by Norman Lewis
Wat Hari Poonchai is one of the most venerable temples of the kingdom. It houses innumerable Buddha images and holy relics, possesses a 50 metres’ high spire, and a number of buildings over 1,000 years old. To the average, uninstructed and only moderately devout visitor, its principal feature is the two colossal lions that guard the entrance. The mere sight of these animals, resembling enormous chocolate dogs, puts a Thai in a good humour. The ferocious snarl intended by the sculptor of old has turned out to be hardly more alarming than a Disneyland grin. It is all very relaxed. The visitors come here to worship but also to have a good time.
By the time we arrived, the festival was in full swing with yellow-robed monks bustling among the well-dressed visitors whom they were helping to park their cars. Two trestle tables had been set up under the benevolent scrutiny of the lions outside the compound. Merriment in Thailand is interwoven with formality. This was an occasion when ladies were expected to wear hats. One table bore a selection offered for hire, and the ladies were trying them on. At the other, their husbands were lined up to be served with half-tumblers of hot mekong whisky, downed in a couple of gulps before entering the sacred precincts.
Hot whisky drinking, introduced as part of the modernisation campaign in the early fifties, has remained in the eyes of the Thais a cultural exercise borrowed from the West, and its occasional effects on the drinker’s conduct in no way exposes him to censure. As ever on such occasions, the scene within the compound was a lively one. The Army, taking a willing hand in the arrangements, had proposed to entertain the visitors by setting up a battlefield in miniature. The menfolk, some of them a little unsteady by now, were genially urged to try their hand with machine-guns and half-charge grenades in an attack on remote-controlled miniature tanks careering about at the bottom of a shooting-range. Many of them did so. Grenades exploded with a stunning crack, and ricocheting bullets whined away like bees. One tank, successfully blasted, went out of control and came in a zigzagging rush at the crowd who stampeded away with cries of pretended fear. An ambulance had been parked at the entrance to the orchid display, and by it immaculately uniformed nurses stood to attention to await casualties. On a background dais a dancing couple capered round each other, twirling their arms. Everyone smiled; the dancers, the smartly turned-out overseers correcting the ragged aim of the men at the machine-guns, the wives adjusting the angle of rented hats, the well-starched nurses. The scene was scented by cordite mixed with the odour of the fleshy white blooms on the compound tress. Rock music came across in disconnected blasts, only momentarily stifling the nasal outcry of a monk locked in a cage to preach in incomprehensible Pali against the pleasures of the flesh.
It was all good fun, but not what the serious-minded Surin was here for. Dominating this earthly confusion the great golden spire of the Wat soared up to spread its faint sheen into sallow summer sky. This was Surin’s objective. Elsewhere, the Buddha images were washed in person on this day, but so great is the veneration in which the Buddha of Hari Poonchai is held that in this case it is enough simply to wash the temple spire. We turned our backs on the pious jollifications, made our way round the back of the crowd to the spire and took our place in the queue waiting to gain merit in this act of devotion. Surin’s turn came. A monk passed him a bucket attached to a rope containing a jugful of water blessed by the abbot. Surin hauled on the rope to hoist the bucket to the top of the spire, then jerked a second rope to splash its contents down the golden slope. Next, to nudge the celebrant forward a pace or two along the path to Nirvana, birds had to be released from captivity. A hundred or two, having been netted overnight, and now confined in pairs in tiny wicker cages, awaited release. We bought a pair apiece, and set them free from their wicker prisons, thus completing the ritual. For Surin, this was a moment of tension. If in subsequent flight the birds kept close together—which they usually did—it was a good omen. If they separated, each going its own way, there was nothing much to be hoped for in the coming year. Our birds could hardly have been closer. Surin clasped his hands together in prayerful relief. The first hurdle had been cleared. Now the encounter with Khun Tan had to be faced.
