"Go a-way! Go a-way!"

- Ajaan Rien, paraphrasing the first King of Siam

Two weekends ago, we packed up all of our belongings, tried really hard to make them all fit back into our suitcases (mostly everyone failed), and moved to the hostel located on CMU's campus - Uniserv. This move was necessitated by the lack of air-conditioning and over 95 degree weather that started a week or so before we left and should continue to rise until after we leave in April.

As soon as our luggage was safely in Uniserv storage, we headed out (all 12 of us from Coe and a group of five A-jaans from CMU) in two vans to survey the sites of Sukhothai and other ancient cities. The Dean of the Humanities - Ajaan Rien - was a tour guide before landing his cushy job at Maw-Chaw, so he was able to tell us all of these amazing (and sometimes not so amazing stories) about the places we were visiting. Some of the basics:

Before Thailand became Thailand, back in the 12th century or so (Europe's middle ages, he reminded us), the first Kingdom of Siam was founded, with it's capital in Sukhothai. Other related kingdoms include Ayudaya and Lanna. Both Ayudaya and Lanna were founded after Sukothai, and eventually Ayudaya became dominant. But Sukhothai was first, so it still maintains a lot of prestige (unlike Lanna, which is important to the Northern Thais and some Lao, but not really anyone else, apparently). While most of Sukhothai and its satellite cities - S... something and Pitsanulok, which I'm sure I misspelled, was burned down by the invading Burmese army during the Ayudaya period, the temples still remain. Why the temples you ask? Well - in Sukhothai, there were three classes of building - those for normal people, those for royalty, and the temples - and each of these classes were made with differing building materials. The Palace was built with teak wood, and normal buildings were made from bamboo and thatch, so they either were burned down by the Burmese, or decayed over time. The Temples on the other hand are special and were made of stone, dug from the ground - natalite... or latelite... something like that, so they're still standing.

Ajaan Rien told us how the French - the first Farang in Thailand - didn't believe the Thais when they said they dug the stone from the ground. It looks a lot like volcanic rock, and Thailand is mountainous, so the French said "No, you got that stone from the volcano." To which the Thais said "Silly farang. There are no volcanos in Thailand." Rather the stone is found 2-3 meters below the ground soil. When it is in the ground, it is somewhat clay like and a little pliable, allowing blocks to be cut out. Once above ground they bake and harden in the sun and then are solid as other rocks and used to build temples.

There is a lot of Khmer (Cambodian) and Chinese influence in the architecture of the time. These two groups both worked to influence, and in the case of the Khmer, control the area. As an act of defiance against the Khmer, the later buildings are almost all in a pseudo-Chinese style, called Sukhothai style. This creativity in architecture and decoration was meant to show that the Thai kingdom was separate and independent from the Khmer kingdom, similar to the Declaration of Independence, but minus the Revolutionary War. Apparently the Khmer didn't care about North/Central Thailand that much.

In Sukhothai we saw what is supposed to be the most beautiful image of the walking Buddha. It was pretty nice; huge too. But as we biked around the park containing all the Sukhothai ruins, Patrica, Emily, Holly and I found one that we decided was more beautiful. It was smaller, much more graceful and actually caught the movement of "walking," unlike the big one, which just looked like Buddha standing. The four of us also sneaked off the beaten path to a quiet corner, found an empty pedestal (you'd be surprised how easy that was!) and formed the group of us into our own huge "subduing Mara" (evil, the devil) Buddha. Then P, E, and H posed as the Holy Family, to ensure we were equal-opportunity blasphemers.

Just outside the old city of Sukhothai, we saw the biggest Buddha image in Thailand (maybe anywhere?). If I had been standing on its pedestal, Buddha's knee (as he sits crosslegged, lotus-style) would have hit right around my upper arm or shoulder. We're talking gi-normous Buddha. Gi-normous Buddha is known in Thai as the Talking Buddha, and not because his pose is of Buddha giving a sermon or anything. No, Buddha's just doing his usual thing - Subduing Mara. The story of the talking Buddha is my favorite from the trip, and goes a little something like this:
One day, the Burmese army comes invading - as the Burmese army is wont to do according to Thai history. (I'm pretty sure if they taught history in Burma/Myanmar, they would say the same about the Thais, but since they don't (which is another post entirely), who can say?) And the King (I believe it is the king of Ayudaya at this point, but don't quote that), he's having none of this "invading, burning everything down and taking all your land" business, so he runs ahead of his troops and tries to cut the Burmese army off before they can burn down Sukhothai. The King thinks to himself, "Hey, the Burmese army isn't going to listen to my plea, so how else can I get them to leave us alone?" Then he finds himself at the gi-normous Buddha, and decided that perhaps the Burmese would listen to an order from Lord Buddha himself. So, the industrious King scrambles behind the gi-normous Buddha (supposedly seconds before the Burmese would have seen him, if Ajaan Rien's retelling is to be believed), and starts bellowing "Go a-way! Go a-way! Leave! Leave!" The Burmese army is reluctant to attack in the face of a giant, "talking" Buddha telling them to scat, so they peace out and live to pillage another day.

Isn't that great?! I love it.

Another fun moment was when Ajaan Rien was explaining why the windows in the temple were so small and narrow - "We Thai people were not so good at maths" was the inital response. When that warranted blank looks, he explained more thoroughly, that they hadn't discovered how to build larger windows and hold the roof up at the same time - much like medieval castles in Europe. The phenomenon had never been put to us in that fashion before, and it caught us off-guard.

When not touring ancient ruins, we ate a lot of Northern Thai food, drove a lot, and spent a ton of time in hotel swimming pools (usually playing chicken). The weather that weekend was wicked hot (forecasted over 110) and you would drip just from being outside, so the pool was really the only place to be.

Returning to Chiang Mai and Uniserv we discovered the main drawback to moving - less internet, which is why the posting has fallen completely off the band wagon. One project for the week - Get caught up before we leave for Vietnam. :)