by Jim Goodman
Mekong RIver at Chiang Saen |
When I first moved to Chiang
Mai in the winter of 1988, intending an indefinite stay, I wanted to also
familiarize myself with various places in the north. Chiang Saen was on my list because it lay beside the Mekong
River and was just ten kilometers from the famous Golden Triangle, the junction
of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar.
Arriving at Chiang Saen in the early afternoon I headed there right
away.
It was moderately impressive,
I suppose. It was dry season, so a
large triangular sandbar was visible next to the confluence of the Mae Sai
River with the Mekong, and I wondered if that was the “Golden Triangle.” Of course, the term actually
refers to the tri-national border point.
On the Thai side a huge bi-lingual billboard announced this fact and
Thai tourists liked to pose standing beneath it with their arms stretched
overhead and fingers pointing to the message on the sign. There wasn’t much else to do there,
except maybe have a few drinks and fantasize what was happening in the two
countries on the other side, both of which were closed to foreigners then. Opium caravans? Remnant insurgent armies on patrol?
modern temple, Chiang Saen riverside |
With all the souvenir shops
and such, though, it was not a place to kick back and revel in the river
scenery. That proved to be easier
back in Chiang Saen, where I had a riverside lodge and lots of room on either
side to wander quietly along the bank.
The town was smaller than I expected, with no real downtown area, no
tall buildings, a small produce market and hardly any traffic. That was Chiang Saen in
1988. Several centuries earlier,
however, it was one of the most important urban centers in Northern Thailand.
According to the Chiang Saen Chronicles, Tai migrants
from Yunnan set up the first state there, called Wiang Nonok, near present-day
Chiang Saen, over a thousand years ago.
It lasted until the mid-11th century, when the capital is
supposed to have disappeared into a swamp, perhaps because of an earthquake,
which scholars speculate may be the contemporary Chiang Saen Lake outside the
town. The Lawa then took over the
area until displaced by Tai Yuan the beginning of the 13th century. The Lawa retreated to distant hills, as
they were to do a century later when the Tai Yuan conquered the Chiang Mai
area.
typical Chiang Saen stilted house |
The victors called their new capital
Ngon Yang and as more migrants came to live in the area they gradually expanded
their realm west into the Mai Kok Valley and beyond. In 1259 Mengrai was born in Ngon Yang but soon after he
succeeded to the throne he left to found a new capital at Chiang Rai. Years later, in 1291, he conquered the
former Mon Kingdom of Haripunchai, moved there for a couple years and
eventually founded Chiang Mai in 1296 as the capital of the Kingdom of Lanna.
Chedi Luang in 1988 |
The administration moved with
Mengrai’s changes of capitals, but much of the population of Ngon Yang stayed
put. That included members of the
royal family. When Mengrai died in
1317 his successor reigned from Chiang Mai, but when he died in 1325, the third
king, Saen Phu, decided to stay in Ngon Yang, rebuild and refurbish the city,
and rename it after himself—Chiang Saen.
It remained the capital of Lanna until 1350, when the Court removed permanently
to Chiang Mai.
This was Chiang Saen’s heyday
and the best of its historical relics, like Chedi Luang and Wat Pasak, date
from this period. At its peak the
city had 76 temples within its city walls and another 63 outside of them. Even after the capital moved to Chiang
Mai Chiang Saen remained one of the most important cities in Lanna, especially
as a border post. The Chiang Saen
garrison repelled an attack from Yunnan in 1422. The invaders returned three years later, but a storm destroyed
their river fleet.
While Lanna’s fortunes waxed
and waned in the 15th-16th centuries, life in the
periphery city of Chiang Saen continued undisturbed. This changed in 1600 when Burmese armies swept into Chiang
Rai and Chiang Saen. For the next
two centuries the Burmese ruled over Chiang Saen and imposed a new social
order. At the top were the Burmese
administrators. Next were other
Burmese, like traders and merchants.
Third was the local nobility, some of whom were entrusted with low-level
administrative duties. Last was
everybody else who was living there.
Sukhothai-style chedi at Wst Pa Sak |
Among the extant ruins of
Chiang Saen, none of them appear to date their construction after 1600. Being Buddhists themselves, the Burmese
overlords did not destroy any of the existing temples and chedis. They may even
have contributed to their upkeep.
But they didn’t sponsor any new ones. Other places in Northern Thailand under two centuries of
Burmese occupation, Lampang and Mai Hong Son for example, feature Burmese-style
temples, but not Chiang Saen.
Sporadic revolts against the
Burmese overlords occurred throughout their occupation. None of these were very serious or
durable until 1727, when rebels from Chiang Mai advanced against Chiang
Saen. The Burmese garrison
repulsed the attack. A generation
later, though, another Chiang Mai rebel force captured Chiang Saen in 1751 and
held it for four years before the Burmese recovered it.
14th century Buddha head |
mythical kalan, Wat Pa Sak |
Whatever weaknesses existed in
the Burmese military then certainly got rectified over the next decade. In 1767 the Burmese conquered and
destroyed their Thai rival Ayutthaya.