Khun Tan was a powerful spirit, overlord of the region he ruled from the 4,000-foot mountain peak rising from the Doi Khun Tan Park to the east of the Chiang Mai-Bangkok road some 10 miles before reaching the town of Lampang. In theory, Surin admitted, Buddha, who was not a god, had nothing to do with good or bad luck. People washed his image as part of the New Year celebrations to show their respect for his revelation of the five-fold way to enlightenment and release from the bondage of desire. Nevertheless, there was nothing to be lost in praying to him as to any other god. And who knew?—it might help. With Khun Tan the case was different. He was a powerful spirit who had once been a man, and assumed to have retained a fair share of human weakness. Although invisible, he remained within reach, bribable, susceptible to flattery, frequently sympathetic to a supplicant’s prayer—in this instance, able and willing if approached in the right way to steer game within gunshot. Like so many of the national spirits he had ended his spell on earth in a tragic fashion. He had led, as Surin thought, a revolt against the Burmese who had overrun the area, been captured and torn apart by elephants. Thus here as elsewhere the memory of the Robin Hood persists while the name of the king is forgotten.
We drove down the Bangkok road to the crest of a low hill where the peak of Doi Khun Tan came into view among the distant trees. Here along the verge was ranged one of the greatest collections of spirit-shrines in South East Asia: possibly a thousand of them in ten to fifteen ranks, each shrine about one yard from the next along a hundred yards of the road. They were like bird-tables of an elaborate kind having tiny spirit-houses on their platforms. Some of the newer shrines were of the sort on offer in supermarkets, put together cheaply from low-quality materials; but the older shrines in the back ranks were often of well carved teak. Every one of these contained offerings to the potent spirit of Khun Tan, an assortment of vitamin tablets, cough syrup, slimming remedies, amphetamines, miniature liquor bottles, sun-specs, and playing-cards, mixed in with spurious jewellery and toys of every kind—all of those things of which in their spiritual essence a powerful Thai spirit might stand in need. Surin deposited his contribution—a packet of Camels—and we made to leave.
Here we ran into difficulty. Hundreds of truck-drivers passed this way each day on the country’s main north-south run. It was their normal custom to salute the invisible, though watchful, presence of Khun Tan in passing by a toot on the horn. On this occasion many had thought fit to stop, and to elbow their way through a steadily thickening crowd for a prayer at the nearest shrine. In the minutes since our arrival a traffic-jam had built up. We were badly parked, and Surin’s efforts to extricate the mini-van provoked cries of protest from nearby drivers.
The incident left him momentarily depressed. He had hoped that the promising behaviour of the birds at Hari Poonchai would be capped by a good omen at the Khun Tan shrine. It was well known that sometimes at the moment of making an offering the spirit would appear in a vision to the supplicant, traditionally on a white horse, but in recent years at the wheel of a German car. Surin had never experienced this sign of Khun Tan’s favour, granted to several of his friends, and now he was alarmed less the trouble with the truck-drivers might have dimmed our prospects for the night hunt, and in consequence for the year itself.
We drove on down the slow descent to the animal market of Lampang, which takes the form of a temporary village of thatched huts build by the roadside about five miles short of the town itself. Hunters by the hundred use the market as a starting point for their night excursions into the forest, and bring back to it whatever surplus meat they may have for sale. It is a place to which non-hunting citizens take their families in pursuit of Sanuk which may be described as innocent fun—provided in this case by the inspection of unfamiliar animals in cages, or tied by a leg to a stake, awaiting those in search of an unusual pet or simply meat on the h
oof. Families picnic here, let off fireworks, dance the Ramwong and dress up as ghosts. It is possible to find basic accommodation for the night, and a rough sort of country restaurant can throw a meal together on request. Depending as it does largely on exotic materials it can provide the bold with an outstanding culinary adventure.
The reality of the market disappointed. There was said to be no better place to study the wildlife of Thailand, albeit in captivity or death. Surin made frequent trips down from Chiang Mai to buy spiders the size of a child’s fist, six-inch-long scorpions and monstrous stag beetles for arrangement with his butterflies in framed pictures for sale to foreign tourists. There was something about the climate of the moist, deciduous monsoon forest that attracted a huge variety of animals, luring them eventually to the nets and guns of the hunters who gathered here to await them.
