[travel] Sex. Violence. Power. Serenity. Buddhism.

I didn't realize that some sects of Buddhism employ some very heavy-handed fear tactics similar to Christian concepts of Hell. One day I used a motorbike to visit a forest monastery, among other things. Inside the monastery there was a large temple. As I walked in I was greeted by two smiling elderly nuns, who welcomed me to look around. The room was filled with a 360 degree lushly painted panorama of various serene Buddhas dispensing serene Buddha wisdom. However, below that panorama was another panorama of various people suffering, and there was more sex and violence depicted there than in your average Tarantino film. There were naked women impaled on stakes, with their giant tits pointing toward the sky, demons forcing injured, bloody people to climb spiky trees, decapitations, people being burned alive, and other such horrific scenery. It all made for an interesting tableau... smiling old ladies, serene Buddhas, and scenes of attractive naked men and women getting tortured and killed in horrific ways.

It would be an interesting thought experiment to take Buddha and Jesus through time to show them the enormous monuments built to worship them. They'd probably both be horrified. Buddha would take one look at the giant golden statue of himself and would immediately start preaching about how everything is impermanent and how an overly strong attachment to possessions and worldly pursuits is the root of suffering.

Buddhism also seems to be substantially a philosophy of mind, but a philosophy of mind isn't enough to meet the religious needs of a diverse population. Thus, Buddhism in its evolved form also offers superstitions, rituals for good luck and other worldly aims, ancient relics (branches of the Bodhi tree where Buddha first attained enlightenment... very similar to the fragments of the True Cross offered by various cathedrals in Europe), fear-instilling cautionary tales, beautiful shiny temples, multi-tiered donation systems that stroke the egos of wealthy patrons, and knick-knack idols that people can buy for good luck.

In the end I think that any religion that becomes dominant must do so by displaying the trappings of power and getting in bed with the government. The government uses the religion to help legitimize its own rule and control the people, and the religion uses the government to suppress competing religions and get the funds to construct imposing monuments to its own power. Ultimately the religion's actual philosophy is somewhat irrelevant to this coevolutiion of church and state.

[travel] Luang Prabang, Laos

Luabg Prabang is just about the most Buddhist city in the world. There's a wat (temple / monastery) on every block, and many of them are incredibly ornate The wats have a very distinctive style that has a Thai influence but otherwiae seems unique. The town feels like a mix of Berkeley and the morning Burning Man crowd, with a dose of totalitarian government thrown in. (There's an 11:30pm *curfew*. Seriously.) I first got a sense for this dichotomy when the immigration checkpoint at the airport was staffed by goofy 19-year-olds, and I noticed a cluster of empty Beerlao beer bottles sitting behind the counter. I thought to myself “Oh, these must be the greeters”.

Buddha is normally depicted as meditating on a lotus flower. The motif of the lotus flower is used on the curbs of all their their traffic circles, so you get the curious effect of thinking there should be Buddha in the middle of every traffic circle.

The traffic itself, like the rest of the culture in Laos, is very laid-back. Everything runs on “island time” despite the complete lack of beaches.

The government (your standard totalitarian Communist regime that eventually realized Communist economies don't work but wanted to remain in power) deposed the royal family in the 1970s, but they happily held on to the royal palace as it makes a lovely tourist trap. The most amusing part of the royal palace tour was seeing the moon dust from the Apollo 11 mission presented as a gift to the Lao government from Richard Nixon. Nixon sent them this while a secret US air force bombed the shit out of them because Vietcong guerillas were using eastern Laos as a conduit into southern Vietnam.

Here's the bad news.

By the time you get there it will be ruined. Not to be overly negative, but there should be a giant progress bar billboard here, with the title “Selling our soul...” and the bar about 30% filled. The prices from the Lonely Planet 2007 guide are one half what they are now, and the town appears to be putting up Western-oriented restaurants and guesthouses as fast as they can. A monk tried to hustle me pretty hard with his spiel about why I should give him cash. (His final line was “Why won't you play for me to learn English?”) I get the sense that most young monks who talk to me aren't in it for the Buddhism.

Ironically, the thing that made it possible for me to visit (their airport) is what is going to reatly accelerate its corruption.

