Several years ago my ex-wife, my daughter, dog and I toured the River Kwai. The mountains were featherded by plumes of smoke from where farmers were burning the slopes to cut back vegetation for fruit orchards. When I mentioned this violation to the rangers at the forestry station, they shrugged with ineffectiveness. “Mai mi alai samlat yut fi mai.”
They had no way to stop the fires and neither did I.
The land had ben seized by ‘chon yai’ or big people and big people in Thailand harshly dealt with small people trying to stop the progress of profit.
Sadly most of the old trees in Thailand have been chopped down to provide the world with soft toilet paper. Same goes for Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos and Cambodia, where a few hundred men with chain saws have cleared a forest balder than Yul Brenner.
100 years ago the same thing happened in the Adirondacks and northern Maine. Millions of trees were replaced by a stump tundra, yet now 90% of those ravaged lands are forest. Maybe the same will come to pass in Southeast Asia, but not soon for the billion bums of China need pampering and soft paper comes from trees.
The best thing about that trip was my dog Champoo taking a dump on the Bridge over the River Kwai.
Didn’t wipe her ass afterwards and I pretended she was someone else’s dog.
“Never seen her before.”
Champoo wandered away from me.
Thais shook their heads.
Wild dogs are everywhere, but there aren’t many homeless Tzi-Zhus.
Champoo knew how to play a stray.
I miss her so.
