During a recent bike ride with some girlfriends along the Mekong River south of Vientiane, I encountered a full-on fire-and-brimstone smackdown about heaven vs. hell, good vs. evil, the chosen ones vs. the infidels. I found the graphic warnings so engrossing that I actually forgot to write down the name of the temple.
Split into two panels, the left side of the wall features brightly dressed, cheerful (perhaps a bit bored?) people paired off in satisfying monogamous couplehood. The text – in Lao and English – reminds us: “Nirvana/Paradise, final destination for people making merits and good deeds!”
I’m not sure what Lao’s celestial company store offers up, but it looks like you can spend American money there. I’m tempted to postpone all that goody-two-shoes stuff till the economy turns around. A girl’s gotta stretch that heavenly dollar.
The right side of the wall would be deeply disturbing if it weren’t so funny. No need to pontificate with words, the text simply reads: “Avechi/Hell for people committing sins and bad deeds!” The 3-D mural screams out the real message: Scorched wailing people with dangling entrails and sinners getting tossed off a cliff, suffering pokes in the butt with pitchforks, chained together by scary demons. My dad never had anything good to say about people with tattoos, and it looks like he was right. You start with a little tramp stamp, and next thing you know your ink has landed you nekkid on a thorny tree with a spear through your back and a satanic dog chomping on your rump.
After a bit of googling, I was thrilled to find that this temple has actually earned some press. The Vientiane Times ran an article in 2009 about temple art that depicts the fate of sinners. I’m pretty sure the temple in the article – Vat Nakhorpha – is the same one I visited, although their photo of the painting is a bit different. I’m guessing the mural got a face-lift after all the attention. Or I could be way off base, as usual. Here’s an interesting tidbit from the newspaper article:
The paintings show a myriad of torturous agony inflicted on those who don’t abide by the five moral precepts: not to tell lies, commit adultery, kill, drink alcohol or steal.
In the paintings some who have lived sinfully are seen to be punished by being sawn in half, while those who have committed adultery are forced into naked climbing expeditions up a giant kapok tree, covered in thorns.
Halfway up the prickly tree the hapless nudists find themselves stuck between the beak and the blade: if they climb higher a huge bird will descend and peck them into tiny pieces; if they descend it will be onto a sharpened sword.
In the meantime those caught lying or drinking alcohol have their tongues cut out, while anyone who killed animals adopts the head of the slain beast.
Those who fight with or kill their parents are thrown into a large pot to boil for all eternity.
Here’s my favorite part: “When asked if they fear this unending agony, some may say that there are no more thorns left on the kapok tree, as many have climbed before them.”
Can’t you just hear a Lao mom saying, “Just because your friend climbed the kapok tree doesn’t mean YOU have to!”
When your whole life feels like a dog-and-pony show, there’s nothing to do but go to the circus!
According to my trusty Lonely Planet, the Russian Circus was established in the 1980s during a time of strong Soviet influence in Laos. The circus stages performances just a few times each year, so when my friend Catherine suggested we go, I jumped at the chance. We hired Mr. Kek (the hammock-dwelling mango-loving tuktuk driver) for the evening.
A carnival atmosphere pervaded the neighborhood outside the rustic bigtop. Crowds milled about snack stalls, pop-the-balloon dart games, a bouncy castle, booths selling everything from hair barrettes to underwear to toy guns, and a primitive looking merry-go-round with swinging aluminum animals.
We bought our tickets (15,000 kip or $1.78 each), including one for Mr. Kek, and filed in with the other circus-goers. We were led to assigned seats on stadium-style narrow wooden benches. About two-thirds of the seats remained empty; most of the rest were filled with Lao families. We recognized a handful of other foreigners, but the show’s late starting time deterred expats with young children. Scheduled to start at 8 p.m., it actually got going around 8:30 and finished at 10, well past bedtime.
As we waited for the show, a live band in the balcony played loud traditional music, a disco ball swirled colorful lights across the smiling faces in the audience, and performers occasionally popped their heads out from behind the purple curtains at the back of the ring. In the center of the round theater, a low perimeter wall encircled the stage area and a bright orange and yellow mat covered the ground.
Here were some highlights:
• A young woman came running through the purple curtains and grabbed a thick rope hanging from the ceiling in the center of the ring. She promptly tripped and lost her grip on the rope, which seemed to be a bad omen. Fortunately, she climbed the rope and did a number of scary acrobatic stunts while suspended and then descended unscathed.
• A man and woman did partner stunts interspersed with breezy dance moves reminiscent of doomed ballet lovers. Their act culminated with her doing a headstand on top of his head while he stood, sat and turned 360 degrees on the floor.
