Kanchanaburi: Inventory on the River Khwae

by Brent Katte | 2009

I'm walking down a backstreet, an alley flanking Thannon Saengchuto, the main road in town, heading back to the guesthouse, my established domain, peace and quiet. The night market was a wash—the same old things, same old smells, same old scene. I'm going back to refresh before setting out again, for the evening, for pleasure, a chance at happiness, which tonight will likely be BeerChang and stabs at connection. I'm half-here now, only half in the frame; where I am, where I'm going, what I'm passing. The rest is contemplating and mulling, doting on; at times sliding into brooding. I don't like this, how I'm not even staying in the places I'm at these days before moving on internally; how I've taken to categorization so early and am eager to avoid what could be repetitive, even though this itself is just that. I don't like how I believe I've done it already because it looks the same. I know it's not—but know it is, in ways. I'm wondering if it's me, the overriding factor, a misguided constant in the supposed change that's engulfing me every other morning, every bed and check-in, check-out. I'm wondering if there's something wrong here, because I'm supposed to be content, ecstatic-thrilled beyond words to be doing what I'm doing. And I am, but I'm not. I'm glad, but not subsumed. I'm appreciative, but not taken. I feel tinges of what I know I should, but still feel far away.

I'm thinking about why I'm doing this, the backroads through Southeast Asia, the reasons, and a lot of them involve knocks at contentment. I'm realizing that for myself, happiness tends to be mostly a vampish seduction, more one-night stand than lover, more ephemeral than my lust's appetite, something never around too long. I'm thinking of how I've accepted this, rationalized it, tried to see it detached and removed, stoically. I'm thinking of how sad this doorway was, and how long ago. I'm thinking I'm too smart to keep chasing mirages, too aware to truly expect what I'd like to believe in, yet here I am still looking, still sure of something's existence and my odds on finding it. I wonder if the search is for something I've lost or something I just haven't found yet, and wonder if there's really that much difference.

Without really knowing it or planning it, just flowing, I've turned west, angling down Thannon Lak Meuang, past the city center, the retail quarter, more feral dogs, durians, petrol stands, tuk-tuks. I'm not really here, if I'm honest, just sort of tracing backwards, swimming back to the start of this trip, trying to see my face at the beginning. I'm looking backwards because it seems like I've forgotten how to look forwards, and am maybe stuck on something, some part of myself, some welding of me and a moment, some kind of false forever. I want to be happy, know what it means, forget what it doesn't, be who I've dreamt of being, find out if that person's on this trip.

Soon I'm passing a wat, another, probably the fifth today—I've stopped counting. The property is on a corner, facing both my road and Thannon Song Khwae, the street perpendicular to me, the one flanking the Mae Nam Khwae Yai and its famous bridge. The property is open, inviting, the wat set back towards the rear, the south and west sides dotted with palms and stupas. I decide to cut through at an angle, have a look. I start to make for the other side of the street, choose an entrance, see her. She's as ubiquitous as the wats themselves, the lady with the caged birds, jailer and liberator, capitalist of extreme juxtapositions. I don't want her to see me, try to sell me, but I know she has, know she will. We both play the same game on approach, me pretending not to see her, her pretending she hasn't been scorned. The last few steps are familiar, the motions and feelings an echo, the song tired and sad.

I decline her offer, won't be buying a sparrow its temporary freedom today. I shun the lady and her imploring, turn my back on the prostrate luck so cheaply within my grasp. I'm thinking a lot of things as I move away, am mostly anchored in reproach and trying to step free of its judgments. For the most part it's the sad little birds in the cages that are pissing me off, the unfortunate avians destined to be some dumb bastard's sellout, some kind of obscene fiscal spirituality. Then it's the contradictions, glaring and pretty obvious, ugly and obnoxious. This is just about as anathema as you could hope to get to the idea, any idea, of Buddhism. But it's for sale, right on its front step. The perversity of the situation is enveloping, the sheer absurdity of it laughable, if it wasn't so depressing. And it is.

I'm walking through the yard, skating through this life, seeing several orange shrouds, several young novices, doing their daily jobs, for their daily reasons, for their lifelong reasons—I don't know. It's a curious life, this one, and I'm wondering about motive. Why are they here, these kids? What draws them, brings them, keeps them? The education, the rainy season ordination, the promises, desperation?