[travel] Lazpyost - Matt's adventures from a 3rd party perspective

I met a Scottish woman in Laos who is also blogging her trip around the world. We spent a few days together exploring Luang Prabang along with her friend Ambreen.

Now I can be lazy and quote her since she wrote up our shared experiences before I did.

You can read her various writings at miriam-thisflighttonight.blogspot.com . Apparently I'm in a polyamorous cult.
( more Laos adventures )

[travel] My God is an awesome God.

A friend of mine heard a group of American college students having the following conversation through the hotel wall:

"Man, I really need to get laid!"

"Don't worry dude. If god wants you to get laid, you'll get laid."

[travel] Last minute addition

At my going-away party, a woman I barely know approached me and said “Hey, I just got laid off... I wanna travel the world with you.” I didn't know whether she was drunk or serious, but she quickly followed up with me and is now joining me for Cambodia and Thailand. Yay spontaneity. Fortunately, we seem to be getting along well.

[travel] Ankgor Wat

Ankgor Wat is every bit as awesome as everyone says it is. For those of you who don't know, it's a remarkably well preserved set of massive 13th century temple ruins in Cambodia. It's as if all the great cathedrals of Europe were put together in one area and then left to the jungle for 700 years. Restoration efforts have progressed to varying degrees, but the restorers haven't secured it all off yet, so you can literally climb around the half-ruined temples. All the stone is friction-fit, so you have to be careful.

[travel] Choose your own title

The roosters in Laos don't crow the equivalent of “cock-a-doodle-doo”. Instead it's “cock-a-doodle”, or even “cock-a-doo”. It's weird to hear them because for a split second I'm waiting with antici.....pation for it to finish (Rocky Horror style) but it never does. I wonder if the crowing pattern is completely genetically coded or if there's a generic blueprint and the roosters learn it from their parents.

Separately, there's some random bird here whose call is more or less a wolf whistle.

What should this post be titled?

• Going off half-cocked
• Shortened cocks
• Cocks that lack stamina.
• Cock, interrupted.
• Cock-blocked
• Why are you wasting your time with this?

[travel] Maybe this is a hold-up. Maybe you should give me your money.

A lot of people here have been taught to speak very polite English. This has led to some interesting mistranslations.

Hotel clerk: “Maybe I want your passport.” (I assume he meant to say “May I have your passport” It's common for cheapeer hotels to hold your passport hostage until you pay, though shadier hotels will hold it hostage for other reasons ).

Me: “Maybe not.”

Hotel clerk: “Then maybe you want to pay me now?”

Well, when you put it like that...

“I am not the Mafia”

According to a woman I met on the plane, Thailand has the Thai Mafia, the Chinese Mafia, the Russian Mafia, and the Government/Mafia. The guidebooks are quite open about it... eg “The Songthaew Mafia (a taxi-like system) has done everything possible to stop the excellent new public bus system, and to this day there is very little information on it”) I asked the hotel owner for the bus map, and he said there are no buses. He said there was also no songthaew mafia. So if I'm found floating dead in the moat around the city, that''s why. I just wanted to take the bus.

De corrupting a government seems extremely hard... once there is corruption at the top, it spreads all the way down to the local level. After all, if the leader is fleecing the system, why shouldn't you? Once corruption is ingrained, it's very hard to change. As a result, even if the country elects an incorruptible leader (which they've had a lot of trouble with), it's very hard to actually fix the lower levels. It seems like even a large army of incorruptible followers to fill appointed government positions isn't enough, as there would still be many corrupted elected officials at the lower levels.

[travel] You big strong man.

We wanted to get a massage shortly after arriving in Thailand. However, it was late, we were tired, and the recommended massage place was all booked up. We decided to try a place that looked semi-reputable and was on our street. The guidebooks recommend finding older masseuses as they are likely more experienced. My masseuse ended up being an aging ladyboy in heavy drag makeup who didn't really pass as female. I had ordered a Thai massage, which is generally heavy and full-contact. I didn't relaize just how full contact it was. He sat on me, pulled or pushed on various limbs with his full weight, and generally contorted me in various pretzel forms. The massage was decently good but intense. All the while he kept making comments like “You big strong man”, “Big leg muscle”, and “Nice tall man” in a bouncy high baritone voice. At one point he sneezed directly onto my leg, then giggled and said “Sorry... is ok?”