The Golden Triangle Buddha (photos)

CC Liu (Berkeley), Wisdom Quarterly; UrsulasWeeklyWanders.com (instagram, facebook)

Small gecko under the Buddha's gorgeous middle finger sits protectively (Ursula/UWW)

 

There is a golden Buddha in the center of the infamous Golden Triangle, the former crossroads of nefarious activity between mountainous Thailand, Burma, and Laos. Where Theravada Buddhist cultures now meet and mingle, drug lords once ran Chinese money in exchange for opium, heroin, human trafficking, and sundry warlord activity like Southeast Asian and CIA money laundering.

Jogging in Lumpini Park, Bangkok (UWW)

It was a den of iniquity, a big den, the size of a jungle. When Axl Rose first sang "Welcome to the Jungle," he probably had this triangular patch in mind as a counterpart the ruined asphalt grid called Los Angeles and in particular its concrete capital HollywoodLand. But intrepid traveler and photographer Ursula_in_Aus (Ursula_Bkk when in Bangkok) has a backstory to accompany these beautiful pictures.

Golden Triangle

Ursula_in_Aus (edited, abbreviated by Wisdom Quarterly)

...Google “Golden Triangle.” One of the entries that pops up relates to Euclidean geometry and a golden ratio that forms the hypotenuse of the golden or sublime triangle: a magical isosceles with “divine” proportions. It is the basis for perfect pentagrams and logarithmic spirals.

 

But Asia's Golden Triangle is 950,000 square kms of mountainous jungles that, until the early 21st century, was responsible for most of the world’s heroin production.

Novice at Shwe Yan Pyay, Burma (UWW)

The contradictory “divine” heart of this triangular region is a golden Buddha, joyfully and soberly sitting at the at confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers, the intersection of three countries that form the triangle.

 

The first time I visited this giant marvel, it struck me how imposing the image was, sitting so serenely, facing and overlooking Thailand, apparently oblivious to the gambling casinos across the waters behind it (gambling being the least of the area's vices). More

Cambodia's fortunes along the Mekong

Cambodia's fortunes ebb and flow along the Mekong
(NPR, Feb. 18, 2010)Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia. But it hasn't always been that way, and the Mekong River has been key to its periods of prosperity and ruin.

• Listen to the Story (9 min 2 sec)

The Mekong River, one of the world's longest waterways, has a long and turbulent history. From its source in China's central highlands, it passes through six countries as it makes its way to the South China Sea — a journey of nearly 3,000 miles. In a five-part series, NPR's Southeast Asia correspondent Michael Sullivan journeys the length of the river and tells the story of the people who live along its banks. In Part 4, he reports from Cambodia, where the river has been central to the lives and livelihoods of many in a country that has seen its share of conflict.

• Cambodia's fate flows with the river: Download - Transcript
• Cambodia Tonight (blog)

The Source of the Great Mekong (listen)

At Mekong's Source in China, Past and Present Collide

(NPR) Feb. 15, 2010 - It's a long way to the source of the Mekong: a three-day journey by boat... My guide declares that we are at the "real" source of the Mekong, in Tibet.

• LISTEN NOW
• Memories of Apollo 11 ( The Mekong at the other end)

We watched the lunar landing from the midst of the hot and steamy rice paddies of the Mekong Delta in one of the garden spots of Southeast Asia.

Asia's Art in Ancient Vietnam (video)

Asia’s Aesthetic Crossroads
Julie Bloom (New York Times)
A pedestal from Van Trach Hoa village, Phong Dien District, Thua Thein Hue province, in the 8th-9th century (Librado Romero/The New York Times).

The exhibition "Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea," now on view at the Asia Society Museum, took over 20 years to produce. According to Holland Cotter, "From the moment you enter the galleries you're seeing things you won't find anywhere else and certainly not in this combination -- a bronze drum as hefty as a hot tub; a wooden Buddha, tall, dark, and Giacometti-thin.

• VIDEO: Introduction: Arts of Ancient Viet Nam

• Asia Society
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Avid-eyed Hindu deities keep company with contortionist dancers. A tiny serpent of beaten gold basks in a spotlight. Ceramic plates and bowls crowd a room just as they had once filled the hold of a ship that went down in the South China Sea." As a trade hub, Vietnam absorbed cultural influences from China, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and more, and these disparate influences are reflected in the show.

"Once you've made your way through the society's suave installation, you've seen treasures from 10 Vietnamese museums. You've time-traveled from the first millennium B.C. to the 17th century A.D. And you've style-traveled through dozens of cultures both inside and outside Vietnam itself." Source

Southeast Asia: Anti-malaria tolerance

WHO warns of tolerance to anti-malaria drug
Increased drug resistance could undermine malaria control efforts (Swiss Radio).

RANGOON, Burma (IRIN) - Tolerance to artemisinin, the most effective anti-malarial drug available, is emerging in Myanmar and could pose a major challenge to regional malaria control, says the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO, researchers, and health officials are already trying to contain the spread of resistant strains of the Plasmodium falciparum parasite along the Thai-Cambodian border. The parasite causes the most deadly form of malaria.

Preliminary studies in 2008-09 by the Mekong countries of Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam, show tolerance elsewhere, with the drug proving less effective and taking longer than it did previously to control the parasite. The studies, presented late last year at a WHO regional workshop of health officials, show tolerance may have extended to areas along the Burma-Thailand, Burma-China, and Cambodia-Vietnam borders. More>>

Animal Realm Grows: Thousand Species

Naga: handout released 12/15/08 by the World Wildlife Fund Greater Mekong Programme shows a Gumprechts green pitviper found in Thailand (AFP/WWF).

More than 1,000 species discovered in Mekong: WWF

BANGKOK (AFP) – The Animal Realm continues to grow in number due to karma and rebirth and in diversity. Scientists have discovered more than 1,000 species in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong region in the past decade, including a spider as big as a dinner plate, the World Wildlife Fund said Monday.

A rat thought to have become extinct 11 million years ago and a cyanide-laced, shocking pink millipede were among creatures found in what the group called a "biological treasure trove."

The species were all found in the rainforests and wetlands along the Mekong River, which flows through Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.

"It doesn't get any better than this," Stuart Chapman, director of WWF's Greater Mekong Programme, was quoted as saying in a statement by the group.

"We thought discoveries of this scale were confined to the history books."

The WWF report, "First Contact in the Greater Mekong," said that "between 1997 and 2007, at least 1,068 have been officially described by science as being newly discovered species."

These included the world's largest huntsman spider, with a leg span of 30 centimetres (11.8 inches), and the "startlingly" coloured "dragon millipede," which produces the deadly compound cyanide.

Not all species were found hiding in remote jungles -- the Laotian rock rat, which the study said was thought to be extinct about 11 million years ago, was first encountered by scientists in a local food market in 2005, it said.

One species of pitviper was first noted by scientists after it was found in the rafters of a restaurant at the headquarters of Thailand's Khao Yai national park in 2001.

"This region is like what I read about as a child in the stories of Charles Darwin," said Dr Thomas Ziegler, curator at the Cologne Zoo, who was involved in the research.

"It is a great feeling being in an unexplored area and to document its biodiversity for the first time both enigmatic and beautiful," he said.

The new species highlighted in the report include 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders, and a toad -- an average of two previously undiscovered species a week for the past 10 years.

The report warned, however, that many of the species could be at risk from development and called for a cross-border agreement between the countries in the Greater Mekong area to protect it.

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