• Another couple performed a variety of tricky handstands. The most impressive was when the boy bent forward and the girl draped backwards over his back and grabbed her own feet under his stomach. He then pushed up into a handstand on some wobbly metal handles with her still attached around his middle.
• A group of young men juggled fedoras and weakly attempted some hat choreography. I started to think they messed up intentionally to build suspense for their more dangerous pursuit – juggling daggers.
From here, the evening took a bizarre turn.
• A girl in a leopard-print leotard came out and danced to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with a group of menacing shirtless guys in ripped pants, black capes and creepy masks with attached frizzy black hair. Stagehands pushed a strange camouflage-painted pyramid – about 6 feet tall – into the ring, and a young man clad in a fake-fur caveman costume chased away all the baddies and did a few synchronized round-offs with the girl. Then the girl went to the pyramid, dropped open one side of it (to reveal the sloppy plywood construction) and pulled out a big python. She wrapped it around her neck and body and paraded it on the ring’s perimeter wall while the boy did random acrobatic jumps and dance moves. She spent quite a long time arranging the snake on the floor in a zig-zaggy formation before joining the boy for a few more leaps and lifts. A solid girl who looked like she’d rather be playing field hockey, she wobbled a bit in her airborne spread-eagle and seemed a bit apologetic when the poor guy lifted her one-armed over his head. She then writhed around on the floor and did a few solo moves while the guy visited the snake pyramid to extract a pet of his own – a python or boa or some other kind of enormous snake. The boy had to wriggle and twirl for several minutes to tangle himself up with the snake enough that he could walk without dragging it. He made a big show of kissing the snake and sticking its head in his mouth. He followed the girl’s lead to arrange the snake on the ground before rejoining her for some final acrobatic stunts. While they pranced about, both snakes slithered and looked keen to escape, but before long they were both scooped up and taken offstage.
• Next a group of guys performed leaps over a flimsy table and on to some worn-out mats, shaking it up a bit with a few variations: adding a pommel horse, soaring over other acrobats lying on the table, flying through a clown’s legs as he stood on the table, and finally jumping through hoops set on fire.
• The fire theme continued with a surreal act involving two girls in jungle costumes twirling fiery batons (which dropped repeatedly on to the apparently flame-retardant yellow mat), gyrating with blazing hula hoops, taking sips of some incendiary liquid and spewing into their tiki torches to blow massive fireballs, and rubbing the lit torches over their exposed skin (which was shiny with some protective substance).
• Another pair of girls came out to simultaneously twirl stacks of conflagration-free hula hoops, which was impressive, albeit somewhat anticlimactic after all the fire stunts.
• The highlight of the night was a hilarious dog act. Unlike many of the human performers, the dogs all looked fresh and energetic in their sparkly little costumes. They lined up at little doggie podiums and took turns doing stunts, including math (barking to answer questions), jumping over hurdles, walking on top of a big hamster wheel while another dog pounced back and forth through the middle, and finally forming a conga line. I was in stitches over one tiny dog in his yellow satin jacket. He dashed under the hurdles and then peed on another dog’s podium. He just couldn’t stay focused on the task and required constant redirection from his handlers (hey, this is beginning to sound like some of my second-grade report cards).
• Just when my butt ached from the hard bench and my nerves could hardly stand another death-defying, safety-be-damned performance, the stagehands dragged a dilapidated old trampoline into the ring and assembled it. The stained woven web attached to a rusty rickety frame with shabby bumper pads. Workers hoisted up two tall stilts at the end of the trampoline and secured them with cables to the perimeter of the ring. The performers made a dramatic entrance in a tight pack under the spotlight with lots of synchronized militaristic moves to the blaring music. One guy bounced up to a platform on the stilts and hooked himself to a harness. The group then took turns bouncing and flipping, occasionally flying up to be grabbed by stilt boy, who swung the person under his legs so that if his hands had slipped, the trampoliner would have rocketed out into the audience. One girl lost her footing and conked her chin on the trampoline frame.
By western standards, the show was cheesy and amateurish. Costumes looked cobbled together from personal wardrobes, cast-offs from cheap boutiques and sequin tape. The props and equipment were ancient with torn and faded fabric and layers of chipped paint. The two clowns wore mismatched street clothes and simple make-up. Although many of the performers displayed real talent and perseverance, they lacked polish. Frankly, the whole production was just a notch above a high school talent show.
