Even in these times of increased terrorist danger, good-times, sun, sand and ocean still tend to foster easygoing environments - and yet even in such a paradise there are times when protection against all manner of events could be valuable.
Visitors and residents on the Thai island of Phuket
are very fortunate because on the crest of the timbered range that doglegs
along the southern end of Phuket island are two impregnable shields; each
protects against different enemies - each offers a different liberation.
This low range separates Phuket Island-east from
island-west: to the west is a string of sparkling bays and beaches extending
from Nai Harn Beach in the south to Surin Beach mid-way along Phuket’s Andaman
Sea coast; this side of the island is tourist heaven. On the other side of this
range you’ll find more locals, Thai cuisine as eaten by Thais, sleepy bays and
lazy villages, jetties, and Phuket Town, the administrative and industrial
centre for the island.
In today’s Thailand the hip, hop into cool
gobbledygook, like Hi-So and Lo-So – and I’m adding Hi-Doe and Hi-Boo to this
contemporary mumbo jumbo.
The first, Hi-Doe, introduces High Dome, a white globe
– a Thai military radar installation - located about mid-way between the northern
and southern ends of the island on Khao Mai Thao Sip Song, a peak that rises
530 metres above sea level. This dome is presumably sniffing for military
threats against Phuket and other parts of Thailand. Hi-Doe also frowns down on
Bangla Road, the strip in the centre of hedonist’s haven - Patong; if ever
there were a threat to holidaymakers, especially their wallets and purses, it
is almost certainly lurking in the temptations found on its streets and
laneways. But I imagine the radar is too busy searching the furthest horizons
to be snooping on holiday dalliances and furtive fumbling!
Hi-Doe perches just above one of two low saddles in
the range that opens east to west and through this gap stream trucks and
tuk-tuks, cars and cabs, and busses and bikes; not content with the high-tech
protection up above the majority of drivers and riders beep their horn for good
luck when passing a Chinese temple on the crest of the pass – you can never
have enough protection!
A visit to the high point near the radar station is
worthwhile – the near 360 degree views are spectacular – to the west the slope
cascades down to Patong with it’s spectacular bay, and to the beaches beyond.
To the south the views are along the range to where our second protective
device squats. And to the east there are spectacular views of Phuket Town,
Chalong Bay, and Phangha Bay dotted with weird limestone formations, and
islands.
Hi-Doe is reached by a narrow, steep and winding road
on the eastern side of the range; despite this the road is well surfaced and
graded and an attacking force would appreciate the high quality road that leads
to the gates of this military installation; if you visit the lookout, the radar
site is a little further up the hill – the armed guards are placid enough but
may not remain so if you take photographs.
At the opposite end of the range to Hi-Doe, at the
southern end, on peak Khao Nakkerd is a very different device - Hi-Boo, a tall
Buddha gazing serenely eastwards over Phuket Town and Chalong Bay.
According to the constructor’s web site the Buddha is
in honour of King Bhumiphol, and it’s to be a centre for beneficial influence
in Thailand, and particularly the Phuket community. Ultimately a beautiful
religious park with trees to provide shaded places for Buddhist teaching and
meditation will surround the Buddha. All Buddha statues represent the dharma -
the accumulated Buddha’s teachings and wisdom - and so I am content to imagine
the Buddhist message of compassion and peace radiating from the giant Buddha
out over the island.
I was keenly anticipating the advertised ‘big Buddha’
on my first visit and I was not disappointed by the 12 metres tall brass Buddha
featuring coiled, intertwined bodies of two naga, the Sanskrit word for
serpent. The Buddha’s polished surface reflected the sun and warm breezes
ruffled yellow Buddhist flags.
Wandering around I admired spectacular views - and
away to the north perched Hi-Doe. Sharing my dusty vantage point were numerous
workmen constructing a large concrete base encased in scaffolding and
eventually I realised that the Buddha I had been admiring was but the entrée so
to speak – this vast base is where the advertised Big Buddha image would
ultimately rest.
By mid 2007 the big Buddha, Phra
Puttamingmongkol Akenakkiri, was still under construction, rising 45 metres high -
that’s almost identical to the Statue of Liberty although the grand lady’s
taller pedestal increases her total height to 93 metres – both are tall - and
both are statues of liberty.
I am hoping the Big Buddha’s facial features will
reflect traditional Sukhotai or Ayutthaya era beauty – to my eye Thai artisans
have created features more pleasing than Indian or Oriental-styled Buddhas.
Sukhotai and Ayutthaya styled Buddhas typically have long faces, downcast eyes,
lengthened earlobes, and curly hair with a pointed flame ushnisha rising above
the head.
Buddhas come with an amazing diversity of visual
characteristics – in fact there are 32 great marks a Buddha can exhibit
including facial and physical attributes, stance, vestments and other items of
clothing, and ornaments.
The total cost of the Phuket Buddha will be 30 Million
Baht and, to help defray this cost, my own small contribution has been to buy a
marble tile upon which is written my name, my partner’s name and those of her
family; eventually this tile will become a tiny, permanent part of the floor
around the lotus base.