Happiness?

At heart I know that most kids are here because of the education and the resources. I know that most of the young adults are doing their obligatory year or two. I know that wats form the central part of communities in this country. Because I can't speak Thai I don't know anything more than my own observations, research, and experiences—what I think I know. I know this isn't much.

But walking through the grounds, I'm seeing the same thing I've been seeing since I got here, and I'm growing a little more comfortable in my grapplings, in my appraisals—one of them at least. There is a constant in these wats, something I'm starting to take for granted.

It's the smiles. The smiles and the lightness that shadows these children. The grins that never fail to surface when they see me. The smiles that paint them when I see them unawares. The smiles that wear these kids as much as they wear them, the ones that never fail to impress. The ones that have just now, plastered all over a group of kids near the main stupa.

I'm nearly through the lot, almost about to rejoin the street, when a young boy leaves the group and ambles up, wearing the standard saffron and the standard grin. I stop and we chat a few minutes in broken English. He's eleven, likes the Yankees, California, Keanu Reeves. His job today is to feed the chickens and weed the garden. He likes his life. He doesn't have much. This is his home.

I tell him I like Thailand, love Kanchanaburi. And I do. It's an inviting, peaceful town resplendent in green. The pace is slow, sleepy, the people friendly, life relaxed and unhurried. I love the quiet and the trees and the sensuality of the flowers that frame all views. I love the informality and apparent honesty, the simplicity and contentment floating on the surface. It's a nice contrast with Bangkok and a lot of the past few weeks. I'm glad to be here, and am a tad reluctant to fly to Cambodia tomorrow, even if the night market doesn't inspire. Truth is, I'd like to spend tomorrow lounging by the river, reading, thinking, compartmentalizing the Thailand I've gotten to know over the last month. I'm set to go and it won't be a surprise, but I still haven't packed, mentally. I'll get to it later.

I say goodbye, turn down Song Khwae, next to the river, heading north back to the guesthouse. After a couple minutes, a little past where the Mae Nam Khwae Yai forks into the Mae Nam Khwae Noi and the Mae Nam Mae Klong, the road veers right, and turns unpleasant, heading back towards the markets and the Allied War Cemetery. I stop for a minute, think about options.

Dusk, a slow, dripping dusk, is descending as I walk down the alley next to the river. There is no concrete here, just rich, mahogany dirt, slightly damp and heavy. On my left the bank slopes abruptly down to the river, itself obscured by towering tamarind trees and assorted brush. The right is a loose collection of backyards and the odd garage, sometimes peopled, sometimes patrolled by dogs and chickens. There's an odd silence in the alley, odd for an unclear reason, but palpable all the same. Walking slowly, very cognizant of my own steps, I'm thinking it must be because it's just about quitting time, and most people aren't back from their labors yet. The insects accompany me, ubiquitous flies and rousing mosquitoes. Frogs have started talking. The evening rhythm is beginning, this day almost over, and my thoughts are being kidnapped by the gloaming, spirited away from diurnal concerns, changing gears.

I see them a couple minutes later, up ahead, the kids. From a distance it looks like they're playing hopskotch, a variation on it anyway. The shorter boy takes notice and informs the others, but the sentry's actions don't trigger anything other than quick glimpses and audible shouts and laughter. But not too much, as they resume their game with enthusiasm, not terribly concerned at all with the big farang coursing down their alley.

I slow down deliberately on approach, just to observe, see what they're up to. It's a game like hopskotch, and the court's in the middle of the alley, crudely drawn in the dirt. There are four kids, three boys and a girl, all around 10 years old, in varying states of clothing, that clothing in various states of deterioration. They look, at first glance, pretty poor, in definite want. This is at first glance.