And yet, when I looked out over the audience, I saw children doubled over with laughter during the clown routines. I saw parents and youngsters wide-eyed with mouths agape during dangerous stunts, sighing and hugging each other with relief at each success. I saw Mr. Kek’s smile stretched across his face as he hooted and clapped.
I saw joy.
And isn’t that what the circus is all about?
If you’re looking for an enormous cricket, the no-evil monkey triplets, a nasty concrete crone with a chicken cage full of scared people, and a massive reclining Buddha, have I got a temple for you!
Wat Chom Phet, located at the southern edge of Vientiane, is not your run-of-the-mill Buddhist temple. Just a short bumpy ride off the busy Tha Deua Road, this place resonates a mystical, whimsical vibe.
I pedaled here with Tony and my friend, Catherine, early Sunday morning at the recommendation of a friend. Parking our bikes inside the temple gate, we were greeted by a strange collection of sculptures. A Lao man was lighting incense at an adjacent Buddha statue, so I asked him in Lao if he spoke English (an essential phrase to learn here!). He did, kind of.
We asked him to explain the unusual yard art.
Gigantic cricket with a man in traditional dress yanking on one huge cricket leg? Hmmm … he rambled about how the name of the village translated to “cricket” or something like that.
Skulls with red-painted fire and large aardvark-ish animals? Well, er, maybe those came from another temple.
Creepy looking witch with pendulous naked breasts guarding an overturned basket with three crouching captives inside? Ah, this one he could explain! The monks use this sculpture to teach that it’s easy to fall under the influence of evil people like this scary woman … or maybe not.
At least the hear-no-evil/see-no-evil/speak-no-evil monkeys were self-explanatory.
After chatting with us a bit more, the guy finished his prayers and drove off. We wandered around the temple grounds. The main attraction was the reclining Buddha, rumored to be 21 meters long and the biggest reclining Buddha in town. (I say “rumored” because nobody seems to know much about much at local temples.) I especially liked that Buddha rested his elbow on an elephant’s head; that was a creative touch.
Buddha’s bed was decorated with a menagerie of animals, including more elephants, a cat, chicken, naga, turtle, ox, dog, tiger and a couple I couldn’t identify – maybe a hyena or monkey?
There must have been some special event very early this morning. Ladies were cleaning up inside the big room, stacking trays used for eating while sitting on the floor.
Catherine and I sat down in the shade to chat, and we were soon joined by a novice monk and an old man.
The monk, named Som Chith, spoke some English and asked whether we had any questions about the temple. Turns out he didn’t have any answers, though. Fortunately, the old man, named Du Peng, had some institutional knowledge. He would relay long stories in Lao to our monk friend, who would then pause and think for a bit before giving us much abbreviated versions in English.
According to the guys, most of the temple was built on donated land in 1942, although the big gold stupa was older, maybe from the early 1900s. We asked about the crazy sculptures, and after a particularly long Lao explanation from Du Peng, the monk told us a traditional folktale about a character named Khatthanam. Catherine and I think the story goes like this: The evil witch captured people and ate them (hence the cage and the skulls on the BBQ). Khatthanam got word that some of his friends had been captured, so he came to their rescue. In an ending reminiscent of Hansel and Gretl, he tricked the witch by replacing the people with crickets. Gigantic crickets like the statue? We never got a clear answer to that. And, to be honest, we may have completely misunderstood the whole thing.
I tried to find details on (a) the temple, (b) the cricket story, and (c) the big Buddha, but as usual, I came up empty-handed. I find it very disconcerting how little of the local history and culture is documented in an accessible form. When I mentioned this to the first temple-goer, he shared my dismay. He said the government is deeply suspicious of the internet and wants to keep its secrets private. Well, they’re doing a good job.
Sure, I could cross the street and buy some fresh fruit to make a frosty delicious shake. But then I would have to peel it and chop it and walk to the market next door to buy ice and get the blender out of the cupboard and later rinse out the blender and my glass … in my non-air-conditioned kitchen. Sweat is collecting on my brow at the thought.
Instead, I like to head into town to House of Fruit Shake, a little stall run by a lovely Lao woman named Nui, who will do all the work for 85 cents.
Here’s Nui making our fruit shakes.
Even though it’s 99F/38C here in Vientiane today, I feel quite comfy sitting on a sofa with a fan blowing in my face while I read a book and sip my lemon-and-mint shake. Today, Tony tagged along and sucked down a banana shake (he went off Diet Coke cold turkey three days ago; it hasn’t been pretty).
Usually, I hang out here and read for awhile, occasionally pausing to chat with Nui or order another fruit shake. Tony’s not one to linger, so we cut it short today. Can you tell how much I wanted to read that book? It’s a real page-turner!
