3/1/07
Sukethoi
Mae Sot
Umphang

We blew into Sukethoi a week ago after another interminable overnight bus ride. For some reason, on the cheaper buses, the air con is turned on to a frigid level. Perhaps the privalege of air con for poorer thai people requires an ungodly level of cold. Everyone else except for us was dressed up for the arctic, with hoodies pulled tight, but we were in shirt sleeves. After 12 midnight hours on the slab we arrived in Sukethoi seriously chilled. We sat in the bus terminal from five am until light spread across the fields, then we walked along a narrow path through cucumber and beans to a guest house in town.

Later that day, we took a sangtheaw (a pick up with seats in the pack) out to the Sukethoi historical park. To all intensive purposes, Sukethoi had been the first capitol of the nascent Thai state, and as such it is revered as basis for the present one. It rose in the 13th century, and fought off Burmese and Khymer challangers until it was absorbed into Ayuthya in the 15th century. Unfortunately, Sukethoi was plundered for building materials for Ayuthya, so reconstruction efforts didn't have much to build on.

If you have been to similar 13th century asian cities, such as Bagan or Angkor Wat, Sukethoi is a bit of a disappointment. We arrived late in the afternoon, and quickly surmised that most monuments face the east. It was an easterly show, as one would say. As a consequence, all the Buddha figures, everything, really, was in deep shadow by the time we arrived. So we walked around and checked out the scene as best we could. Unfortunately, we had already paid for an expensive non refundable ticket.

At this point, I dont want to say who first suggested that we return the next day and sneak in. Y. would rigorously deny it if i suggested that she was the one who came up with such and underhanded idea. However, we walked around in the waning twilight and noticed that that there were places, if we so desired, that one could jump over the barbed wire fence. Fortified in this knowledge, we returned to new Sukethoi.

Early the next day, we rose and returned to the historical district. Sneaking in isn't easy. You've got to keep you eyes open and play it cool. I can remember thirty years ago, when my brother John, his young wife Kitsie and I tried to scale a high fence to sneak into the King County Fair. The two of them that preceeded me and made it over successfully. Unfortunately, barbed wire caught the crotch of my pants, and then I was spotted by a security guard. Much merriment ensured, with me fleeing into the fairgounds with torn pants and bloody hands.

At Sukethoi we cruised along a dusty road, with cars and buses passing and the occassional bicycle passing us as we strolled along trying our best to look casual. We spied a gate for workers that seeminglly wasn't locked, and in a flash we were there. We looked around once or twice, and then i slowly pulled the rusted fence open

Oh what a squeak it made. It was as if it was crying out, "Look at me! The foreigners are trying to sneak in!" I didn't know if I should go forward or flee. Then Y. shoved me from behind and whispered, "Run!"

"Shhh," I whispered back. "Don't attract attention to us!"

But then she said again "Run!" and she was off and running and I was running laughing behind her. We ran through coconut groves and past an ancient pavilion until the silence of the forest told us that pursuit was far behind.

Finally, exhausted, we rested besides a ruined chapel of brick. At one time it must have been a beautiful temple, with massive laterite columns supporting a roof of wood and tile. Today, the roof had vanished. The central wall at the rear, which had previously sported four ten meter standing buddhas, had been reduced to rubble. The buddha facing us had at one time strode foward, one hand outstretched in the giving protection mudra, the other clutching his gown. At one time he was finished in stucco, painted and adorned with flowers, an object of devotion, surrounded by muscians and dressed in silks. Currently the stucco has been stripped away by a thousand years or rain and warfare, revealing the brick after image of a giant man. Really, it looks like a shadow image after the Horoshima blast. Only bigger. The bricks preserve the rough form of a headless human, the outstretched arm a stump. And then the thought arose, "How transient this world is!"

Since Coolridge it has been popular to comment on the vanity of worldly rulers, and after seeing Sadam's demise it is plain that the mighty are bound to fall. The rulers of Sukethoi embraced buddhism and used its message to forge a nation that only now is beginning to fall under the insiduous allure of consumerism. But what has been lost and what has been gained? For those of us who have committed ourselves to working for the benefit of all beings these ruins are a passing parade. The outward manifestation of brick has decayed, but the feeling of love and compassion in my heart is still fresh. Hopefully, in my next incarnation and all future incarnations, that love and compassion will grow.

Now, enough preaching, start running!!!