Hi Doe and Hi Boo.

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.