CHAMPASK

CHAMPASAK

Laos DPR


I arrived in Champasak in the relative luxuary of my own tuktuk. After
discusion with yesterday's driver I decided to retain his services for a
further day.

The plan was to be picked up when I wanted to be and drive the hour out
to Champasak, find a guest house and then go out to the ancient ruins
before being dropped back at the guest house.


I would save the cost of a tuktuk to the bus station, bus fare, walking
around Champasak to find a place to stay (no cost, just hot and slow),
tuktuk to the ruins (70,000 to 80,000 kip ?). Effectively I paid double
the cost to have my own driver, but considering the heat etc I feel it
was worth it. And in NZ dollars it was not as expensive as it sounds.


There was a good new road from Pakse to Champasak, but then it changed!
I had selected a guest house from Lonely Planet and it seemed to meet
the drivers approval as being ok. It was quick to find and although
there were two others booking in ahead of me, there was a room. Room six
was a double bed unit at the road end of a group of rooms. It had its on
little terrace for me to sit out on in the evening cool and watch the
passing trraffice – when there was any. Ensuite was larger than many I
have had and there was a good flow of hot water. The reception office
come lounge had make your own Lao coffee avaibable a refrigerator of
cold drinks and yogurt. There was a stand of junk food but also some
individual serve packets of what appeared to be local breakfast cereals.
What I thought was small packets of fruit juice with attached straw,
turned out to be fruit flavoured long life yogurt drinks.


We made the 10 kms out to Wat Phu Champasak (a local leaflet spells if
Vat Phou), along the main road, which was waves mounds, ups and downs
and potholes – great numbers of them. And damp muddy areas. It would
have been great training for rodeo riding!


Wat Phu is a World Heritage site and is considered to be a very
important example of Angor era sites. However, this is a much much
smaller cmplex than Ankor Wat and is less well preserved. Or perhaps,
less reconstructed? Even in the off season there was a good flow of
tourists visiting (30,000kip). My driver suggested two hours and I found
that a suitable time, perhaps another half an hour but as I was a slow
mover taking photos along the way, most visitors would cover the site in
under the two hours.

Wat Phu is built on the side of a Phou Kao Mountain. There are three
levels to the complex; Lower, Middle,Upper – which makes natural sense.

The Lower level includes a large and picturesque rectangular Baray. This
is the term for a man made reservior used by worshipers to wash
themselves before entering the temple. It is a purifying ritual for mind
and body. In acnient times the water for the baray came from sacred
springs in the mountain and flowed on out from the baray to be used to
irrigate local farms.


After the baray are the base rocks of what once would have been a wall
and ceremonial gate. From the gate a long ceremonial road or prominade
leads to the next level. This road is raised up on a bung like causeway
which seperates what were once a pair of Baray but now are fairly swampy
or in places dried out. Either side of the ceremonial road are a series
of head high colums with what I am told is a lotus flower shape on top
of each. Well that could be but from the distance I had decided that
they were phallic symbols, this being a Hindu temple.


The ceremonial riadway continues up a few steps to the middle level and
passes between the remains of a pair of large stone worship pavillions
which are sometimes called 'palaces'. Even though small fences keep you
away from the remains, it is still possible to spot the Hindu style and
carvings on parts of the buildings. Although the outer walls remain and
some small towers, several parts are propped up by strong timber beams.
No roof remanins intact. They seemed to each have had a central
courtyard and some rooms off it. Particularly Shiva is the 'featured'
god along with Vishnu and Parvati.


Behind one of these palaces is a further pavilion called the Nandi
Pavilion which Italian archaeologists and restorers are slowing working
on. Nandi was Shiva's bull. The interesting thing for me was that there
is a theory that this pavilion is at one end of a road connecting it to
Ankor Wat – just a mere 280 km roadway. These ancients did things in a
grand way. But it also makes us pause and consider the sort of advanced
civilisation they must have had.


There are a couple of stairways to climb to reach the top level. One is
big and steep with the stone steps varing in width, from narrow to very
narrow in my judgement. I sort of felt that the steps were more modern
construction as on either side were lateritic stone blocks which looked
like the pattern of ancient steps. As it was I found that they made
excellent 'hand rails' to help balance my climb up and descent later.
Fortunately also, there were two or three 'landings' where you could
pase for breath or gain confidence to continue the steep climb. In the
grass on either side are various stone blocks and I located a couple of
headless and armless statues which I read were called dvarapala statues.
No others this large are known anywhere in the Angkor ruins.


Well finally the top is reached and with it a smallish half ruined half
retained sanctury complete with a mumber of Hindu stutues carved into
the stone work and lintel. While this was originally dedicated to Shiva,
today there is a statue or two or three of Buddha. The largest in the
rare and a couple smaller ones in front. On the altar are burning
inscence, flowers, and offerings. There is a donation box for cash.
There are several of these located around the ruins – as are a few other
Buddha statues of varing quality.


Once there was a series of pipes and channels bringing water from the
sacred springs (largely just drips when I was there), to the temple,
where it washed over a Shiva lingam (which I always think is a word for
pennis), before descending down to lover levels.


I went up to the small cave or undercut in the smooth rock face of the
mountianside. There was a small offering area and a couple of troughs
catching the drips.