Earth Hour came to Vientiane for the first time on Saturday, March 27. Our little city was the 92nd one to join the movement, which aims to raise awareness about climate change by promoting one hour without electricity. It wasn’t as dramatic as the footage of Sydney or Shanghai, where global landmarks and big sections of the city suddenly went dark. Still, the event attracted an enthusiastic crowd to the Patuxai Monument, where a stage featured speeches and entertainment under electricity-sucking spotlights. After the countdown, the lights turned off in the vicinity around the monument, and even the stage lights dimmed a bit.
Apparently Laos had wanted to make participation compulsory, but Vientiane’s patchwork power grid precluded the flipping of a switch to cut off all the electricity. Another quirky note: The rest of the world celebrated Earth Hour at 8:30 p.m., but Vientiane decided to do it at 7:00.
Our internet’s been quite unreliable recently (maybe Laos figured out how to impose compulsory limits on THAT…), so I’m a bit late posting this. I finally got it on YouTube this week. Here’s the Vientiane countdown from four.
This morning’s ride with Team Dai took us out of Vientiane on a beautifully paved road that is closed to cars. What more could you ask? The road was built for the Southeast Asia Games, which took place in December, to take shuttle buses to the stadium on the edge of town. Bit by bit, the road is getting paved to create a city bypass to the Friendship Bridge, which crosses the Mekong River into Thailand. Until it’s finished, however, it’s all OURS!
Of all our long training rides, this was my favorite because almost the whole route was in the countryside with very little traffic. Our destination was another bonus: Rivertime Lodge is an eco-resort on the Nam Ngum River. We recharged our batteries by dipping our feet in the water and gobbling up some eggs, toast and coffee. One of the other riders said his kid’s birthday party was at the lodge, and they had boated upriver and tubed back. Fun!
See my other Team Dai posts for details about what we’re doing.
And please, please, please consider making a donation at the Team Dai website: www.teamdai.org
Rivertime Lodge
Some members of Team Dai: from left – Nick, Australian; Siri, Lao; Christine, American; me; Maurice Sr. and Jr., French; Ben, Australian; Frauke, German; and Nieven, Belgian.
There’s not a lot going on in this sleepy hamlet of Vientiane, so when I get word of anything remotely interesting coming to town, I jump on it. Last night, a little crowd gathered in a small conference room at the Novotel to see Daniel Foley, who has performed his show “Shakespeare for Dummies” in more than 60 countries as part of his Performance Exchange project.
Foley shuffled on to the makeshift stage, held up a drink and told the audience, “We’ll get started in just a minute …” He pulled off his slacks to reveal a pair of jodhpurs and then wiggled in to a fitted velvet jacket with lace trim, and the transformation was complete.
The first half of Foley’s presentation featured random facts about life in Shakespeare’s time, interspersed with theatrical interpretations of historical events and bits from the Bard’s plays. He asked for volunteers and must have heard my psychic message: “Pick me! Pick me!” I was brought on stage to be Juliet. Mike, the husband of our school nurse, was singled out to be Romeo. Foley told me to kneel on a satin-slipcovered chair (aka the balcony), look longingly to the back of the room, and recite those famous lines: “Romeo! Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” So I did. Then he asked me to add a bit more drama, so I hammed it up with some drawn-out r-rolling and gesticulations. Then he asked, “Where did this play take place?” and the audience answered, “Verona!”
“Well, Romeo and Juliet must have had Italian accents then!” he exclaimed.
So I said my lines again: “Rrrromeo! Rrrromeo! Where-a-fore art-a thou, Rrrromeo?!” Mike then parroted Foley’s recitation of the “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” speech in a cheesy Italian accent and over-the-top gestures. We got a lot of laughs.
Mike must have made a good impression because it turned out to be The Mike Show for the rest of the evening. He took the stage again and again to play a Roman soldier, act out a speech from Othello, demonstrate stage combat, and more.
We all filed out of the conference room for a fancy buffet dinner, followed by a Shakespeare quiz, which Foley warned we “couldn’t win!” He tossed out lines, and the audience tried to guess the play. I knew ONE quote from Macbeth and a few from various comedies. Luckily there were several Shakespeare scholars in the room eager to show off their knowledge. During the Q&A, I did a few mental eyerolls when people asked pretentious questions framed in such a way to spotlight their obvious superior intelligence.
Mike and I asked Foley for a photo after the show, and I had to snicker when the deputy ambassador from Burma hopped up on the stage to pose with us.
