Taung Kalat, the sacred monastery, is the jewel atop 777 stairs of a sheer tower of andesite basalt that rises 2,400 feet, the dramatic remains of a prehistoric eruption; a gleaming temple on the summit. From afar it brings to mind a giant termite mound. The summit monastery was attended to solely by the Buddhist hermit monk U Khandi for many years, and is still watched over by a palace guard of sacred monkeys. It is also the ethereal abode of the 37 most powerful of Burmese Nats, the spirits of local Buddhism. In a religion-dominated society, it is a major point of pilgrimage, and if any karma by association was available, Taung Kalat was the place to find it.
The village epicenter was a single, mud-lined street, whose stalls offered cheap plastic trinkets that clashed with the religious fervor of pilgrims on hands and knees. Many have crossed the country in this glacially slow fashion, arriving in torn rags but with flaming souls. Many will not stand fully upright until reaching the temple of Taung Kalat.
I removed my shoes and socks and bought an offering of burning sage for what I hoped would be a day of spiritual renewal, with a pinch of enlightenment thrown in. I entered the line of faithful and had just taken the first step when the stench hit me, and looking at the towering staircase above, realized I was about to climb through 2,000 feet of monkey poop.
It was everywhere; on the steps, the bannisters, the walls; impossible to go around. Apparently sacred monkeys don’t give a damn about hygiene, and while it might sound a bit crude to use both ubiquitous and poop in the same sentence, it is appropriate here. Fortunately, I could also see a vast fleet of tiny women all robed in what might be hazmat suits scrubbing everywhere in what must be a nonstop job. Either way I had come in search of peace and knowledge and was not about to be defeated by mere monkey feces. As I ascended the stairs, I was totally unprepared for one of the scrubbing women to thrust out her hand and demand money; after all, I had paid an entry fee with the implied caveat that it included a poop removal surcharge. But, after each step, another blue rubber glove shot out at me all of which I declined until I felt and heard simultaneously the dull thud of a ball of monkey poop striking my posterior.
I wheeled around to confront the sisterhood of rubber-clad maidens that had attacked me for failure to pay up and that is when I saw the first monkey. He was big and mean and had a Donald Trump scowl. He was also holding a fistful of feces that he rolled around in his hands like a pitcher rubbing up a new ball, and just as he let fly in my direction, I noticed eight or nine hundred of his compatriots had surrounded me. It did not help that the idiot climbing behind me had opened a large bag of hard candy and was dumping it on the ground so he could take photos of the swarming monkeys. You could hear his scream across the valley as they stripped his camera, watch, and ring; like sharks with blood in the water. I tucked my camera under my shirt, put my head down, and began climbing as fast as I could go and thought I might be away from ground zero when the second ball of poop hit me.
Those monkeys were the most efficient crew of pirates I have yet encountered, and that includes the Gypsies of Rome. One had to marvel how they came at you in waves, one distracting you, while the others swarm and relieve you of any possession that is not part of your anatomy, and then trying to take some that are. They grabbed at my shirt buttons when I had nothing else to offer but I managed to keep my camera tucked away as those same nimble fingers continued to hurl feces with major league accuracy.
With aching knees and filthy feet I emerged from the endless stairs into a brilliant blue sky 2,400 feet above where I started. My feet looked like they were encased in cement but the view in all directions defied words. I began to circle the summit walkway only to notice a distinct lack of monkeys, and that is when I saw the first monks.
They came out of the sun, silhouettes, like bandits in an aerial dogfight. Once again I could say ubiquitous as it sounds better here than it did with poop, because they were everywhere. That is not unusual in a Buddhist country, but these monks were not acting very monkly. There was no meditation or contemplation going on. These were not your cloistered, chanting, alms begging monks; they were techno monks! Photo monks! Everywhere I looked there were monks taking photos with iPhones, iPads, and some even with actual cameras! They took pictures of each other that looked exactly the same! Those not taking photos were texting on their smartphones. Nor were they observing any vows of silence. In fact they were the noisiest people in the temple. It looked and sounded like a Silicon Valley toga party. For a country just emerging from four centuries behind the rest of the world, these guys were making up for lost time. I assumed they would not act this way at their own monastery, so they were visitors, monks on vacation as it were. Apparently I had discovered spring break for monks.
