Day One: The Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Saket, and Wat Suthat. Day Two: Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. Day Three: Caught a head cold. What better way to start the speedrun than taking the passenger ferry down the great and muddy Chao Phraya River? Damn. I look at these old photos from early 2015 and have to both laugh and cringe a bit at my younger self. How different I used to look! How chubby and sweaty. That unfortunate haircut and inelegant pose. What kind of a small boy, half-man, soft animal I was, both outside and within! Funny what the years can do to my perspectives on things... The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew The Grand Palace: the official residence of the King of Siam. An organic jumble of halls, courtyards, pavilions, gardens, lawns. And an inorganic jumble of tourists, both foreign and Thai. But that aspect of the visit is easy enough to ignore. It's stunning. It's so bloody stunning. And as for Wat Phra Kaew, situated within the palace complex, it's the most sacred Buddhist temple in all of Thailand. Also commonly known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Wat Phra Kaew houses a green gemstone Gautama that's considered the nation's most sacred image of the Enlightened One. Wat Saket Wat Saket. The Temple of the Golden Mount. A panoramic view from atop an 80-metre high artificial hill. It was a steep and winding 318-step climb, hence the photo of a damp and dumpy me posing against the hot and smoggy Bangkok cityscape. Wat Suthat Wat Suthat Thepwararam. Another elegant structure. Endless images of Buddha. The iconic Giant Swing stands in front of the temple, a towering and crimson gate-like structure. Come and enter, it says. Come and look further. Wat Pho Wat Phra Chetuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Rajwaramahawihan, to give it its official title. What a great name! The Temple of the Reclining Buddha. 46-metres long goes its golden repose. There are 108 bronze alms bowls in the temple. Go ahead, grab some coins and drop them in. The sound rings sweetly and good fortune is sure to follow. Wat Arun Wat Arun Ratchawararam Ratchawaramahawihan. This is probably my favourite temple of the bunch, named for the Hindu god Aruna, charioteer of the Sun God Surya. Encrusted ceramic complexities. Dazzling architectural richness. Its structures spear into the pale, cloudless sky. Hours could be spent here, walking and gazing, gazing and walking. Its striking centrepoint spire, or 'prang', symbolises Mount Meru, the sacred peak of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology and the nexus of the material, metaphysical, and spiritual realms. Climb up this tower of porcelain puzzle pieces. Don't be shy. Climb up it and take in the wide and languid Chao Phraya. It's not quite the apex of the multiverse one might hope for in a Mount Meru, but at least the electric rush of Bangkok seems to fade away from this vantage point. If only for a few moments.
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George Town, Penang I arrived on Penang Island, off the west coast of the Malaysian Peninsular, by a clunky old ferry in late 2019. My first stop was Penang's capital of George Town, named after King George III back when the island was controlled by the East India Company. It was the first-ever British settlement in Southeast Asia and that colonial legacy is certainly still visible. But these days, Penang is more famous for its generous splash of both colour and gastronomy. It's affordable. The food's great. It feels safe and secure. And while it's touristy, it's not obnoxiously so. What's not to love? A painfully common cliche is to describe a location as a melting pot. But with George Town, I have to be frank: this city is a goddamn melting pot. It positively sizzles, in fact. The general architecture is eclectic. The cultural and religious aesthetics are heterogeneous. The street food is wildly and deliciously diverse. You can't walk down around the corner without seeing a confident commingling of Chinese, Malay, and Indian influences, among many others. The Clan Jetties Now for a change in perspectives. Just slightly adjacent to George Town are the Clan Jetties, a group of stilt villages founded by 19th-century Chinese immigrants. And many of these clans still live and work here. It looks picturesque at high tide, with its rustic stilt houses. Come low tide, however, it looks (and smells) like a classic example of slummy, developing country squalor. I generally