I’m sipping red wine and eating Turkish figs and chocolate-covered lokum, thanks to Tracey Z, who breezed in to town Saturday night with another friend, Andrea (and bags of special treats). They both teach at Koç School in Istanbul, where Tony and I got our first taste of international teaching. We worked and played with TZ back in 2004-5, so it was great to see her again! It doesn’t take long to show visitors around our little city of Vientiane. A mani-pedi here, a massage there, some Beer Lao here, spicy papaya salad there … and so it went until the girls boarded a bus for Vang Vieng on Tuesday afternon.
Tracey found some hot boxers at Home Ideal, which she tried on in the middle of the store to my amusement and the store clerk’s dismay.
TZ and Andrea at That Dam, the 14th-century “black stupa” which legends say was once coated in a layer of gold and/or houses a dormant seven-headed dragon.
Buying sweet potatoes from a street vendor (unfortunately, they turned out to be taro … still sweet, but not the same).
TZ posing in front of a stage at the Morning Market, where two singers were lip syncing while bubble machines and dry ice set the mood.
Tony and I have spent the last week of our long winter break hanging around Vientiane. We ride our bikes in the countryside, walk around town, try new restaurants and chill out at home. One of our favorite places to relax is at our patio table under the mango tree. Unfortunately, that little oasis has been transformed into auditory hell, thanks to a construction project next door. When Tony walked over to check it out, he discovered they’re using recycled lumber and hand-planing each board one at a time. In case you’ve never heard the sound of a hand-planer, it’s comparable to fingernails on a chalkboard with the volume on max. So when we’re home, we stay inside with the doors and windows shut tight in a futile effort to drown out the nerve-shattering noise.
That’s why it was such a relief when another teaching couple, Tom and Karel, invited us for a daytrip to the Nam Ngum Reservoir, about 90 kilometers north of Vientiane. The reservoir was created in 1971 by the construction of a hydroelectric dam across the Nam Ngum River.
They picked us up in their newly overhauled car, and we headed out of town. Soon our little city was out of sight, out of mind. Farmers wearing conical woven hats stood in knee-deep water to plant clumps of rice. Water buffalo pulled plows through heavy mud. Villagers rested in the shade of thatched-roof platforms raised above the rice paddies. We stopped for lunch alongside the river, and then Tom drove up into the hills. Far away from the hand planer and the traffic of Vientiane, we sipped sodas at a peaceful guesthouse overlooking the reservoir.
After giving our bodies a good workout with the morning bike ride on Saturday, Megan and I gave our minds a good workout with an afternoon meditation at Wat Sokpaluang.
Although I can barely maneuver the motorbike with just me on it, I nervously drove the two of us the short distance to the temple. We walked around the shady grounds and sat on a bench for a while to listen to the monks chanting.
At 4 p.m., we climbed the steps to the covered deck of a small chapel, where three monks greeted us, and rows of cushions were laid out for visitors to sit facing the little Buddha shrine. About 20 people showed up for the meditation. The leader (a man from India, maybe?) noted that the temple started offering free weekly meditation sessions about 12 years ago for the local expats, but after a mention in the Lonely Planet guidebook, it now serves mostly tourists.
He explained that we would be practicing Vipassana (insight) Meditation. He gave us a silent mantra for the sitting meditation: “Bhu” on the inhale, “dho” on the exhale. We sat for about 20 minutes until he rang a bell, signaling the start of a walking meditation. At that point, we all got up and walked slowly around the chapel building for about 20 minutes, following his instructions for focusing our minds. At the signal, we returned to our cushions for another 20 minutes of seated meditation.
I was surprisingly successful at first. I stuck with the mantra and kept my focus on my breath. Every time a thought popped in to my head, I put it in a little boat and sailed it away. During the walking meditation, I also managed to stay in the moment and only needed a couple little boats to ferry away my invasive thoughts. Then it all fell apart during the final seated meditation. My back hurt from sitting up straight, and my mind wandered incessantly: Where would we go for dinner? I don’t want Megan to leave tomorrow! Don’t judge the two girls wearing next to nothing at the temple meditation. Boy, that coffee gave me the jitters. Ooooh, I can hear some monks chanting in a different temple building. Cool, now they’re banging some gongs. Ha! Every time, they bang the gongs, the neighborhood dogs bark their heads off. Shut up, brain!
So I spent 20 minutes in physical agony while a whole armada played bumper boats in my mind.
Still, I enjoyed the experience and told the leader I hoped to be back.
Here, Megan is relieved to have survived the motorbike ride and is ready to meditate at Sokpaluang Temple.