The display of animal wares on this occasion was meagre largely because a horde of day-trippers had bought up everything worth having by the time we arrived. A hopeful quest for uncommon specimens led to dead ends. Snakes were brought in quantity to the market, where they were sold for their blood, accepted as a powerful tonic when mixed with an equal amount of whisky. Of these a single example hardly more impressive than a large worm remained. The ‘tiger’ we were summoned to view turned out to be the kitten of a jungle cat, that sat in its cage imperturbably grooming itself. The only wild boar to be found was small and unpleasantly blotched by skin disease. The last of the deer had been divided down the middle between two eager buyers an hour before our arrival. A selection of squirrels, rabbits and huge blunt-faced forest rats had found no takers. Any of them, said the crestfallen merchant offering them, could be turned into a reasonable stew, but at holiday times people were on the lookout for something with more prestige.
We were at the market for a meeting with a local guide whose services had to be regarded as a luxury since he charged double the value of the game his customers were likely to bag. He guaranteed results, which was all that mattered at a time like this. The arrangement was that he would come up from Lampang to collect us shortly before nightfall, then drive us in his Land-Rover by side roads and jungle tracks to an area near Ban Tung where the frontiers of the park were ill-defined and, by common consent, little respected. We were to hunt with jack-lights. In most countries, including Thailand, this all too easy method of animal massacre is outlawed, but in the whole of the Far East hardly any other kind of hunting is commonly practised.
The evening wore on. The children were growing tired and began to quarrel; a fox escaped; an angry man drew a pistol and fired it into the air, was pacified and led away. Thais are encouraged to throw water at each other on this day, and a party of embarrassed, giggling girls, fearing that we might feel left out, presented themselves with a bowl to give us a wetting. A meal was served. This, too, was a matter of ritual and routine. Nobody wanted the ants’ eggs but some pretence of eating them had to be made. Few diners in all probability enjoyed the baked honeycomb with young bees cooked in their waxen cells. Like our neighbours we helped ourselves to a token spoonful apiece, and like them we made hardly more than a polite effort with the earth-coloured, glutinous rice.
With the sun low in the sky, Surin was becoming nervous at the guide’s non-appearance. Then the news came through that the Bangkok road was blocked following a multiple car-crash, with an ensuing tail-back all the way to Lampang. The belief was that mobile cranes would have to be brought down from Chiang Mai—a possibility that was accepted with huge philosophy. Among excited cries from the children, revived by the emergency, families prepared to settle in their cars for the night. Those free from family obligations called for more mekong to be brought, and about a hundred people were now dancing the Ramwong. Surin gave up all hope of the guide’s arrival, but explained that there was too much at stake for him to abandon the night hunt, saying we would have to do the best we could without the guide. There was nothing for it but to agree.
The light was already failing by the time we disentangled the mini-van from the cars left at the roadside. A mile back in the direction of Chiang Mai we turned into a dirt track wandering through low hills in the direction—as Surin thought—of the National Park. After a while the peak of Doi Khun Tan appeared as a dark triangle separated from its base by a sash of mist, and afloat in the green aftermath of the vanished sun. The track branched and then branched again. This was a journey without maps and all we could do was to take the fork that appeared to lead towards the mountain. We stopped for directions at the village where the lamps were already out, and dogs raised a hideous clamour. Surin got a villager out of bed, who seemed not only annoyed at the disturbance but evasive. When questioned as to the precise lay-out of the park he replied in a threatening fashion that we were already in it and that a full-time warden lived just down the road. Villagers with lighted lamps were beginning to appear in doorways and, according to Surin, the man, turning his back, said, ‘Go now, and leave us in peace.’ We started off again and Surin said, ‘They should offer water with their blessing for the New Year. This they did not do. They were not polite.’
The track narrowed. Surin switched on the headlights and the jungle turned to white plaster, the trees appearing very close. After a while, we reached a clearing. I thought of the angry villagers and the full-time warden with his gun somewhere down the road, and told Surin we should turn round and go back. This he refused to do, shaking his head with furious vehemence. ‘There are deer,’ he said. ‘Now, one hour after sunset is the best time. To shoot one deer is no risk. One only we shoot, then we go back. After that we will have a good year.’
The car creaked and crunched its way softly down into a tunnel among the trees. Leaves like a million small mirrors caught and held the glare of the headlights. Winged insects swam towards us like shoals of fish through the beams. Small, yellow lamps hung in the whitened branches above us. Surin whispered that they were the eyes of owls. Points of light pricking from the embowered shadows betrayed the presence of alerted animals; red light was flashed back by cats and rodents of many kinds; white light by boars and deer.
