The Mood of Southeast AsiaPrepared by Harold Stephens
Travel Correspondent for Thai Airways International
When people ask me what is so special about Southeast Asia, I can answer that question in one word––mood.
The fact is that Southeast Asia is a mood as well as a place. It can be bewitching, almost magical. There's something hypnotic about the sound of tiny temple bells tinkling in a breeze, or the chants of Buddhist monks in the still light of dawn. Or the sweet, mist-laden scent of the northern hills of Thailand where the Shan and Karen, and other hill tribes, live. Or the power of the Irrawaddy, or the untameness of the Sunderbans. There's stark naked beauty in the Sulu Islands and the sea gypsies who live there.
If you want to feel at peace with the world, climb to the top of a hill station, like Darjeeling, Cameron, Frazier Hill, even Penang Hill—and look out over the landscape at dawn, and stand there when the sun comes up.
There are images so powerful you cannot forget them, ever. I remember a scene on Bali that will always be with me. I was walking in the hills above Ubud and sat beneath a spreading banyan tree to rest. Here in the dark expanse of shade, the legend goes, Balinese gods triumph. Pencil-thin shafts of sunlight filtered down through the foliage and flecked the forest floor in delicate patches of gold.
Birds, unseen in the deep foliage above, sang cryptically to one another. There were sounds of insects, unfamiliar, suddenly breaking the stillness, loud and shrill at first, and then stopping, as abruptly as they began. I heard a dog yapping, barely audible, in a distant village. An occasional leaf fluttered earthward, catching a ray of slanted light, disappeared and reappeared until it became lost among purple shadows beyond.
When you sit there long enough, you wonder if your senses are deceiving. I heard, very faintly, the echo of a gong somewhere far off. A gong in the forest! In an instant more, it was clearer, and louder, and mingled now with faraway voices. Then came the sound of a flute, and another, and more gongs. The yapping of the dog that seemed so distant was now closer, and grew louder. My peace and joy of the forest were being disturbed by something strange and bewildering.
The sounds grew more distinct, and then there came into view far down the sun-flecked path, a column of marchers, led by men and boys. I watched them grow from fuzzy silhouettes into focus. I could see them clearly now all wearing sarongs, white sarongs, and around their waists were scarlet cummerbunds fastened with rich buckles carved in gold. They wore headbands; these too all white, and pointed at the crown. Those in the lead carried towering bamboo poles, bent over in sweeping arches by the weight of flowing pennants attached to their ends. More marchers followed, boys carrying gaily-colored umbrellas suspended high above their heads on long slender poles. The music, gongs and flutes, accompanied by a chorus of singing, grew louder and louder in intensity until it became almost deafening.
Young children ran with the dogs alongside the procession, laughing and shouting and calling out to one another, adding to the noise and cacophony of sound. The procession passed, the music and singing dimmed, gradually, and presently a line of women in single file came up behind the marchers. Unlike the men who wore white, they were dressed in brightly colored batik sarongs and, in place of head bands like the men wore, they carried upon their heads towering pillars of food, some with tiny plated baskets, heaped with cakes and sweets, and others with tropical fruit, offerings to the gods. What I was witnessing was a religious procession heading to a temple further up the mountainside.
Was this truly man being in tune with nature? There’s another mood to Southeast Asia—distant mountains and smoking volcanoes.
European seamen, the very first travellers to Southeast Asia, called it "the land below the winds.” Technically speaking, with the exception of the Philippines, it is free of typhoons and other such violent tropical storms. This doesn't mean, however, that tropical Southeast Asia is without natural calamities. It is a land of monsoons and dramatic volcanoes, both of which can be devastating at times. And both which create a mood. What power a volcano has, especially one that sends up clouds of ash 20 km, or more, into the sky and looks like it’s about to explode.
Perhaps nature's most spectacular, and awesome, sight is that of an exploding volcano. In modern times, the greatest explosion from a volcanic eruption occurred at Krakatau, an island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. I intended to visit the island aboard my schooner but couldn't arrange a sailing permit with the Indonesian government.
When Krakatau erupted in 1863, it literally shook the world. For many days afterwards, much of Java was in total darkness. For years afterwards, the entire earth's weather patterns were altered. Millions of tons of dust floated in the skies and fallout was felt in London for two years. When the eruptions subsided, cinders and ash were 150 feet (46 meters) deep. Not one seed or spore of life of any kind survived.
A year later, a visitor to Krakatau found a spider but nothing else on the still-hot lava beds. Three years later it was reported that grass was growing on the lowlands and flowering plants and ferns appeared inland.
Krakatau became a botanist's Mecca. Here scientists could study the birth of an island and plant life. Only fifty years after Krakatau had been destroyed, trees were 45 meters tall and had spread two-thirds of the way up the mountain slope. Today, the island is covered with primary jungle.
Krakatau may have had the greatest explosion in modern times, but the greatest eruption was that of Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa, also in Indonesia. The volcano erupted in 1815, blew open a crater seven miles wide and lowered the height of the island by 1650 metres. It was about four times greater than the Krakatau eruption.
And that leaves us with monsoons. What is a monsoon, anyway? Most people believe it's a rain, but that's not correct. It isn't a rain; it's a wind. For anyone who hasn't lived in a monsoon belt, the very name ‘monsoon’ has a way of spelling romance. It has appeared in the title of books, plays and songs. “The Rains Came" was a movie box office hit in the 1930s.The author who was clever enough not to misuse the term monsoon was Louis Bromfield. He never mentioned monsoons but he managed to leave readers with the feeling that when the winds blew someone was going to get wet.
Monsoons may exist in places all over the world but Asia is traditionally known as the land of the monsoons. When the monsoon winds blow here, you can be certain rain will come.
That is what makes Southeast Asia so interesting for the traveller—the mood.
Next week I will tell readers about ten easy trips one can take from Bangkok.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERSQ. Dear Mr. Stephens, I enjoyed your stories on China. I wrote to you once before asking if you were glossing over the facts about travel in China. There are so many conflicting stories about China that I don’t know what to believe any more. —Hazel Copenfield, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
A. Dear Ms. Copenfield, if you are looking at a political analysis of China, I don’t want to disappoint you. I will leave that up to the political pundits, politicians and economists. I write stories about travel to bring the world closer together. I like to write about the romance of travel. I want to point out to readers that we live in a very beautiful world and let’s take advantage of the world that we live in, and enjoy it. I found when I travelled though China, if I smiled, people would smile in return. —HS
Harold Stephens
Bangkok
E-mail: ROH Weekly Travel (booking@inet.co.th)
Note: The article is the personal view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the view of Thai Airways International Public Company Limited. | 
