Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


	S.P. Publishing Group Co., Ltd. 11/1 Soi 3 Bamrungburi Rd., T. Prasingh, A. Muang., Chiang Mai 50200 Tel. 053 - 814 455-6 Fax. 053 - 814 457 E-mail: guidelin@loxinfo.co.th

LUANG PRABANG:
Dowager Duchess Sitting Pretty
A BOOK REVIEW by by J.M. Cadet

Ancient Luang Prabang
by Denise Heywood
Publisher: River Books, Bangkok, 2006 Soft cover, 213 pp
ISBN 974-9863 24 0 Price: B.995

It was George Bernard Shaw who said the principal difference between a duchess and a `flower girl' was how they were treated. You can say pretty much the same of cities.

Look at the way Luang Prabang, magnificently situated on the Mekong River, is recognised and respected as a cultural treasure, and given appropriate protection. Then turn your eyes to poor Chiang Mai, the so-called Rose of the North. Respected? Protected? Recognised as the unique and priceless natural and cultural resource it is? Not on your nelly. Gang-banged more like it.

"Roll up, one and all," yell the barkers. "You massed tourists from China, Disneyland awaits you. Two mega-projects completed. Ten more in the pipeline. You won't recognise the old dump when the multi-billion-baht Chiang Mai World Mega-project is completed…"

Quite so! It'll be gone as a living entity. So before the bloom's been blown away entirely, it would be good if someone did for Rose of the North what River Books and Denise Heywood are doing here for Luang Prabang … that's to say, memorialising both what made Chiang Mai in its Golden Age one of the most important cultural centres in Southeast Asia, and what in fact is now being destroyed - its long-surviving civic health and vitality.

River Books needs no introduction where quality publications of this sort are concerned. Ancient Luang Prabang is the latest addition to the series which includes Ancient Angkor and Ancient Pagan… lavishly illustrated, no-expense-spared collectors' items that are delights to consult, dip into and adorn your shelves with. And like the publisher, the author is well-qualified for the work in hand. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, she's a lecturer/ journalist/ photographer with long first-hand acquaintance with Laos.

Heywood begins with informative introductory chapters on the land, people, history, art and religion of Luang Prabang and its inhabitants. She then turns to her principal theme: the sacred and secular architecture - the Buddhist temples and the Royal Palace, along with the Lao vernacular and French colonial buildings found there. This major part of the study is solidly treated. With her book under your arm, whether as an assiduous tourist or serious student, you can be sure that whatever historical, architectural or cultural questions the something like thirty temples and twenty plus secular buildings described here raise, you have the means to answer them. And neither are the Pak Ou Caves two hours up the Mekong River or Henri Mouhot's tomb some five kilometres along the Nam Khan tributary, neglected. It's impossible not to be impressed both by the density of the information provided or the accuracy with which it's marshalled here.

The same is true of the illustrations. The cover picture is superb. If that doesn't hook the discerning tourist nothing will. But turn the pages, and you'll see image after image that will make plain why this little town on an elevated bank of the Mekong River has been granted UNESCO World Heritage status. Two double-page aerial shots of the inter-riverine panhandle stand out in this array, but of the five hundred plus other illustrations - photos, etchings, plans, artistic and craft detail, historical documents etc etc - it would be hard to pick out a dud among them. The quality of the art work that's gone into this book can only be described as outstanding.

There are though brickbats as well as bouquets that need delivering,

Proof-reading now - what happened to it? Given the difficulty of transliterating a work like this, the occasional lapse is understandable. But in index and glossary alone you find bhumispara for bhumisparsa, Wat Tham Ponsi for Pousi, World Heritage Stie for Site, along with incorrect page numbers. The introductory text too is littered with typos like catergorisation, while errors of fact and definition that should have been picked up editorially are two a penny.

Dhyana for example, as `an attitude of meditation'. Indra, as god of war, rather than king of the gods. Poor Henri Mouhot starts off well in one paragraph as `the intrepid French explorer' but a couple of sentences later becomes `a real Victorian polymaththeist". In fact, Hudson's Guide to Chiang Mai refers to its location and describes how to reach it in 1971.

Trivial, you're going to say - as also for `asperse' (sprinkle) instead of `lustrate', rice as `the staple diet' of Laos, the Buddha under the Bho Tree 'receiving' enlightenment, and `the manuscript as the heart of the Buddha's teaching': where does that leave the Buddha's practice, you might wonder? And while the PDR's cartographers are presumably responsible for the riotous map on p.27 - where rivers flow backwards or dry up in midcourse, and the Mekong/ Maekong/ Maekonhg (take your pick) apparently rises just north of Vientiane - you'd think the editors might alert us to the fact.

Then again, amidst the boiler-plate, the sheer tourist-organisational guff of the Introduction, with its mindless tinkle about `mist-shrouded mountains', `barefoot monks', and `dream-like quality', you're not surprised to find yourself tripping over sentences like, "The surrounding verdant mountains enhanced the jewel-like identity of Luang Prabang, making it seems (sic) like a hidden treasure and imbuing it with an other-worldly atmosphere." This at least prepares you later for,"Populated by monks - although increasingly by tourists - the town resonates with a spiritual aura." Though very little's going to prepare you for, "fishermen descending into the river at low tide to cast their nets". Low tide - Luang Prabang? You can't get dreamier among mist-shrouded mountains than that, can you? But perhaps you can.

Referring to France's mission civilatrice, and without the slightest hint of a wink or smile, Heywood quotes another writer as saying, "France distanced itself from acquisitive violent origins of empire." She then adds, "[her] approach to colonialism epitomised the humanitarian nature of French action abroad." Even the French might blush at that.

But credit where it's due. Heywood does quote one of the great modern travel writers - Norman Lewis - who at last brings us down to earth and makes understandable some of the tinkle that's gone before. When he was there, Luang Prabang appeared to him, "a small, somnolent and sanctified Manhattan Island…the hometown of the siesta and the Ultima Thule of all French escapists in the Far East."

Look, let's say it again. This is an extremely attractive and, for the most part, well-researched book, indispensable for anyone visiting and wishing to understand this unique little town. The problem is that at some stage, someone decided it needed tarting up for the tourists. The verdant, mist-enshrouded mountains, barefoot monks, and dream-like resonances followed, along with the multiple errors. But not to worry. With professional, native-speaker editing, and a bit of remedial re-write, the second edition of this estimable study will get the introductory text it deserves.

But ironic, isn't it. While one of the world's few surviving `dictatorships of the proletariat' recognises and affords the little old dowager duchess on the Mekong the respect and protection she deserves, 350 kms to the southwest, free market democracy is having its wicked way with the Rose of the North, and in the process, `loving' her (if that's the word) to death.