The Peace Correspondent (20 page)

Next morning, on the way to Karakorum, Mongolia hits us with another of its surprises -- hundreds of worshippers in local costume on horseback, truck, bus and old East European motorcycles are flocking through the hills to worship at Chankh monastery.

Nearby, crowds gather at tents set up in a field for a festival. On the other side of the tent, just past the priests chanting around a mound of snow white cheese, mounted horsemen have guaranteed seats for the sporting events. It is a mini-Naadam, with several wrestling matches going on at once in the field before us. Wrestlers with huge boots and open jackets go through the opening ceremony, slapping their thighs and performing the stylized, arms-outstretched falcon and eagle dances.

Squatting on the ground with locals, I try to learn the intricacies of Mongolian wrestling, which looks like one drunk helping another drunk home, but not so graceful. With the tripping, pushing, shoving, it is like slow-motion sumo wrestling, with no ring.

Later, after a few more bruising hours in the bus crossing the rough terrain, we finally spot the 108 stupas of the 16th-century Erdene Zuu Monastery, once the center of Mongolian Buddhism. Built from the ruins of Karakorum, it is like a small Potala Palace on the plains, with sharp, upturned rooftops and ornate, Tibetan-style
ornamentation.

Touts at the door to the former walled city sell crude carvings -- for U.S. dollars only. Inside, livestock graze in the long grass of the big, peaceful square, the stupas sticking up like white pickets along the surrounding walls.

A fetching young nun unlocks several temples to show us the various paintings, Buddha statues and artifacts. Inside a candlelit temple, chanting monks in heavy, rust-red robes, pointy-toed leather boots and flap-eared hats resemble Tibetan holy men in Lhasa lamaseries. Later, the winsome young nun corners me near the altar, whispering, “Change money?” offering a usurious rate here in the temple of God.

As we talk about the glories of the ancient capital, she shatters my lifelong illusions, telling me, in her schoolgirl English, about the death of the national hero, Genghis Khan. Leading me a short distance across the road, she points out the last vestiges of the glorious Mongol Empire that stretched from Siberia to Western Europe, the remnants of his great capital Karakorum: one broken statue of a tortoise, abandoned in a field of gopher holes.

Standing in that rocky field under the wide blue sky, I spot a group of horsemen far across the fields, riding wild and free across the vast steppe. Like a posse from an old Western movie, they stand high in the stirrups and lean far forward, their horses' manes flowing in the wind. It is a dramatic vision of natural grace and freedom. While the great Mongol Empire no longer exists in stone monuments, it is still alive in the spirit of its horsemen.

COOL tropical breezes blow off the porcelain-blue Andaman Sea. A small thatched roof shades the midday sun, and sand, soft as icing sugar, tickles my bare feet. Nearby, village boys scamper up a gracefully curving palm tree to kick down big green nuts full of thirst-quenching coconut water. Beyond, the empty white beach curves to the horizon. A waiter hurries across the sand balancing a tray of iced Singha beer, spicy Thai seafood soup and grilled prawns.

As an old friend used to say, “I've been in tougher situations.”

Cruising down the broad, paved Friendship Highway, the speedometer needle edging well past 120 kilometers per hour, the radio pulling in a Bangkok easy listening station, northern Thailand's mountains rising ahead, it is bliss on wheels.

Until a roadblock appears across the shimmering concrete ahead, and a posse of ominous highway patrolmen waves me down. A tough-looking officer in tightly tailored brown uniform
and dark sunglasses leans into the window demanding, “Do you speak Thai?” Ah, no.

“You break Thai law.” I was doing 140 kilometers per hour in a 120 kilometers per hour zone. But it is a typical Thai experience, punctuated by smiles and good humor. The now cheerful motorcycle cop fines me 200 baht on the spot, but gives me a receipt, so it is probably legitimate and not a donation to the policeman's benevolent fund. It is the only major hitch on an eight-day, 3,300 kilometer driving trip around Thailand, a country about the size of France.

Driving holidays are destined to become popular in Asia, with its newfound love of automobiles, increased leisure time and a rapidly growing network of excellent highways equal to those in North America and Europe. On my own road trek around Thailand, I follow a route to the royal palaces, historic and contemporary, on the assumption that the royals would know the best of their own country.

My excursion starts at the Avis car rental office on Bangkok's Wireless Road, where I outline my itinerary for the agent. I'll head straight south to Hua Hin, back up to Ayutthaya, then around in a great loop to the east and north to Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat), Sakhon Nakhon, Udon Thani, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, almost at the Burmese border.

“Wow, you're covering all of Thailand,” says the astonished agent, who suggests I get lots of sleep, and buy some music tapes. “Put on some calypso, just sit back and cruise along, enjoy yourself,” he recommends.

With that advice, I ease into Bangkok's notorious traffic, go around the block twice, and finally get onto the freeway, just a half block away. Then, excited and eager, the Mitsubishi Lancer GLX's air-con blasting a cooling breeze on this scorching day, I head south to Hua Hin on one of “the Great Drives of Asia.”

More than an hour later, in that great parking lot called the Bangkok Expressway, I have only done 24 kilometers, and I am crawling along at a water buffalo pace in a choking exhaust haze.
The first good piece of advice I got was “Don't drive in Bangkok.” It is a bad start, but finally I escape the gridlock, and, once outside the city, it is a breeze speeding down Highway 4 at a steady 120 kilometers per hour.

