Phitsanulok

I'll start this post with a quick recap of the five plus hour train ride to get from Lopburi to the northern Thailand city of Phitsanulok. After a series of delays, the train left the station almost two hours later than scheduled. Vinny and I rolled through scenic rice fields along side rivers and flooded land, taking photos that for the most part failed to capture what our eyes were seeing (Lena had stayed behind to recover from her illness and head straight to Chiang Mai the following day). But all the natural beauty of the landscapes had to be balanced out by nature's not so glamorous creations. As the train passed through the wetter areas and the sun set, hundreds of insects were seemingly sucked into the large open windows. Several crashed into me, especially in the back of my head, and my body and bag became covered with the small creatures. Oddly, a lot of them became disoriented and went into temporary comas or died after entering the train, like this one dragonfly that landed on Vinny's bag and just stayed there while Vinny took pictures of it up close and even when he shook his bag to see if it was alive. Then randomly it woke up and flew away. By the time we got there, I'd had quite enough of being hit with insect crossfire.

Phitsanulok is a lively city compared to Ayuthaya and Lopburi. The streets are ruled by fast moving cars and motorcycles that make crossing them an activity in itself due to the absence of streetlights. A large night bazaar runs along the bank of the Mae Nam Nan river, with several stalls selling mainly clothes but also sunglasses, swords, jewelry, and a number of other accessories. Many of the shirts feature English words that are not exactly used in the right context. These made good subjects for photos. Parallel to the clothing market and closer to the bank run a string of restaurants, live music venues, and rooms with pool tables that change color under the lights of disco balls, where many young hip Thais spend their evening. Romantic Thai music and American pop songs, new and old and including country music, blares from microphones and stereo systems. There's a fun, party feel to the place, although the biggest party apart from the markets may be the internet cafe where I wrote my last post. There, the comfortable red armchairs are filled with young Thais, some of them overweight, battling it out on role-playing, first person shooter, and RTS computer games. If you're 18 or older, the party never ends, because then you can play for 24 hours of the day, as opposed to having a time limit if you're younger.

I understand what the words mean individually...

The culinary experience in Phitsanulok did not disappoint. The night we arrived Vinny and I headed to the night bazaar to experience the last day of the Chinese-influenced vegetarian festival. Although we didn't spot a vegetarian food stall or restaurant, we had a good dinner at a stall on the southern end of the night bazaar, overlooking the river where a few lit candles in a string of blown-out ones made their way down the river. I had seafood with rice or noodles and Vinny had an omelette with shrimp and enjoyed it, despite not being a seafood fan. "The man cooks with love," Vinny said, and I think he might have been right. The following day I had two meals back-to-back. The second of these was fried chicken over rice with a chicken and parsnip (or some other root vegetable) soup I went crazy about. The root's flavor was so strongly infused in the broth and it nicely complemented the chicken's. Vegetables in Thailand aren't bland like they are in the United States, but instead flood the dish with their distinct flavors.

Another special meal I had was at a restaurant called Rim Nan along the river just north of the famous Wat Phra Si Ratana Mahathat temple complex. Rim Nan is a restaurant that serves "hanging noodle." The floor of the restaurant is a wooden platform where you sit down and slide your legs through an opening that runs beneath a stone slab that is the tabletop. Your legs dangle down through the opening as you're seated on the floor eating your noodles. Hence, hanging noodles. The soup was savory and delicious, with pork, pork balls, scallions, noodles, morning glory, and bean sprouts. Like almost all dishes in Thailand, I had three containers of red pepper, spicy-sour liquid, and sugar with which to customize my dish by creating any combination of flavors I desired. This must be one of my favorite dishes consumed on my trip so far. Having told you about that enriching cultural experience, I must now admit to my crime of eating at a restaurant called American Pizza... twice.