There's something inviting in their motions, something welcoming, something simply endearing. After the initial sighting, they've all but forgotten about me, the lumbering foreigner, rich beyond their wildest dreams, perhaps tormented as well. I'm looking around at the setting, taking it all in, putting them in the picture, putting the picture in me, framing things. My immediate thoughts are on childhood and its bliss, the great removedness from the adult mess we all move to some day. Watching them play, looking around, I'm thinking that this very well could be their future—this alley, this place, this poverty. I'm thinking that it's more than likely, highly probable really, and if so what are the odds of them feeling like they do now ten years down the line? I know it's apples and oranges and exponentially complicated and not even a fair question, but at heart, I'm wondering just how often these kids will smile like this when they get older.

At second glance, maybe third, maybe eighth, I've stopped walking towards them, holding back about fifteen yards down the alley, fumbling for a cigarette, attempting to make it look like they're not the reason I've stopped. Looking at them this time, I don't see the timeline so much, am not picturing them twenty years down the road. They're just here now. Like me. We're here, the big kid and the little ones, playing different games, but playing all the same. And now I'm taken by the sheer pleasure that engulfs them, the utter simplicity of their joy. The purity. The gratitude. How it makes me smile. How I am. Their want is not so definite now.

Halfway down, my pleasant observations gain momentum and weight, become ruminations. I'm taken out of their game, back into the alley, into the surroundings, all I know and think I do. And I'm elsewhere as well, back in California, talking with a girlfriend's son; back in Seattle, watching myself, drifting in and out of memories, collecting the tickets.

He's a kid right now, not too much older than these kids, and the only one I can truly say I've spent a considerable amount of time around. He's a kid. He wants things. A lot of things. He's up and down a lot. Mood swings, the tides, whatever. Sometimes he's happy. Sometimes he smiles. But not usually like this.

I was this age too. I was a kid. I wanted things. A lot of things. An awful lot of things. Usually the wrong ones, the seasonal ones, fleeting ones. Fashions. A lot of the time I got them. A lot of the time I was happy. Satisfied. A lot of the time I smiled. But rarely like this. There was too much to want. More. It's what I did then.

It's a lot of what I do now.

I don't spend too much time putting me at eleven years into this picture, because part of me already has before with others and knows the answers, the empty truths, the bare walls and empty spaces. But I can't stop imagining her son, however unfairly, however out of context. Brand names come rushing out at me, trends and hype—those absurd demands. A rock, I'm thinking. The toy is a rock and a rough sketch, some friends, a few rules. And it's working. Back home the only thing that can work right now is an Xbox or an iPod. And then only for a while. Things'll change. It'll be something else in six months, a different thing he'll insist on having. The scene will be the same; the props different, but the motions familiar.

As I get closer, the smaller boy throws wide and loses his stone in the underbrush. He shrieks, and wastes no time at all in dropping to his knees, searching determinedly. I've been watching them quite closely for a bit now, and have a fairly good idea of what his rock looks like. I say hello and get down to it, tossing my pack aside and joining them in the hunt. And the kids are kids. This isn't strange for them at all, this help. Foreigner or not, adult or not, what's important is that slate-gray oval gone missing. This is the simple truth, and it feels good to be hunched over in it, severed from peripheral distractions and concerns, comparisons and contrasts, investigations and variables.

The girl yells something, probably that she's got it, and I note a twinge of regret when her announcement is confirmed. For some reason I wanted to be that person. I wanted to find it and give it back. I wanted to play a role.

But almost as if I'm not even there, the kids scramble to resume their game, and I'm left marveling at the immediacy of childhood and its concerns, grinning dumbly at the totality of their world and my aloofness in it. They wave me goodbye. I smile back at them, understand something, turn and go.

I'm walking back to the guesthouse now, in a falling dark, on an unlit road. I'll head back and shower, have some dinner, venture out for conversation, drinks. It will be different now, I'm thinking, different because of them, because of their recalibration. I'm realizing that I did play a role, however minimal or unsung. I'm realizing that they had their roles as well, those kids. They had their roles and so much more, in that game, in that alley. Far from want, they were happy, and I passed through that, got some on me. I've been smiling for the last few minutes. I've just noticed. I'm amused.

I'm heading back, and I'm all here right now, on this road, in this town, in this moment, this appreciation. I'm not anywhere else, not even back in the alley. I'm here, on this trip, remembering why I started it in the first place, remembering to be where I am, to allow myself that richness. I'm free right now. I'm happy. I'm where I need to be.

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