This was their apogee and after that their fortunes began to
decline. They were not strong
enough to occupy all of Ayutthaya’s territory and soon faced revolts in
Northern Thailand. Only Chiang
Saen remained manageable. The
Burmese response to revolts in northern Thai cities was to empty them of their
entire populations. Chiang Saen
didn’t revolt, so that city was spared such a fate.
stone carvings, Wat Pa Sak chedi |
The native response was to
continue efforts to drive out the occupiers and re-establish abandoned cities
like Chiang Mai. This provoked a
furious Burmese attack in 1797, reducing the city’s inhabitants to near
starvation, but Thai reinforcements, supported by the Chakri regime in Bangkok,
eventually lifted the siege. Northern
Thai forces under Kawila counterattacked the Burmese and by the end of the
century only Chiang Saen remained under Burmese control.
The long and grueling campaign
had devastated Lanna, both urban and rural areas. Kawila’s initial task was to re-establish some kind of
administration over the liberated lands and rebuild and re-populate the emptied
cities. Finally, in 1803 his
forces laid siege to Chiang Saen.
The Burmese garrison held out for a year before the city’s capture. Those not killed or taken prisoner fled
across to Burma. Kawila then
ordered the entire local population out of Chiang Saen and re-settled them and
the prisoners in other parts of the north.
Only one foot remains. |
In 1878, after hearing that
Chiang Saen’s ruins had become a meeting place for bandits, the government in
Bangkok decided it was time to re-populate the city and set up a local
government and police station. It
arranged the transfer of 1000 people from Chiang Mai, 1000 from Lampang and 500
from Lamphun to Chiang Saen. The
result was little short of disastrous. Rice was scarce and other food like fruit and chicken was
unavailable. Venomous snakes,
tigers and other dangerous animals constantly threatened the free movement of
settlers.
By 1913 Chiang Saen’s
population was down to seventy persons, served by two restored temples, a
district administrative office and a police station. Many had died from the unexpected hardships. Others had sneaked back to the cities
from which they had come. The
town’s future looked pretty bleak, but somehow it survived. It never developed into the kind of
city it was in the past, but by the time of my excursion there in 1988 its
contemporary residents far outnumbered the batch sent there to revive it in
1878.
"Tilting Chedi" |
chedi in the jungle |
The tigers had all left
decades ago, so other than keeping an eye open for any kraits or cobras lying
around, it was a safe stroll. The
forest begins where the residential suburbs end and the historic ruins
lie. The first one I encountered
was Chedi Luang, the biggest of the ancient monuments, like an inverted cone 88
meters high, surrounded by teak trees even taller. As part of renovating the city he chose to live in rather
than Chiang Mai, King Saen Phu sponsored its construction in 1331 to house a
relic of the Buddha’s breastbone.
chedi in the teak forest |
In a small clearing just past
Chedi Luang lay Wat Pa Sak, first built in 1295 and expanded in the 1340s. Of the main temple building only the
columns remained. The chedi behind it was modeled after a
prototype from Sukhothai, a Thai kingdom southwest of Lanna, and built to
contain relics of the Buddha’s right ankle. While some of the stucco covering on the chedi walls had fallen off, the middle
section still featured fine stone carvings of humans, mythical creatures,
standing Buddhas and intricate floral and geometric designs.
The extant sculptural art at
Wat Pa Sak kept me engaged there longer than at any other site. After Wat Pa Sak the state of
preservation of the monuments proved to be far inferior. The atmosphere prevailed, though, and
while nothing equivalent turned up on the route to match Wat Pa Sak, other attractions
ensued. For one, I came across a chedi perilously leaning to one side
with a gaping hole in its center.
I nicknamed it the Tilting Chedi and wondered if it could withstand the next
strong pre-monsoon storm.
At another point the remains
of a large sculpted foot rested atop a ruined brick mound. Thick jungle stood behind it and I
couldn’t discover another such foot.
But it did make me wonder if this was the remains of some sort of Buddha
Colossus of Chiang Saen. Elsewhere
I spotted chedis all but obscured by
trees and big bushes and on my way back to town passed a pair of ruined
monuments right beside a house. I
wanted to ask its residents what it was like to live literally in the shadows
of history, but couldn’t speak Thai enough to get beyond pleasantries. Did it bring them any luck, for
example, to be beside ancient religious sculptures, even if they were but
remnants? But I had to conclude my
exploration without any answers to my conjectures.
the ruins next door |
Twenty years later I passed
through Chiang Saen again, arriving after dark on a boat trip from Jinghong in
Yunnan, China. The boat docked
south of the town. I was burdened
with luggage then, my left arm in a cast and no transportation was available
from the port to the main part of the town. On my difficult walk through the town from south to north I
did notice that it wasn’t much bigger than two decades ago: a few new bank buildings, a slightly
bigger commercial zone and an extension into perhaps 10% more of the old city
area. Weather was bad in the morning,
so I headed straight to Chiang Mai, without another look at the relics. It’s not far. I can always come back. But I didn’t make that decision soon enough.
Unfortunately, three years
later, March of 2011, an earthquake struck the area, sent Chedi Luang crashing
to the ground, damaged Wat Pa Sak and three other chedis. (I don’t know
if the “Tilting Chedi” was one of them.)
None of the town’s residents were killed or injured, so for them the
tragedy was cultural, not personal, and so not especially disruptive. Eventually funds will be found to
restore the damaged monuments. The
population will expand and more trees will be cut down to make room for houses
even more directly in the shadows of Chiang Saen’s history. And the town’s atmosphere will still
resemble what it basically was in 1988.
monks on the river at Chiang Saen |
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