Chapter 29: Siem Reap, a meditation on green.

Siem Reap, pronounced See-am Ray-Ap, is the site of the magnificant complex of Hindu and Buddhist temples at Angkor Wat. The authorities have identified some 300 or so temple
buildings, all built in the great Khmer empire 800-1200AD (roughly), but only some 30-40 have been excavated and opened to tourists. Though I'm pretty truly templed out by now, Angkor Wat and the other temples around Siam Reap are fabulous; everywhere giant lichen-mottled carved faces of one of the Buddha-kings smiling down at you from the stone mounts of the temples or city gates. Apparently during the most illustrious time of the Khmer empire, the Kings attended to matters of warfare and religion, leaving the Queens to deal with all matters civil and commercial. How sensible they were.

Our favorite temple is not actually Angkor Wat itself, but rather the one that's being slowly dismantled by the jungle, stone by stone. Huge white roots of enormous 300 year old trees threading through the stones of the temple like giant snakes. In fact, what was particularly
delightlful and totally unexpected was the greenery of Siam Reap, even at the very tail end of the dry season. But everywhere, huge impossibly tall trees, some 200-300 years old, so that everywhere, in front of the eyes, there is an ocean of emerald green, absolutely everywhere. It's hypnotic, meditation for the eyes. Meanwhile, the ears are lulled with the song of birds and the chirring of cicadaes.

At the sites, the girls selling T-shirts, post cards, cold drinks, are gorgeous. Though very persistent, and with voices (You buy? One dollah!) like dentists' drills, they are very sweet and usually collapse laughing after their hard-sell pitch collapses. This is a typical exchange, with a sweet 10-year old, with scarily good English.
You want T-shirt?
No thank you.
You want cold drink?
No thank you, I have one in the car.
Stomping her foot in mock frustration, she tries a different tack: Where are you from?
I'm from Canada.
Canada: a big country, very cold, capital Ottawa, two languages, French and English. Most people speak French.
Er, no, most people speak English, but gosh, your English and geography is good. Where did you learn?
I study hard. You want post card? 10 post cards, one dollah. Look here.
No thank you..
OK, maybe you buy later. You want bracelet for your girlfriend?
No thank you, I don't have a girlfriend.
OK, wife then
I don't have a wife either
I don't believe you.
It's true; I have neither girlfriend, nor wife.
OK, wait, I find you one.

So, the Cambodian people, who still think of themselves as Khmers, are absolutely gorgeous
personalities: super friendly and gentle. And outside they are gorgeous too, very exotic looking, like Vulcans.

A particular high point here was the ride on Gita around one of the major temple complexes, courtesy of Compagnie des Elephants d'Angkor. Despite her gender and tender age of just 14, her mottled grey and pink ears and the scattering of wiry bristles on her bald head gave her the appearance of some she had the appearance of a venerable old man of the country
village. Yet despite her appearance, I am rather smitten. As my feet dangled over the edge of the howdah, she lifted up her trunk to delicately smell my foot. What man could ask for more, from a girlfriend?

Lastly, omigod, it's freaking hot here; after stepping outside, our clothes are completely soaked through with sweat in 15 minutes. I have shaved my head to cope with the heat. Fortunately, there is respite at the gorgeous Sofitel where we are staying, with the best swimming pool I've ever been in: huge, bottle-green, full of flower filled islands and secret bays and coves. We wallow like hippos. In fact, my hippo mimicry has became pretty good, thanks to the Sofitel buffet; it's so goddamn difficult to choose when they present 3 complete different cuisines to
gorge from each evening. I tell the waiter that the six deserts on my plate are an optical illusion caused by the shimmering heat waves in the air, that it's a dessert mirage, but he doesn't get my pun. Thank god for the upcoming 7-day fast in Thailand is all I can say, because when I float on my back, my stomach protrudes from the water like a giant grotesque creme caramel.

Chapter 28: Borneo's high mountains and cute orangutans

Hello people, after long delay, the latest installment of the amazing spriritual and physical adventures of Max and Peter...

Borneo's orangutans came in from the east, cartwheeling upside-down along a rope strung between the trees: hand, hand, foot, foot, hand, pause in some weird contorted yogic position, hanging on the rope, to make sure the green pail of milk and the pile of bananas is still on the
feeding platform and check what pals are also coming down the line, then again it starts: hand, hand, foot, foot, hand, etc . There were perhaps 7-8 of young orangutans, with 96.4% of our DNA, and totally human eyes. These orangutans roam in the jungle, but they come in to feed every day at 10am and 3pm, a steady diet of bananas and milk. The diet is kept deliberately monotonous, in order to encourage them to roam and forage more widely. The young orangutans are part of a rehabilitation program at Sandakan wildlife sanctuary, after being rescued as orphans in the wild, or as pets.