No sooner had I stepped out onto a balcony, than I was besieged by saffron-robed, shaved-headed teenagers with selfie sticks. Now at that time, the ruling military junta of Burma had just begun to open the national doors to people like me, and westerners were indeed an exotic rarity in remote places like Taung Kalat, but I quickly transcended rarity status to become an instant celebrity as dozens of monks and their families descended on me like a plague of wide angle locusts.
The monks, like the monkeys, came at me in waves, and so, for over an hour after I reached the summit, I posed for and smiled at various electronic devices, arms around tiny people wearing orange sheets and wondering how they tell each other apart; still unable to savor the beauty of the temple interior, and certainly not achieving any peace or tranquility. There was also a touch of degradation as I was at least a foot taller than anyone who stood next to me that day, making me feel like the extended middle finger of a fist.
Once inside, the interior of the temple was a curious blend of beautiful traditional statuary and painting, juxtaposed with gaudy Christmas tree lights and Las Vegas neon bling so often found in remote shrines. Haloes circled Buddha heads, changing colors in clockwise direction, and flashing strings of lights illuminated every doorframe and window. Elaborately clothed mannequins stand in for the ethereal Nats, their images, looking like conglomerate Halloween costumes, standing over piles of food and money. To one unfamiliar with Southeast Asia, such scenes can project a carnival-like atmosphere, but in fact, it is all done with purpose and deep reason. Sometimes the gaudiest is also the most fervent.
But even in this, the holiest of holies, there was no respite. Everyone wanted their photo with me and the nonstop flashes were blinding. I was feeling overwhelmed until the blonde walked in. She was tall and elegant as only a Scandinavian could be, and her sudden presence stopped the monks in their barefoot tracks. There was an audible group gasp as she tossed her mane-like tresses in the wind and stood there posed like a silhouette on a truckers’ mud flap. Even her perfect sandaled feet were clean of any monkey poop. In the blink of an eye I was replaced by a Nordic goddess. She floated through the temple like a gazelle, smiling at one and all as dozens of tiny shaved heads swiveled at her passing. She was working the room as though it was a Vegas lounge and not a Buddhist temple. Now, I am sure any good Buddhist would tell you that such behavior is disrespectful at best, but at that moment, I think the monks were just fine with it.
Suddenly, as if a silent whistle had been sounded, a massed throng of monks engulfed the young woman, solidly pinning her against a large smiling Buddha, which made me wonder if he had been smiling prior to that. Certainly by now, the sacred Nats must be smiling too.
A line was quickly formed and selfies were flying fast and furious. I took advantage of the diversion to stage my retreat. In my final look back, I saw that Pre-Raphaelite face smiling above a sea of bald heads, looking like a lawn statue surrounded by garden gnomes, an image that will linger a while.
But, I still had to get down, and I was ready for the monkeys during my descent. I had picked up a discarded pair of rubber gloves on the way; hygiene be damned. I then scooped up as much dung as I could hold and began to mold the perfect poop ball because I would not go quietly into the night. But
, while I was molding the poop in my hands, it occurred to me that I had come to this place in search of peace and perhaps a little enlightenment, and there I was preparing to do hand-to-hand combat with a monkey. I needed to rethink the moment.
Trump was there with his drooping leer when I arrived, projectile in hand, ready for launch. I looked him in the eye and that is something I have always been told never to do with a monkey. I dropped my dung ball and slowly raised my empty hands in surrender. He lowered his dung ball, not out of deference to me, but because he was suddenly distracted by an empty yogurt container blowing by in the wind. To him, even that was more interesting than I was at the moment, so suddenly no one wanted to take my photo and no monkey wanted to blast me with his poop. I had achieved insignificance, and isn’t that a major goal of Buddhism? Until that moment, I had always thought my great moment of enlightenment would be a bit more epic, but, you take what you can get.