have quite a high tolerance for stuff like this (e.g. open greywater gutters, trash piles festering on the roadside, open-air restaurants next to truck fumes, rats the size of small cats) and have seen much worse examples outside of Malaysia, but others might find it less bearable. Penang Hill One morning, I decided to take an exhausting hike to the top of Penang Hill where I spotted snakes, monkeys, giant millipedes, and the chunkiest ants I’d ever seen in my life. After a while, I emerged from the bush like a sweaty, delirious wild man onto a very touristy hilltop. Everyone else either drove or took the funicular to the top like respectable members of society. Such is the way I like to do things sometimes. I refuse to regret it. Penang National Park I also did a much less exhausting hike the following day through Penang National Park to Turtle Beach. After my killer Penang Hill hike, I permitted myself to be a bit lazy and took a bumpy boat ride back to the park entrance. Kek Lok Si Temple Now, I’ve been to a few Buddhist temples in my life (as well as previous lifetimes) but this is quite possibly the largest complex I’ve ever visited. It’s so large you need to take a funicular to see the temple’s incredible, 36-metre high bronze statue of Guanyin, the so-called “Goddess of Mercy”. The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and Pinang Peranakan Mansion There are two famous historic mansions in Penang: the deep blue Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and the gentle green Pinang Peranakan Mansion. While the bluey former was pleasant (and a filming location for Crazy Rich Asians, not that particularly care for that grossly overrated flick), it woefully pales in comparison to the splendour of the green-hued latter. The Peranakans are a distinct multiracial ethnic group with Southern Chinese heritage and were, during the colonial period, an elite community in Malaysia. And the Pinang Peranakan Mansion is a stunning showcase of this prosperity. It houses a vast collection of items from the upper crust of Peranakan society. The best furniture. The fanciest ceramics and glassware. The swankiest clothes. The sparkliest watches and jewellery. Fun fact: during my visit to the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, I met an American gentleman who told me that he was in Penang to buy antique opium paraphernalia and erotic ceramics. Apparently, there's a good collectors market for that sort of stuff in George Town. So now you know. Doors of George Town I briefly considered doing a more extensive “doors of Penang” photo album but got bored a few minutes into the attempt and gave up. Touristy street art of George Town Ditto with a “touristy street art of Penang” photo album. "Gorge town" Now for the obligatory food remarks:
Epilogue Ah, yes. The awkwardness of eating alone in a nearly empty food court in Penang. You’re here because Anthony Bourdain ate here. You’re partly in Penang because you liked that episode where he came here. You plan on eating at many of the George Town restaurants Bourdain ate at. Because he was cool and you are not. Well, guess what you uncool idiot. He also probably ate mouldy leftover burgers while deep into a methadone program. Is that something you want? The beer arrives like minor salvation. Finally, something to do: get drunk in the syrupy, malaise-mongering heat while the overhead fans nuzzle your back. You’re not even nursing your beer, you’re slamming it like a speakeasy regular with burnt-out eyes. You see a thin blonde with a strawberry smoothie half her size. Probably an influencer. You watch a stocky white man order a bucket of Tiger beers all for himself. Also probably an influencer. You’re not even a normal person who follows the pied piper of social media. You’re following old-school television recommendations like a Neanderthal. Oh, look. A baby cockroach just scuttled across the tabletop and sipped on some of the beer you spilt. A curious sesame seed with antennae. Wonder if it’ll get as drunk as me tonight? And feel as goddamn awkward. Shit. Now a large Malaysian Chinese family with children have settled at the tables around you. Why did they have to flank you when there are so many other empty tables? And now you find the place too busy. And bad Christmas jingles are playing over the speakers. Too many patrons! Too much humanity! When will this constant tension, the inexorable forces of aversion and craving, end? Time to make your choice. Get up and order some chicken skewers. It’s better than nothing.