I know very little about building anything – let alone
a huge Buddha – but I imagine that its surrounding scaffold would have failed to meet
safety standards in countries where there is greater, or perhaps any, building
regulation. The tangle of pole scaffolding I observed on my first visit reached
perhaps three metres; now it rises tier upon tier seeming somehow to defy any
known structural discipline - and gravity; horizontal and vertical poles are
connected solely with rope and twine and many of the poles have protruding
stubs where branches have been chopped away.
Despite this apparent laxity and instability workmen
laughed and chatted as they leaped from platform to platform, men perched in pockets
where poles intersected or they balanced astride poles, and at the very top, where
numerous Thai and Buddhist flags fluttered in stiff breezes, men leaned over this
precarious scaffolding going about their work. Perhaps working on a Buddha
construction has powerful in-built protection?
Despite this web of poles I could see that concrete was
being smoothed over an internal steel mesh skeleton so, aside from the main
internal pillars, the Buddha is hollow; ultimately the Buddha will be enhanced
with golden mosaic.
Aside from concrete, traditionally manufactured
Buddhas of considerable size are formed from many materials including wood,
bronze, crystal, quartz, brick, stone, pottery, plaster – and there’s a solid
gold, three metres tall Buddha at Bangkok’s Wat Traimit weighing 5.5 tonnes;
for centuries this Buddha was thought to be made of plaster until one day,
while being moved, it was dropped, the plaster cracked, and the solid gold
Buddha beneath was revealed
The immense Phuket sitting Buddha competes with a
number of other large Buddhas.
In Thailand there are several competitors including a
24 metre tall bronze sitting Buddha that was, until now, the tallest in
Thailand; in the far north at Tha Ton a giant white Buddha gazes over the Kok
River and there’s a 68 metres tall standing Buddha in the Khorat Plateau town
of Roi Et.
In the ancient Siamese cities Sukhotai and Ayutthaya
there are large and beautiful Buddhas, and in Bangkok, there are several
including a 32 metres tall standing Buddha of absolutely no artistic merit; and
there’s the classically beautiful, 46 metres long reclining Buddha located in
quixotically exotic Wat Pho, the oldest and largest Wat in Bangkok.
There are others scattered across Thailand – but the
Phuket sitting, freestanding Buddha is now the largest of all. There is one
unusual competitor, a 109 metres tall standing Buddha etched into a Thai
mountainside.
In other places around the Buddhist world there are
giants to be found in Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, China and Hong Kong and
Myanmar. The largest of all is the 120 metres tall Ushiku Amida Buddha near
Tokyo, and in Leshan, China a Buddha carved in a sheer rock face reaches 71
metres; it took one hundred years to carve.
There were other large Buddhas equaling Hi-Boo’s size
including the great Bamiyan standing Buddhas in Afghanistan that were destroyed
by Taliban Islamic fundamentalists in 2001; the tallest was 55 metres.
Somewhat ironically, in India the land of Buddha’s
birth and a country in which Buddhism is now the belief of a tiny minority, a
large Maitreya Buddha – the Buddha of the future - is planned although
construction is currently stalled; the planned height of 150 metres rivals the
height of the great pyramid of Cheops. I’ve seen the pyramid, mysterious and
inspirational, and maybe I’ll look forward to seeing the competing Buddha – or
will I? Probably not!
Perhaps, unknown to those of us raised in non-Buddhist
cultures, these large Buddhas scattered across the globe may have some greater
purpose than the contribution they make to each locale – is it somehow possible
that together they suspend a mesh of goodwill and compassion across all
nations? It’s a nice thought.
Why build such Buddhas? Is bigger better? Perhaps not,
because many Buddhas considered as offering the greatest protection are also
among the smallest – tiny amulets or votive tablets featuring Buddha or monk
images are greatly revered and are worn by many.
The first time I ever went to Thailand I was invited
by a friendly bar girl (aren’t they all?) and friends to attend Loy Krathong
celebrations – and I was given my first votive tablet, a small grey-ish lozenge
with a Buddha image on one side. I have it still and I have added many tablets,
amulets, talismans and woven wristbands since.
Although amulets are sold and exchanged all over Thailand, perhaps
amulet-Mecca is found close-by the Grand Palace in Bangkok – this is where
serious searchers for protection against all manner of dangers hunt.
There is no question about which protective device –
Hi-Doe or Hi-Boo – dominates the Phuket skyline, Hi-Boo wins hands down – well
to be accurate, hand down because he sits in Maravichai style, the common and
classic pose, with one hand in his lap and the other hand draped over his right
leg with the fingers reaching for the earth; this pose reflects the moment of
his enlightenment.
From where I stay I can see this vast Buddhist aide-memoir
framed by forested slopes and tropic skies; seen from Chalong Bay jetty the
rising sun splashes the statue with a palette of gold, silver and pewter, and
at day’s end nature’s most spectacular blue skies fused, like a length of raw
Thai silk, with neon pink, mauve, and purple form a backdrop that somehow seems
inadequate to complement the sublime essence of the Buddha.
So, with all this written, is Phuket doubly protected?
And, if it is, what is it protected from? I suspect answers to these two
questions will differ depending on the cultural background of the respondent.
West and East will perceive different dangers and put their trust in different
defenses. Vive la difference! Or, as we say in Thailand, same-same but
different.
