LOPBURI

The train to Lopburi was what I remembered about the Thailand of 24 years ago. Darkness out both sides of the train except for the occasional single light bulb that lit a house or small village. We stopped several times and could hear the insect sounds of the fields. In the distance we could occasionally see the dry rice stalks burning and smell the smoke of the fires.

I sat next to a fellow who worked for the government in Bangkok. He was in a department for environmental protection. I asked him if things were improving on a general scale and he said things were still getting worse but at a much slower rate than they used to. He also seemed to be a genuinely good person and we visited about all kinds of things until he got off at one of those stops that was only a bulb in the darkness.

The street in front of the train station in Lopburi was lined with food vendors. The smells of barbequed meats, simmering soups, and roasted nuts filled the air. Here we found our first rhodies and watched the two young girls make them. They start with a pre-made ball of dough, the contents of which are uncertain. Each time we asked what was in them we got a different answer. For sure though, they contain flower – what kind (rice, wheat, etc.) is still a mystery. The girls spread them out with lightning fast hands, flipped them to spread them to a paper-thin thickness, and then dropped them on a hot flat skillet. As the shell puffed up they folded them over – sometimes cracking an egg and mixing it inside. Then they would pour condensed milk over them, sprinkle on sugar and roll them into a burrito. They were delicious and cost about a quarter apiece.

We had a couple of fruit drinks and then walked to the center of town to the hotel. 200 Bhat ($5.50) for a room with a fan (no aircon). It was simple but adequate. The bathroom had a pipe with a shower head and one temperature of water. The toilet was a genuine squatter but with a pressurized flush instead of a large clay pot of water and a dipping bowel.

Next morning we walked around trying to find a place to rent bicycles or motorcycles but didn’t have any luck. After walking through the open market and taking pictures of all the different types of vegetables, meat, rice and food stuffs we found a bicycle shop. It’s hard to remember but I think it was the same one that Al and I had bought our missionary bikes at years earlier. We looked at a couple of models and the owner was unwilling to rent any of them – even at a high price.

He finally showed us a bike that we could buy for $50 brand new. We reasoned that we could take them on the train with us to Chiang Mai and have bikes for a week and that brought the price down to a reasonable per day rate. We changed some money at the bank across the street (again the same place we had opened accounts before). The process took forever to change travelers checks. The teller, while waiting, asked if I had a Thai wife. I said, ‘No.’ She said the woman next to her was available and had never married. I said I had a girlfriend already. She said I could still have a Thai wife and wanted to know if I thought her associate was pretty. ‘Of course she is,’ I said, ‘Very pretty.’

They assembled our bikes and just like 24 years ago, they only had one male and one female model. It didn’t matter. They threw in locks and chains, little key rings, and soft cloths to wipe off the dust. We were off and rolling and first rode to the monkey temple which sits in the middle of a traffic circle at the gate to the old city. We didn’t see any monkeys so asked a group of soldiers that were sitting at the gate where the monkeys were. ‘They have gone on a picnic,’ one said (the one that was brandishing a pistol). They pointed across the street to the ‘three peaks’ temple and we could see monkeys all over it. I just had to ask if the pistol was real because of everyone he was pointing it at and though it looked authentic, it was only a toy.

Legend has it that the Hindu monkey god shot his arrow into the air and where it landed the earth turned white. Lopburi has lots of white mineral deposits and hence it is also home to the monkeys. From a distance they look cute but as you get closer many of them appear diseased. They were jumping all over Alan while he was videoing them.

Saam Yood (three peaks) is actually the remains of a Khmer (Cambodian) temple and predates much of the Thai architecture. It was built of lava like stones and has survived in great shape since the 14^th century.

We next rode out to where our first house was. On the way I heard Al yell and turned back to find that one of his pedal cranks had come off. The bikes weren’t much for quality – the pedals slipped and the seats though they started out soft were soon unbearably uncomfortable. Al walked back along the busy road until he found the nut and pin that had dropped out and we nursed our bikes out to a mechanic shop where a young man fixed his and tightened mine for free.

The area where we used to live had been almost farmland. I remembered riding along the klong with a full moon as the only light. Now the area was the ‘new city’ of Lopburi. Several story buildings, hotels, shops, heavy traffic and lots of exhaust fumes. We easily found the old Lopburi estate with gated entry, fruit trees, and spacious yard. It looked like it hadn’t been painted for a while and was a little run down but people were still living there.

We pedaled a few blocks and found the current chapel with one request for directions – it was a house right behind us. No one was there so we rode around for a while looking for things but nothing looked familiar anymore. Finally, sore from riding, we coasted into a temple area, found some shady grass under a palm tree and took a nap. There were a couple of monks tending the flower gardens and sweeping the courtyards but they didn’t pay us any attention.

Toward evening we went back to the church and met the elders coming down the soi. One was an Elder Roberts from Salt Lake and the other was a Thai elder from the northeast named Damrong. They were there to conduct a baptism interview so we met the branch president and had a good visit with him. He was a bank worker, about 29 and still single. He said the missionaries had been gone from there for about two years and had just been assigned back in the last couple of months. There were lots of inactive members but he said it was getting better.

We asked him about our old maid, Somkit, and he said she hadn’t been out in a long time. He knew where she lived and he offered to take us there. As we pulled up, she was sitting in the window threading the orange flowers that are sold in the market to place on the spirit houses. I don’t think she recognized us at first but as we started talking she remembered. ‘We had so much fun in those days,’ she said. We met her daughter Chuli who had been about three years old and was now a school teacher. By the time we left she was smiling and laughing again and it was just like old times.

We pedaled as hard as we could back into the city (another reminder of racing home at night). We kept our bikes in our room and picked up the laundry from the desk on our floor. We were on the fourth floor and it appears that a family or person is assigned to each floor. They just live there in the hall on a big bed and clean the rooms, do the laundry, and sell water if you need it.

Next morning we went to the train station early to see about seats to Chiang Mai. Right off we learned that we couldn’t take the bikes on the train. There were no buses and so we had to decide what to do with them. We went back to the shop where we bought them and offered to sell them for half price – one day old with no accidents and they still weren’t interested. ‘Adults don’t ride bikes anymore,’ the owner’s wife said. That fact had escaped us but it was true. Adults used to ride bikes everywhere but now the only thing they rode were motorcycles.

We finally decided to take them to Somkit. She wasn’t home but we told the neighbor that she could have them, keep them, or sell them – whatever she wanted. I hope it wasn’t a burden to her.

The train to Chiang Mai was supposedly standing room only to Nakorn Sawan but the helpful stewardess (I guess that’s what you call the train equivalent of plane help) found us seats together right off. The countryside was beautiful in a peaceful sort of way. As we rolled further north, the agricultural landscape would alternate between dry rice stalks and flooded rice paddies.

Occasionally there were be a small hill and a village at the foot of it. Often there was a giant seated Buddha perched on the hill top with a protective view of the surrounding countryside. In the brown ponds next to the train tracks men and women were dragging the bottoms with nets for fish. The multipurpose hand tractors with cleated tires and plows were converted to portable water pumps that lifted water to the rice paddies.

It was interesting to note that even in different parts of the country there were unique forms of transportation. In Ayudhya the tuktuks had a round hooded front that seemed to be unique to the area. In one of the towns we passed, the prevalent transportation was a tricycle with a motorcycle front end and a pedacab back end.

As we moved further north, we started into the mountains. Vegetation was more dense, there were banana trees and occasional hill villages. There were fires in lots of places and paths that lead off through the undergrowth. I drank in the kilometers and watch the vibrant gold and green colors from the light of the setting sun.