When I told friends about this drive to Thailand, some recoiled. “You're driving in Thailand?” They were incredulous, as though I were crazy. Others reacted enviously: “You're driving in Thailand!” On this first morning out, I find that -- other than in the roadside hell of Bangkok -- the second reaction was right. The Thais are generally skillful and polite drivers, not overly aggressive; the roads are excellent, though not always well marked; and the friendly police try to be helpful, although the only English most of them speak is: “Do you speak Thai?”

Just south of Cha-Am, on the sunny Gulf of Thailand coast, I spot a sign pointing to the turnoff to Phra Ratchaniwet Marukkhathayawan Palace. But here I run smack into what may be termed the “two-kilometer defense.” When I try to turn in, the soldiers at the gate wave me away, telling me to go two kilometers down the highway. Five kilometers away, following a fence along an army camp, I find another post with two more soldiers. They point me two kilometers back the way I came. Driving back past the original guards, I drive almost back to Cha-Am, and a police station. The officer there tells me to go two kilometers back the way I have been. Finally, back at the original gate, the two soldiers cheerfully wave me down the dirt road to the palace. “Two kilometers.”

This sprawling seaside summer palace of King Mongkutklao, or Rama IV, was reassembled here in 1923 from an earlier palace at Khai Luang. Elevated covered walkways link the complex of golden teak buildings set on concrete stilts with empty spaces underneath, like traditional Thai homes. The royal chambers feature Western plumbing (a bidet reflects a French influence) and a four-poster canopy bed. This peaceful late afternoon, with the bird song and the scent of jasmine, the empty shuttered buildings tinted sky blue feel like an oversized summer cottage, out
of season.

The summer resort was only used for two years, before being abandoned. Current monarch King Bhumibol Adylyadej and Queen Sirikit now summer in Klai Kangwon (Far From Worries Palace), built in 1926 just three kilometers from the Hua Hin railway station, 232 kilometers south of Bangkok. The contemporary palace is closed to visitors, although the grounds can be visited with special permission from the Royal Household Office when the royals are not in residence.

Hua Hin, Thailand's first seaside resort, remains a slow-paced tourist town of low wooden houses, fishing piers, peddle rickshaws, and peddlers with ancient mechanical ice shavers and soft drink syrups making Thai-style snow-cones. German, Swiss, French and Australian restaurants and bars, even a Kiwi Corner, pamper today's international tourists.

More than any other hotel, the elegant seaside Sofitel Central Hua Hin evokes the age of old “Siam,” when this area was a resort for Thailand's gentry. When I last stayed here several decades ago, it had deteriorated to the atmospheric, but crumbling Railway Hotel that even budget travelers could afford. Sofitel tastefully renovated and expanded the low-rise heritage building, with the new wing retaining the breezy, open-air style. Teak floors and furnishings, crystal chandeliers, ceiling fans and well-worn marble hark back to a pre-synthetic era. Every room has a large terrace where vintage planters' chairs with elongated legs, a holdover from the original hotel, provide restful perches for sundowners. This hotel stood in as the Hotel Le Phnom in the movie The Killing Fields, shot here in 1983, an event recalled by a photo of the film crew hanging in the lobby.

Over cappuccino in the Museum Coffee & Tea Corner, adorned with faded photographs and hotel memorabilia, a local tells me of Hua Hin's many attractions. Besides the beach with its ocean activities, there is the nearby Sam Roi Yot National Park, with wildlife and interesting caves, scenic waterfalls, the River Kwai only hours away by road, and Phetchaburi, a historic city
of temples and palaces.

There, the next morning, I track down the now abandoned Phra Ram Nivesan, (also called the Ban Puen Palace or Phra Ramrajunives Mansion) on the bank of the Phetchaburi River. Alone in the vast, empty rooms with few furnishings, padding around in stocking feet on the cool marble floors in the dim interior, I am struck by the abandoned, 19th-century mood. A German engineer, Carl Dohing, designed the building like a mansion in Europe where the king once stayed, and photos of royals from Austria touring the area in 1910 decorate the halls. As I leave, several Thai girls arrive, their voices echoing around the corridors.

From here, I skirt Bangkok heading north, driving through flat delta rice paddy country, past modern housing developments (in Greek or Tudor style) and along the muddy construction site of a new ring road. Ayutthaya, 76 kilometers north of Bangkok, was the Thai capital from 1350 to 1767. Slowed by the construction and confusion surrounding Bangkok, I arrive at Bang Pa-In -- the most colorful and best known of the royal palaces -- a half-hour after closing time. But the military guards exhibit the most endearing aspect of Thai bureaucracy - flexibility. I can't go in the main gate, but they let me past the police post to take a picture, and I have the run of the place for as long as I want.

This summer palace complex, dating back to 1632, is like a theme park of architectural styles -- a mix of classical Greek, Italian, Victorian, Imperial Chinese, even Swiss Cottage. With the fretwork and filigree, the overall result is partly Asian Carpenter's Gothic. Cherubs and traditional Greek-style statuary, women with lyres, even a stone gent in lederhosen, line a bridge crossing a pond from which a lavish classic Thai pavilion rises, island-like. But summers were too hot here for the royals. So, with the introduction of air travel in the 1920s, they summered in palaces in the cool northern mountains near Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.

Day four, I leave Highway 1, the fast main expressway crowded with trucks, buses and pickups speeding north, for Highway
2. The fine Friendship Highway that the Americans built during the Vietnam War slowly leaves behind the industrial south for the rural, open northeast region the Thais call Issan. It is here, beguiled by the two parallel strips of white concrete stretching across the green hills, rising and dipping to the contours of the earth, that I run into the police block.