The rehabilitation process takes years; they need to be taught everything. (At another center
I visited, for even less advanced students, Ms Pippy, an utterly winsome youngster about 3 years old, with a halo of flame red hair around her head, doesn't know how to climb. She looks shocked and hurt when her beloved keeper puts her up on a post near the feeding platform and she reaches out for him, to be taken back into his arms.) A mother orangutan typically keeps her youngster with her some 5-6 years; that's how long it takes to teach them how to survive in the jungle. Since their life span is only some 50 years, and they don't reach sexual maturity until their late teens, a mother can have 3-4 children maximum in her life. And since orangutans in the wild are solitary, now that wild populations have reached a certain critical low of only some 13,000 in the whole world, it's very hard for suitable breeding individuals to find each other,
so populations are crashing even further.

But Malaysian Borneo seems very organized, and trying hard. We felt encouraged, rather than discouraged. For example, despite good roads, the jungle seems largely intact, whereas in any other country it would have been logged down to just mud and weeds. On a subsequent boat tour of the mangroves, we had to report to the police in the mangroves, and we saw loads of wildlife including the bizarre proboscis monkey. It has a nose like a semi-erect penis, and a
huge pot-belly, to contain its two stomach chambers, one with specialized bacteria to handle the toxins in the mangrove leaves. Nifty!

Climbing Mount Kinabalu. After some 5 hours of steep climbing I am utterly whacked. My lungs are burning, and my 40-year old legs are in utter revolt. Climbing through jungle first, we
then emerged into a strange zone of twisted ancient grey trees, gnarly bushes, giant carniverous pitcher plants, and odd sudden mists. It was like a forest that one would expect to see in Lord of the Rings. Just minutes before the heavens opened, I made it to the lodge called Guntung Lagadan, where I will spend the night with my 3 Japanese bunk mates, before rising at 2am to climb the rest of the distance to the summit, to watch dawn over Borneo. I am hiking Mt Kinabalu, at 4095 m the highest peak in SE Asia, and probably the highest mountain I have ever climbed. It is cold up here, at Gunting Labadan, some 3km above sea level, especially compared to the hypertropic jungle of the coast, and I am woefully unprepared with
a thin sweat soaked t-shirt, and a Gap windbreaker. Even my pen has altitude sickness, exploding blue ink over my hands, book, and bed, when I opened it. The Japanese hikers have everything: toques, leg warmers, crampons, acres of Gortex, bells on their very expensive hiking boots (to follow each other in the dark presumably) and more.

Hiking Mt Kinabalu is 8.8 km distance from the starting point to the granite massif of Low's peak, and some 3km of elevation, so we are going up STEEEEEP! I rise at 2:30 - yes that's AM - have a quick cup of sweet coffee and head off. It's quiet, just the quiet murmuring of the Malay guides, the trickling of running water everywhere on the rocky slopes, and the bells of the Japanese. With all 150 or so the hikers threading their way up the granite rock face, in the dark with flashlights, it is in fact a strange spiritual pilgrimage of sorts. I'm so cold and sweaty that my arms are cramping as I haul myself up the ropes, but dawn at Low's peak is wonderful. One
shade of blue giving way to another, as the mountains roll off into the distance, with mist filling the valleys in between. At the horizon, by the sea, lemon curd clouds erupt with fire. I am exhilarated to be here at the top, despite the chill. I can see for miles and miles over Borneo and it's very, very, very cool to be here.

Chapter 27: Nepalicious

Who knew Nepal would be so nice? Perhaps Max did, but I went with no expectations and was delightfully surprised. Our local guide, PG, said Nepal people are "always smiley" and it's true. It is officially a Hindu country (80% of the population), but all the visible signs of religiosity in the streets seem to be Buddhist (15% of the population) and Kathmandu is just crawling with Buddhist monks in their yellow and maroon robes. In fact, coming on the plane to Nepal I sat next to a frickin' Buddhist monk, who said to me, with clear delight and reverence, "Ah, little mosquito on the plane" and then gently wafted the mosquito in his palm away from him into the air, just as Max surged half way out of his seat to vigorously smash one against the cabin wall.

