taiwan and works for a Taiwanese firm that pays ten times more than a Vietnamese one. Another sister lives in Paris, so he can afford the big house. It is very common here that the whole family lives together and all the money goes to the parents. No fun here as a son-in-law to have to hand over everything to the parents-in-law. In return, he gets the most beautiful room thrown in like a crumb and everything is arranged for him.

But it doesn't really make me happy. The family comes first in this economically uncertain climate. Mother-in-law has a tight rein here. The Netherlands is not that crazy after all. In Vietnam I had now been a penniless man and my ex-parents-in-law the laughing third parties.

To be continued…