I had gone to Taung Kalat in search of the spiritual and it was certainly there, just buried under several tons of dung. Most of the locals who live near the mountain spend their lives in service to Buddha as either a monk or nun, and their culture was already ancient when mine was being born. Many of them have climbed the stairs for years, sometimes on hands and knees, and all have offered prayers and entreaties to the 37 sacred Nats housed on the summit. My presence happened to be a rare and different distraction, but it was never meant to disrupt.
While the monkeys seemed comical to me, to the local population, they are sacred. They are their own selves on a lower evolutionary plane and believe that climbing the stairs with them adds to their karma to come back as a person in another life. When the monkeys act out, it is the Nats using them to admonish the people for their various transgressions. There are holy men within the temple who smear themselves with the dung both as a protection and a reminder that they are but equals with their simian cousins. Such is Buddhism.
Enlightenment does not come in a day or a month, or even a lifetime for most of us, and it is certainly not attainable simply by visiting places or people. I seek these places not expecting to find answers, but because everyone there seems to have a slightly better handle on that aspect of life than I do, and I’m always hoping for a little bit of that to come my way. If it comes coated with monkey dung, that is just fine with me.
The perfect shot
Me and Tea in Burma
Whenever I look up, the trail mercifully fades into the clouds above, obscuring all distance.
The word “trail” is used loosely here, as the term, in my mind at least, at least should refer to a walkable surface associated with hiking. This churned quagmire of mud and loose rocks does not even vaguely meet that definition. The jungle of northern Burma is hostile enough, but I am pushing a titanium hip and deteriorating knee to their limits here. For two hours we have been steadily climbing through a cotton candy haze that has me asking myself, “Why?”
I stop to suck air, bent in half, and Pin’s smiling face pushes next to mine as he whispers, “Close now,” a term I have come to associate with local guides that means “We are hell and gone from where we should be.”
Pin is a dead ringer for a young Jackie Chan, but has never seen a movie, so he does not understand when I mime a scene from Rush Hour. He just looks at me and rolls his eyes, but his irresistible smile is a fixture. “Not much further,” he says, and his words make me laugh. I tell myself the hill tribe I have come to see will be worth the effort.
Pin distracts my aching knees along the way by pointing out minute details of flora and fauna and touches my soul when he bends to cup a large moth, stuck in the mud, into his hands. He gently carries it to the side of the trail and sets it on a rock to dry in the sun; for him, an act natural as breathing, but revealing to me the essence of this Buddhist country.
Four hours into our “two-hour hike” we have breached the clouds and the lush summits of ancient peaks surround us in all directions. It feels as though I am on the roof of the world. I get a first glimpse of the village on the neighboring mountainside across the valley; a collection of stilted shacks clinging to an impossibly vertical slope seemingly held in place only by the surrounding jungle. It is a speck of civilized progress gouged into a prehistoric landscape and it appears to still be several miles away. In my exhaustion, I do not even ask its’ name. “Almost there,” Pin whispers through his smile.
Far below us green patches of rice paddies peak through gaps in the clouds and I see tiny brown specks of water buffalo grazing. If I weren’t so tired it would be quite beautiful. Suddenly a crimson robed monk comes bouncing down the trail with the spring of youth in his step. He is wearing straw sandals and carrying a rice bowl. He smiles broadly as he passes us and Pin joins his hands in the prayer position, touching them to his forehead to show respect. The monk can be no more than 12 or 13 years old, but in Burma, the red robes are revered. The descending boy is quickly swallowed by the clouds as if he were a dream.
An hour later barking dogs announce our arrival as I stumble into the village. I see curious shadows dart away from windows as we walk past the mud and brick houses. There is a feeling of great age upon this place and the smell of cow dung fires and roasting corn floats on the air. I slosh through runoff from the previous evening rain and my splashing sends dozens of grasshoppers jumping a foot ahead, only to do so over and over again at my next step, reminding me of the endless karma of reincarnation. My mind seems to be searching for Buddhist metaphors so I do not concentrate on the pain.