I also found a place which was supposed to be a spring. On the flat
verticle rockface was carved an elephant and nearby and engraved Buddha
statue.


But I didn't find the look alike Elephant or Crocodile Rocks. Nor did I
see the Buddha footprint. But then by that stage my guide leaflet had
dropped from my pocket and I had forgotten to look for them.


There were great views of the river flats along the Mekong from this
level. Ver flat and fertile looking. Lots of green of growing rice.
Apparently at this level I was 75 metres above the Baray. UM, it seemed
much higher than that.

My Panasonic LX5 camera has a panorama assist setting, so I thought that
this would be a good place to try it out. I knew nothing about it but
realised that when set it supperimposed a light version of the edge of
the previous shot so that you could place that image over the same spot
for the next edge in the following picture. Should work although I have
yet to try to actually link them up on my computer.


Going down the steps required as much care as going up – just a bit less
energy.


Looking back now on the visit I realise that there is much more I could
have seen. An exhibition Hall and the layout of a large ancient city
which was associated with the temple complex.


A stop for lunch in a local cafe where I had a mince pork filled
omelete. Tatsed nice and filled the whole plate for about $3NZ.


After all of that walking in the heat, it seemed a good idea to return
along the bouncy road to the guest house and the fan to cool down. Along
the road we found a grader spreading shingle into the potholes and wavey
indentations. We needed to stop for the traffic hold up and that is were
the tuktuk broke down. The driver could fire the ignition but not kick
the engine into action. Needless to say plenty of local males apperared
to help out. They pushed it to try and do a running start. Then they
pushed it back again. In the end having lifted engine covers here and
there I believe it was the accelerator tension spring had come loose.
Once reatteached and the engine was working again and off we went past
the grader. I didn't hold out much hope for a long life for the hole
filling though.


Around 4pm I went for a 90 minute stoll along the village road to see
what the place was like.

Essentially Champasak is a long line of houses space and official
buildings one deep along the river bank side and not much more than the
same on the other side as well. There are a scattering of guest houses
of a variety of apparent quality and a couple small but modern hotels.
There are some French colonial style grand villas but these may not be
all that old. One had the date 1958 on its side – I thought for a moment
it was 1858. This villa houses an Italian resturant which uses it home
grown vegetables and mome ade sallami and sausages. Home made pasta too
I would expect. Prices were a bit expensive by local rates though.

As it was I went to the Inthira Hotel, a small modern looking
establishment and rather classy; where I had a chicken steak done with
black pepper. A pleasant meal and I discovered they have wi-fi. Next day
I did but all I could manage to do was bring mail down it would not
allow me to send.


On my rest and relaxation day in Champasak I decided to spend the
morning walking in a different direction to yesterday. I got about 800
or so metres down the road when I stopped at a Wat and went in to look
around. As I was finishing my looking an mpnk sitting on his upstairs
verandah called out 'hello' and the usual questions like where did I
come from and how long was I in Laos for. So we got chatting and he
invided me to come up and chat. So I took the opportunity to go up the
stairs and sit with him for a while, he allowed me to sit on a stool.


It turned out that he was a British citizen who had been a monk for 9
years here. He said that he had been living in USA but got sick and the
cost of medicine and a cure was beyond him. So he came to Laos and
turned to Buddhaism as the solution. He found the meditation and
scriptures and practices was useful to his mediacl well being but not
necessarily giving him a cure. It sort of took his mind off it –
although he mentioned it to me several times. While he retained his
English speaking I did feel that some how he was a little detached and
not able to answer some basic general questions. However it was a
special time to be hable to converse for that time.


As I came down the stairs a group of niovices arrived. One who looked
the youngest wanted to look through my camera viewfinder and he took a
couple of shots, one of which was a good shot of a fellow novice on the
stairs.


A bit further along the road I went into yet another Wat and moved
around. There was a speaker on a loud hailer in one of the open sided
halls and when I looked the arrangement in the centre looked a bit like
there was going to be a funeral. By the time I got to the gate I could
hear loud amplified music from down the road. I have seen several
funeral processions now and so I could guess what was coming.


It was a long procession which included two decorated articulated
trucks, each with mourners on the tray = one must have carried the
coffin. There were monks riding along as well. After a few cars I saw a
ute coming with an umbrella over the cargo tray. This turned out to be
an umbrella to keep the sun off the bight gold Buddha statue siting in
state on the ute. More cars a packed bus with several people waving at
me. I am not sure if the ute with a couple of small buffalo tied on the
back was part of the procession or not. Lots of people in the convoy
waved and smiled at me. It did seem a very cheerful group.


I was amused to what the vehicles manage the very bumpy road and watched
them rock and roll from side to side. They were certainly giving the
deceased a bouncy farewell.


Quite soon after this I returned to the guest house because of the heat.
Later in the afternoon I did wander down a few short side streets which
were new to me. But I ended up sitting on a wide verandah overlooking
the Mekong drinking a cold fresh pineapple 'shake' and watching the
twilight steadily darken the overcast skies. No sinking sun to watch as
I was in the wrong poision but I did notice a slight pinkish tone cross
the skies for a short while.


What a great way to end a day.