I guess it's the Buddist reverence for all things living, though I did note that the Buddhist monk tucked into his chicken curry with real gusto. There were also a couple of Buddhist monks sitting comfortably in first class (as well as vast numbers in the 5-star Hyatt that we were staying at. Still, they gave good vibe, which I could really feel, flowing out from them all.

Anyway, in Nepal Hinduism and Buddhism have coexisted harmoniously for thousands of years, helped perhaps by Hindus' belief that Buddha was an incarnation of one of their 300 million gods. 'Struth! That's the number of gods, apparently, in Hinduism, although there are
three main ones: Brahma (creation), Vishnu (protection) and Shiva (destruction). However, they apparently have different incarnations and names, so it's all very confusing and despite my repeated questions to PG, I was never really able to get it straight. Ganesh, the elephant god with the fat belly is the god of prosperity.

Personally, I think it's kind of surprising that the two religions get on so well in Nepal beause Hinduism is really just such an elaborate fantasy, as Max so aptly put it, while Buddhism makes just such intellectual and spiritual sense, as a philosophy and a way of life, even though
Buddhism as practiced in Nepal has a lot of the stuff which I just can't quite get my head around (e.g. praying to statues, offerings of fruit, etc to icons, etc, etc), belief that only sandalwood incense can take a message to "The Lord Buddha".

Still, there are more differences than similarities between the two religions, and differences are really quite fundamental. Here's one: the Hindus practice ghastly animal blood sacrifice to the goddess Kali. We went to witness it. I think it's the first time I've ever seen an animal (other than mosquitoes of course) actually die before my eyes. It was pretty ruthless; they bent the goat's head backwards to expose the throat, and then sawed through it, directing the spurting scarlet arterial blood to spray all over the statue of Kali. It was more than a little disturbing,
because the goat's mouth continued to move soundlessly for some 30 seconds after it's head had been physically removed from the body. Also, I was right in it's slightline and I could swear firstly, that it was looking directly at me, and secondly, that I could see the life ebb out of its eyes. Still, I suppose it's death was no worse than that which earlier befell my filet mignon that I tucked into later that evening, but I still can't help but feel that the very idea of blood sacrifice is barbaric.

Did you know that there is a Hindu parallel to the Dali Lama? She's Kumari, the living goddess, and she lives in a gorgeous sandalwood palace in Durbar Square in old Kathmandu. She is selected at the age of 3 or 4 from a number of girls in some rite of passage, and thereafter venerated by Hindus, even the one billion plus of them in India, as a living goddess. Even the
King of Nepal is (constitutionally or traditionally, I was never sure which) obliged to consult her for advice. She gets carried everywhere on a palanquin, but her grand lifestyle is only temporary. First menstruation, and she's out, back to the fields. For, as always in these poor countries, it's the women who get the really back-breaking work. For the terraced plots that scale the steep mountain sides are too awkward and too small for animal or mechanical power to be practical, even if it was affordable. So everywhere we would see women - red saries like poppies against the green landscape - using scythes to cut the golden wheat harvest and then to prepare the earth for the maize planting by turning the sod over by hand with a pick ax, clod by clod. (There are three crops per year in the fertile earth, wheat now, then maize, then rice, after the rains).

But poor Kumari! What a mind-fuck it must be to believe you're a living goddess and to be venerated by even the King and carried everywhere on a palanquin (for she is not allowed to walk), and then all of a sudden to be chucked out to hoe the fields like all the other peasant women. As if menstruation wasn't bad enough! However, PG told me that the government recently decided to give the families of these former "living goddesses" some ongoing financial assistance, and some education for the former goddess herself.

Central Kathmandu, old Kathmandu is a UNESCO world heritage site and quite staggeringly beautiful, with beautifully carved sandalwood palaces and temples, windy cobbled streets and hidden squares. And as a complete contrast, country-side walks showed a peaceful way of life that hasn't changed in hundreds of years. Can't describe it; you'll have to wait for the photos, of which Max took a great many.

And the highlight of our trip to Nepal: Buddha Air flight 102 to Everest! The Himalayas were just awesome: serene, no trace of man evident on their cold flanks, plumes of ice blowing off their peaks in the bright sunshine. Seried ranks of mountains the colour of smoke, night, snow, and all shades of blue. The occassional bright green glacial lake, in the rocky valleys deep between the mountains, probably never touched by man. The peak of Everest was wrapped in a
little wispy veil of cloud, as though the mountain were shy, not wanting to reveal her face. A big, big, big high.