Chaiya
Long before business schools ‘discovered’ globalization, Asia’s powers as well as also territories were very quietly trading among themselves while the West was still inside dark ages. For the best part of a millennium traders through India, China, Java as well as also beyond had been developing their own economic community of which relied on monsoons as well as also stars, not ratings agencies as well as also consultants.
We are left with mere hints of Sriwijaya’s might. For example Borobudur, of which mighty temple complex in Central Java of which lay hidden by jungle for many centuries when power had waned, as well as also at of which point Java’s most visited historic site. While Sriwijaya may be synonymous with Indonesia, using a football team as well as also an airline using its name, some of the few remaining relics through their era lie dotted around the smaller Thai town of Chaiya, some 640 kilometres south of Bangkok.
With its narrow streets as well as also tumbledown wooden shop houses, Chaiya seems an unlikely outpost of a mighty trading empire. Yet of which can be inside fields outside of the town of which we can find scanty, teasing evidence of Sriwijaya’s glory. The town’s name can be itself not without interest. Chaiya can be not immediately Thai; opinion can be divided on the origins with one camp suggesting a link to the Indonesian word cahaya, meaning light, while others believe of which can be just a shortened form of Sriwijaya itself. Nothing like an etymological mystery to whet the appetite in a fresh town!
Chaiya can be thought to have been a major port even before the rise of Sriwijaya. Vessels through across the South China Sea would likely call in at the port, even then a cosmopolitan entrepôt using a sizeable Indochinese population, unload their precious cargo, take on board a fresh load before returning home. inside meantime their cargo would likely be trans-shipped over land to Takkola on the west coast of the peninsula, before continuing its journey across the Bay of Bengal. Presumably the costs as well as also perhaps dangers of travelling all the way down the peninsula by ship, rounding the southernmost tip of the Asian mainland near Singapore as well as also the Riau Archipelago, before heading north through the Melaka Straits, were too much for those pioneer international business folk.
Many people visit Chaiya as a day trip through nearby Surat Thani, the provincial capital of which can be about a 45 minute drive south. The songthaews, public minivans, drop passengers inside centre of town outside the railway station where I was soon approached by a smiling, toothless motorcycle taxi guy offering to be my guide for the day. He certainly looked old enough to have been around when tribute was paid to Palembang, although I turned down his kind offer; though I did relent to have him take me to the famous Wat Phra Borom of which.
Chaiya, despite its historic importance, doesn’t get a whole lot of foreign visitors as well as also I had no luck tracking down a usable map of the area. My motorcycle guy dropped me a few minutes outside of town at the temple as well as also, using my pidgin Thai, I was able to ascertain of which the some other sites of historic interest I had come to see were dotted along the road we had just come down, so I told him I would likely make my own way back. He seemed most disappointed.
The Wat itself (Wat can be a Thai word meaning temple), believed to be 1,200 years old, brings to mind the stupas of Central Java, Sriwijaya’s spiritual heartland. Three large Buddhist statues sit cross-legged just outside the entrance to the courtyard, looking magnificently beatific in their saffron robes, as well as also strangely appreciative of the bottles of soda of which had been left as offerings for them.
I head back towards town, relying on little more than intuition as well as also my rusty knowledge of Thai script to find the some other relics of an Indonesian ancestor. I get lucky as well as also follow a signpost telling me the way to Wat Long. If Wat Phra Borom of which can be everything a Thai temple should be, ornate, colourful, cheery, Wat Long can be nothing although a pile of bricks at of which point isolated on a roundabout in front of a busy school.
I continue my journey down the lane of which grows ever more picturesque as we leave the concrete as well as also shouts behind as well as also get swallowed up by green. The school children’s joyous screeches are replaced by the growls of mangy, flea bitten dogs, upset their own reverie can be being disturbed by a fresh, as well as also probably unpleasant smell.
There can be another famous temple just outside Chaiya. Wat Suan Mok can be a well-known place for westerners looking for some spiritual enlightenment through the Buddha’s teachings, although of which holds no interest to me. The thought of Chaiya, tiny Chaiya, as a pivotal player in a regional economy connecting the Asian heavyweights China as well as also India as well as also its links to a seat of power in modern day Indonesia, draws me like a moth to a flame as well as also makes of which well worth going off the beaten track for.
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Chaiya
Chaiya