We reach a shack that leans up hill to keep from tumbling down the mountainside and Pin has declared it a “tea house.” The dirt in front of the entrance is stained a deep crimson from spit beetle juice. I bend over to clear the low ceiling as I step up and over the transom that keeps out snakes. Inside, the room is dark, holding a single long table and several benches. I drop my camera bag on the floor and slide onto a bench, anticipating food. The only light is through wall cracks and the door-less entranceway. The room carries hints of curry, and the stench of previous trekkers. Most of all, it smells of tea.
I should say here and now that I hate tea! That includes the hundreds of exotic brands my friends have plied me with over the years intending to make me like it. They are convinced there is yet that elusive brand out there with my taste buds written on it. I think not. So, I am not happy to find myself in a tea house after climbing a mountain for five hours. I had visions of seared goat and maybe some rice. At least a cold beer!! I can’t smell any meat cooking but I do smell tea. My brief wallow in self-pity ends when the Amah walks through a pulled curtain like a Smithsonian photograph come to life. Amah is a term that approximates the word “grandmother” in several languages and one I have come to apply often to elderly ladies I have just met.
She is a vision, an elder of the Palang people, a Burmese hill tribe that lives the old way on the sides of mountains not yet invaded by technology. Her native garb is colorful as a flower garden and her skin like old saddle leather. Beetle nut stains her toothy smile and she immediately enchants my camera. She is the essence of the people I have come to see. The Palang are known for their textiles and this lady is a walking museum piece. She is enough to make me forget about food until I notice she is carrying a tray of tea.
She pours me a cup and I hope she will not notice that I ignore it. My image of a dignified tribal elder is damaged when she begins chittering in a high-pitched staccato voice. Shrill as a chipmunk she begins frantically hauling out large bags of clothing that she dumps on the table for me to buy. I am a giant here and wealthy beyond local comprehension, so this is not unusual. One or two American dollars will feed a family for days. I try to photograph her as she flits about like a bumblebee collecting pollen but she moves too quickly. She is holding clothing up to my western girth and commenting in her native Riang about my size, realizing nothing she has will fit this huge visitor while loudly bemoaning her loss of potential sales. I physically stop her in the doorway whose fi
ltered light hides half her face in shadow, and I take my first decent portrait before she darts away.
Myanmar has only been open to travelers for about four years and cameras are still an unknown quantity in many rural villages. She seems to have no concept of what I am doing and begins to wind a colorful swath of textile around my head while she chatters on. Her energy is manic, and so, to calm her down I ask Pin to tell her I will buy this head wrap if she will just stop long enough for me to photograph her. He says “Yes” but then he has said yes so many times I am not sure how far his English extends beyond that single word. He continues to smile but says nothing to the lady.
While the Amah dumps another bag of clothing on the table searching for super extra-large, I open a door to investigate a delicious aroma coming from the next room, a glorious smell that tickles my nose and overrides the stench of tea. There I see my ultimate photo waiting to be taken.
A single shaft of afternoon sunlight drifts lazily through the open window, mingling with the smoke from a wood fire. It angles downward to showcase a water kettle on the burning embers and suspended above it are two large wicker flats, one on top of the other, each holding an assortment of corn, squash, nuts, and other delicacies slowly roasting over the open fire. The smoke and light shaft combine to dull all edges, giving the room an impressionistic quality, as if viewing the scene through a silk veil. The background is dark and shadowy while the foreground is that mystical, medieval light that gifts unforgettable photos. It is a Renaissance painting waiting for its Madonna. All I have to do to make it happen is endure some tea and buy some old clothes.
I smack my head on an overhead beam in my eagerness to drag the Amah into the room and am grateful it is wrapped with her textiles even though I must look ridiculous. I realize that to her, I appear gigantic, with one glass eye in the middle of my face, my head wrapped in a towel, bent almost in half to walk, and I am frantically pointing at the fire, trying to move her into the fragile light before it is gone. She slowly sidesteps into the filtered aura with a confused look, but I know she has been photographed before when she assumes that ramrod straight posture many indigenous people think photographers want but actually hate. I am waiving my arms, trying to tell her how I want her posed in the light shaft. I ask Pin to tell her to just kneel and tend the fire naturally and he smiles and says “Yes.” I am getting no help whatsoever from Jackie Chan.
Baboons for Lunch Page 2