Meditations on a trip to Cambodia"To be a mass tourist… is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience, It is to impose yourself on places that in all non-economic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is… to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing." - David Foster Wallace Of the hundred temples scattered across Cambodia’s Angkor Archaeological Park, none are more iconic than Angkor Wat. Built in the 12th century in dedication to the Supreme God Vishnu, Angkor Wat is the holy jewel of the Khmer Empire and is heralded as the largest religious monument in the world. It is a delirious marriage of theology and architecture. Its moat represents the Ocean of Milk from which the universe was born, its bas-reliefs depict the great battles of Hindu epics, and its central tower represents Mount Meru, the nexus of all creation. It is a wonder of stone and time. But even excluding Angkor Wat, the Archaeological Park is a menagerie of long-lost treasures. One moment, you are gazing up at the crumbling, smiling faces of the Bayon, the next you are stumbling through the jungle temples of Ta Prohm and Preah Khan, where tree roots have fused like shadows into the stonework. One hour, you are cycling between the dusty red sandstone carcasses of Pre Rup and East Mebon, the next you are crossing a walkway towards the island of Neak Pean, over haunting swampland. Yet despite being surrounded by wonder, it is hard to ignore that grinding feeling in your stomach that something is, well, a bit wrong. As you bump into fellow travellers in narrow temple corridors, as you clumsily dodge out of family photos, as you wave away the souvenir hawkers and trinket touts, the marvel of Angkor begins to slowly grind away. You start wondering: Are all these stones merely bait in one giant South-East Asian tourist trap? And once the realisation fully sinks into your chest, it’s all over. You realise that it’s you. You are both the trapped and the trapper. You are truly in the thick of it, in the deep end. You are just another insect in the global locust swarm of mass tourism. There is no escaping it. Indeed, we all come in great hordes via tour bus, tuk-tuk, and bicycle. We come for that perfect photo of sunrise over Angkor Wat, for an (ethically dubious) elephant ride around the Bayon, for that silly selfie on top of the Terrace of the Leper King. Even the orange-robed monks that visit Angkor shake the authenticity of the experience, as they also reveal themselves to be mere tourists, whipping out smartphones and waving selfie sticks. As David Foster Wallace puts it so starkly: As tourists, we are all insects on a dead thing. We come, we go, and Angkor remains a lifeless, breathless empire. But another thought also emerges. A thought that is reserved for those seeking a story that speaks not of a cadaverous empire, but of a modern nation-state. The thought is simply that perhaps it is contemporary Cambodia, and not just these ancient Khmer ruins, that is also a dead or dying thing? Cambodia’s recent history is a wretched one, that much is certain. Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge. Year Zero. Three million Cambodians murdered by a deranged agrarian socialist experiment, or tortured and executed in the Killing Fields. To this day, the country remains one of the poorest in South-East Asia. While the country’s prospects are beginning to improve, over a third of the population is still living in poverty. To complicate matters, Cambodia’s current leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, is by all accounts a strongman who has solidified power through corruption, cronyism and political violence. To this day, the country remains one of the poorest in South-East Asia. While the country’s prospects are beginning to improve, over a third of the population is still living in poverty. To complicate matters, Cambodia’s current leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, is by all accounts a strongman who has solidified power through corruption, cronyism and political violence. In visiting Angkor, you can observe many of the challenges the country faces. You can see Cambodia’s weak education system in the children who run up to you, asking you to buy their postcards. You can see the country’s difficulties with unexploded ordinances in the disabled musicians who play at temple entrances. The beauty of stone ruins juxtaposed with the bluntness of social reality. It’s quite the contrast. Its no wonder that many Cambodians have elevated Khmer’s ancient past when the recent past has offered them so little. But does all our tourism, our buzzing mass tourism, only exacerbate the problem? By visiting only its distant, bas-relief past, are we encouraging Cambodia to form a national identity that is inherently backwardlooking? Honestly, I don’t have an answer. Cambodia very clearly has a future, it is just a question of whether it can realise it, just as how the ancient Khmer kings realised the magnificence of Angkor Wat. Perhaps in places like Cambodia at least, David Foster Wallace gets it backwards. Perhaps the dead thing needs the insects in order to remind itself, that deep down beneath the broken stones, it is still alive.
Cycling across the Ayutthaya Kingdom85 km north of Bangkok is a little archaeological gem known as the Ayutthaya Historical Park, once the capital of a fabulous Siamese kingdom and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Like most tourists, a friend and I visited the site as a day-trip destination from chaotic Bangkok. The train ride there from Bangkok's Hualamphong Train Station was surprisingly clean, undramatic and very, very affordable. While these days Ayutthaya is a dusty little city, sweltering in the sticky Thai sun, it was at one point one of the finest cities on the planet. It is estimated that by the year 1700, its population had reached 1 million, making it one of, if not the, largest city of its time. European travellers spoke of it as a resplendent place with fine palaces, trading vessels, and canals reminiscent of Venice. This all ended in 1767 when the Burmese invaded the kingdom and the great city, after over four centuries of existence, was almost entirely razed to the ground.
A visit to the National Gallery Singapore...Ah, the National Gallery Singapore - home to the largest public collection of Singaporean and Southeast Asian artworks in the world, both contemporary and traditional. After a hot day exploring the tame, clean, hyper-organised urban ecosystem of Singapore, I was desperate to see some quirky, strange, beautiful, and even disturbing art to shake up my sense of normality induced by this somewhat stuffy, edgeless city. Indeed, sometimes I just want to be alone and wander an art gallery by myself. |
AuthorMing is an economist, traveller, and creative writer from Melbourne, Australia. He’s a nebulous collection of particles on the lookout for a good corner to sit with a book and a cup of coffee. Archives
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