It has only been a few days, but I am a complete convert to the life of bicycling, and this only made things worse when Mao decided to cease cooperating. In the midst of a typically strenuous bout of peddling that follows the changing of a light, all at once I noticed something amiss. I looked down at my left foot, thinking that perhaps my sandal had broken, but instead was faced with the shocking vision of a barely dangling pedal. I quickly got over to the shoulder and, upon surveying the damage, noticed to my luck, that I had come to rest in front of a hardware store. Following a less-than-smooth exchange of grunts and gesticulations, it became clear that I would have to purchase a wrench if I wanted to use it. A fellow shopper, who was inexplicably purchasing both PVC joints and long square pieces of balsa wood, motioned for me to follow him as he got on his moped. Now normally I would have no problem keeping up with a moped, especially one slowly expecting me to follow it, however, after the second turn of the pedal resulted in it skittering across the pavement, this turned into quite a feat. Bikes truly are ingenious inventions: a realization that I came to quickly while discovering the impossibility that is one-peddled biking.
My opportune tour guide pointed me to a motorbike repair shop and was on his way. After a quick survey of a number of shops, the mechanic who was helping me, returned with a collection of pedals. He attached the correct one in no time, while three of his coworkers poked, prodded, hammered, drilled and chiseled a motorcycle into a mere frame as if monkeys discovering tools for the first timemy heart went out to its owner, if he only knew the treatment his bike was receiving. A few minutes, and a mere 80 baht (about US$2.25) later, I resolved to truly test Maos healthand my own, for that matterby going on my longest ride yet. I picked a main road and took it straight out of the city. I was amazed by how quickly the city gave way to countryside and within a few miles I felt as though I could not be farther from Chiang Mai. After pausing at a few particularly scenic spots spots, I saw signs for a wat, and, with some maneuvering, was able to reverse my direction, on what had now become a three-lane highway.
I followed a Sawng Taew in through the gates, and instantly noticed a marked difference from the other wats I had visited so far: there were no tourists. While I did encounter one South Asian family taking a group picture in front a particular scenic view, they proceeded to leave just afterwards. Without the constraints of an ever-encroaching city, the grounds of this wat just sprawled. While this wat certainly had the wat, chedi and monks that all of the others did, I found myself more drawn to the timelessness of the place: winding paths leading behind kitchens and through bungalows, the long prayer flags blowing in the wind, and the breathtaking beauty of the ever-present jungle.
On returning home I ran into my optimistic friend (See Wednesday), who when I said that I had no plans for the upcoming night, insisted that I let him take me around the city. My new friend, whose name it turns out is Urt, is a tour guide, and thus, upon hearing about all of the tourist attractions that I had no been to, came to understand that I was hoping to see the city in a slightly different way from the old, slow moving farang that he was used to bringing around. That being understood, he stopped insisting I see the snake show, and told me he knew just the place I had to go, and was almost insulted that I hadnt been there yet. He took me up the hill behind the university, where there was a turn-off with a shrine to Kru Bar Srivichai, a Buddhist monk who died 100 years ago. He explained that when one is new to Chiang Mai, one must come pay respect to this saint, and ask him for a productive time here; as a result, all of the students come here at the start of every semester or the night before exams. He said that I should pay my respects, and ask for my goals here to be met, and, figuring there was no harm doing so, I went along with it. There was a number of women with stands set up, who, upon seeing us arrive, all started yelling and waving their hands trying to have us purchase our offerings from their particular standBuddhism at its purest I suppose. When presented with ten baht (about a quarter), I was presented with the following items:
- One candle, red, about six inches long
- Three sticks of incense
- One Lotus flower, blossom firmly closed (see photo from Wat Phra Sing)
- A ribbon threaded with a loop of brightly colored flowers (like a small lei)
- Two wooden sticks (think coffee stirrers) stuck together with a square piece of paper folded in two between them,
- One clove of garlic, attached to the wooden sticks
Careful to follow Urts lead, and not to offend this Buddhist saint, I went carefully through the routine followed by all who come to this shrine to ask for future success. We walked up a few steep stairs to a platform upon which stood a life-sized man wrought in gold, covered in flowers and bedecked by hundreds of candles. The statue seemed to shimmer, even without my moving my head from side to side, as if not cast out of sold gold, but of hundreds of tiny pieces fused together. I lit the candle and after dripping a little wax stood the candle upright. While the candle melted more firmly to the ground, I sat on my heels (careful never to point my feet at the statue), thought of my goals and asked for the power to accomplish them. I lit the three incense sticks, and as they began to smoke wildly in the windy night, I staked them into a large urn filled of sand. Following Urt, I then got up, placed my flower in a large pot among dozens of others, hung the lei on the statuedozens already hung from his arms. Then I broke my garlic clove in half, rubbed its juice on a spot on the statue, and then, upon plying to coffee stirrers and two sheets of paper apart, rubbed the square inch of gold leaf contained within them, upon the garlicky spot.
I came to understand the shimmering quality of the statue when I saw it up close; I was not indeed looking at a golden stature, but a statue (whether originally gold or not I cannot say) covered in tiny pieces of gold leafeach representing a believer pledging his loyalty. The gold of the statue is built up overtime, and I can imagine, hundreds of years from now, the form of the original saint obscured as the millions of layers start to build up. Just as people walking the same route wear down a path, or the hands of thousands of visitors each year wear down the stone on I.M. Peis famous corner of the National Gallery, so too would this site belie the power of small actions repeated endlessly. The difference here was that such a feat of repetition was evident from the construction that it produced, not the destruction. The gold glimmering of the statue did not remind me of the never-ending march of human progress, and the destruction it can cause, but of the potential good that we could bring if we all aimed toward the same goal. (I did not have my camera with me this night, but plan on returning on the first day of class at Chiang Mai University to document the hordes of students that will surely come to visit Kru Bar Srivichai)