Surin pulled up. ‘Now we shall walk,’ he said. We climbed down and he went to the back of the van to reach in for the equipment; a battery haversack feeding the latest Japanese jack-light on a headband with a three-position switch giving a 5,000-candle-power maximum beam throw, effective at up to 150 metres. ‘I have one for you, too,’ he said. I shook my head. He fixed the haversack in position and slipped the padded headband over his forehead, and I helped with the straps. He had a small calibre rifle of the kind favoured by poachers in a rack behind his seat. ‘Here is another gun,’ he said. ‘Why you don’t try?’
I told him I couldn’t shoot straight and didn’t want to spoil his sport. He shook his head, disappointed, stuck a torch into my hand, and told me to walk behind him. I had to shake the torch to make it come on. ‘Sometimes there are little snakes,’ he explained. ‘Not many.’ We started out, Surin about 10 yards ahead, showing like a black cut-out against the light as he trudged towards the incandescent tree-trunks and under the lianas hanging like stalactites in a cave. There was nothing under my feet but blackness and the soft squelch of vegetable decay. The pin-point eyes of rodents shone back as before, and once an owl went over like a puff of white smoke. The repetition of night shapes, no more than a plaster effigy of the jungle by day, became monotonous, then soporific. I was half-asleep on my feet, when the light stopped jogging through the trees and I saw Surin raise his gun and take aim, then heard the small, coughing reports, instantly smothered in the leaves.
I was relieved that it had been such a quiet affair; an explosion hardly louder than a burst paper bag—unlikely to rouse the sleeping warden and bring him in hot pursuit, wherever he might be. Surin had dimmed the light and was hauling himself through the fronds and bamboo towards a twisting animal shape. He dragged it into view as I reached him and saw long thrashing legs and black blood dripping from fur. He let it drop and showed a sad face
. ‘Now I shall not hunt for this year,’ he said. He had shot a hare. It was the biggest hare I had ever seen, bigger than the smallest deer, but still a hare. An animal, as Surin said, that carried no luck.
With an obvious effort he accepted the sentence of fortune and smiled again. ‘When I do not hunt,’ he said, ‘slowly my luck will come back. This is like money left in a bank. You don’t touch it and it becomes more. We have seen many animals in this place. Now we will go to the car. Next year I will come back here again.’
LOOKING AT FISH
SEEN FROM THE AIR, Raiatea in its lagoon appears to be menaced by cavorting dragons. These are sprawls of underwater coral, contoured by the intense ultramarine of ocean currents. The island is packed tightly with trees, delicate at a distance as asparagus fern. From these project the pinnacles of two ancient volcanoes, each wearing a small turban of mist. A white thread of reef encircles the lagoon with its nucleus of land. Opposite the Te Ava Moa pass in the reef, and clearly visible, are the ruins by the shore of the great temple of Taputaputea, second only to the Easter Island figures as a monument to a forgotten Pacific civilisation.
Raiatea turned out to be a quiet, slow-moving place, charged with the aroma of the past, and resembling, according to old photographs, the Tahiti of 50 years ago. I was there to meet a Dr Collins, regarded, although eccentric, as the authority in all island matters, and I had ridden a bicycle with only roughly circular wheels and without brakes from the hotel down to Uturoa, the capital, for the encounter. The doctor was waiting for me, his huge bulk overflowing his chair, shirt open down to the navel, outside a café overlooking the sea. There was no money in Uturoa and therefore it was marvellously preserved with scenes from Gauguin on every side. Coats of paint flaked everywhere from its surfaces to reveal palimpsests of sublimely weary colour. Boats were unloading copra among half-buried anchors on the front, and a string of beachcombers mooched like explorers in a blizzard, through fallen blossom scuffled up by the breeze. This was Sunday, 10 a.m., and the Protestant church down the road was crammed for Tahitian a cappella singing: a roaring of hymns sounding like war chants (and that, said the doctor—apart from the substitution of Noah for the names of the Polynesian sea-raiders of old—was what they were). Once, quite carried away, and hoisting himself like a sumo wrestler to his feet, he added a melodious bellow to the distant chorus. We should have gone to church, he said, but it was so crowded you practically had to fight your way in.