I may or may not have bought a jar of these assorted fried insects

Phitsanulok is for the most part not a pretty city. Its streets are lined with ugly Western-styled buildings and advertisements. In 1955, a great fire destroyed much of the city's more historic area. One resident of the city, a sergeant major by the name of Thawee Buranakhet, devoted his life to collecting tools, toys, musical instruments, animal traps and snares, photographs, and other artifacts to preserve the memory of his city before the old ways were gone forever. I visited this folk museum to see how things had been in the past here. A few items of display were unexpectedly poignant for me. Old photographs of the city, especially those of the river houses which used to line the river, were one. For the most part, the river is pretty bare of the structures today. Another thing was the toys that children used to play with before television and video games corrupted them. For example, two children would each take a stick with a double-pointed shard of coconut shell tied onto it. These would represent buffaloes with their horns. Then children would then roll the sticks between their hands, causing the coconut horns to spin back and forth against the opponent's. The player to break or damage his opponent's horns first would be the winner.

I understand that the concept of authenticity is a fabricated Western notion, but still I can't help the sadness that comes with knowing that ways of life practiced for centuries or longer are vanishing, giving way instead to a blander homogeneity. Of course, it's more than unfair to expect my own society to change in an attempt to "progress" while denying others that same aspiration just so that I can enjoy something exotic. Everyone wants to improve their own societies and their standards of living. For that to happen, older less effective methods of doing things have to give way to newer, more efficient ones. Having said that, I'm traveling to find something new, to experience other worlds, and similarities to my own world make the experience somewhat less rich.

Woman working on a Buddha image at the Buddha Casting Foundry down the road from the Folk Museum. The foundry was created by the same man who collected the items in the museum in order to preserve the traditional method of casting Buddha images. Many of the images are replicas of the Phra Buddha Chinnarat explained below.

However unremarkable most of the city may appear today, the second more valued Buddha image in Thailand, the Phra Buddha Chinnarat, is found in Phitsanulok. In addition, I found the Wat Ratburana temple complex to be one of my favorites in Thailand so far. I'm not sure why, because "objectively" it isn't all that aesthetically pleasing compared to many other sites. Something about the place just resonated with me. The main temple has an eclectic if not funky display of various items (offerings?) collected over the years, such as old coins and bills, silverware, and a carnivore's skull. At the moment I'm forgetting the weirder stuff. In the yard is a decorated tree shrine which worshipers ascend and descend nine times, leaving offerings in the tree. There's also a boat in which King Rama V of Thailand visited Phitsanulok. Worshipers walk the length of it nine times. A couple of monks stand around casually watching and chatting with people.

About to release fish into the river for good luck

I must dedicate my final paragraph to introducing a true character I've met in Phitsanulok. The night I arrived with Vinny, we were recommended a decent guesthouse by fellow travelers and decided to go for it. We found the place without a problem, but when we knocked on the office door, no one answered. Inside was a large man sitting like a stone and staring into the glare of a strange Thai show or film on television. After a couple of more knocks the figure budged and came outside. He was a big fat man with a short sleeved shirt tucked into elastic shorts pulled up much too high. His eyes were intimidating, and his teeth were long and narrow where the gums had receded. We asked what kind of rooms there were and if we could see them before paying. He kept repeating himself when he spoke, as if he wasn't listening to what we were saying. He demanded to see our passports and take payment for the rooms right away. When we asked if we could see the rooms, he said, "Ten minute, ten minute." Then he went back into his bedroom/office and stood there for a few minutes staring at the TV screen. He did this a few times. He kept saying "Ten minute, ten minute" each time we asked him for something, but whenever he wanted something of us he'd say "Righ' now." That first night he gave me the creeps. Since Lena arrived because her bus to Chiang Mai was booked, I learned to appreciate the humor of his character. Lena mouthed to me "He's so fat," and this cracked me up. After that I couldn't help grinning or choking with suppressed laughter whenever I saw him. It wasn't necessarily his weight that was funny, but the way he waddled around with seemingly no aim, at random times in the day. It was also how high he kept pulling his shorts up, halfway up his back, creating an unappealing wedgie in his butt. I refer to him as "Big Baby Buddha", but feel bad doing so because it is an insult to the real Buddha.