Amerikas geheimer Krieg in Laos - Neue Kinodaten
Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.
Tom Vater
Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic books and reportage from South Asia and beyond
IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP - A tribute to David Carradine’s passing in Bangkok
In The Great Railway Bazaar, published in 1975, best-selling travel writer Paul Theroux described Bangkok as “a hugely preposterous city of temples and brothels”. More than thirty years later, first time visitors to the City of Angels could be forgiven for thinking that Theroux’s analysis is as valid today as it might have been then, in the closing days of the Vietnam War.
But, to be serious for just one sentence, Bangkok, a city of some eleven million inhabitants, offers more than sanctity and sex.
Closer to the mark, though perhaps unintentionally so, Paul Theroux also pointed out that Bangkok’s “discomfort seems a calculated discouragement to residents” and that the Thai capital was “a city for transients”. In fact, that’s the city’s greatest strength and its untold story. The transients are Bangkok’s lifeblood.
All sorts of people drop by all the time. Most visibly, millions of poor Thai farmers pour into the capital in search of employment. Many of the motorcycle taxi drivers, the cleaners, street sweepers, food vendors, garland and lottery sellers, even the sex workers, in short, the people who make it possible for the city to exist, are transients. Turn a busy corner in Bangkok and you might find yourself in a side street that breathes more like a village in North Eastern Thailand than an urban community at home in a futuristic cityscape. Come harvest time, many of the residents disappear to tend to their fields hundreds of kilometers away. These local strangers are followed by immigrants, legal and otherwise, from Burma, China, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Nepal and places as far away as Nigeria, who also establish their back-street communities in the sweltering Thai capital.
And then there are the wealthier foreigners who emerge, stiff and pale, from the flying metal tubes that ferry them from another world into the humid, hot concrete swamp of Bangkok. Upon clearing customs and facing the Kingdom, they immediately begin to sweat. Some hate the bad air and head for the beaches, others are in a hurry to spend vast amounts of cash on living out their worst hedonistic instincts, while others still simply descend into the pulsating maelstrom of the metropolis and are never seen again. This panoply of Bangkok enthusiasts includes international fugitives, rich heirs with money to burn, film-makers in search of that story, washed-up writers, drunken journalists, drug-addled backpackers, creepy sex nuts, professional hippies, shady exporters, incognito bank robbers, ageing rock stars, war criminals, mercenaries, secret agents, terrorists and Nobel Peace Prize winners, all manners of celebrities, would-be celebrities and pretenders. In Bangkok, even Steven Seagal can make a newspaper headline.
The funny thing is, many of the transients either stay and become a contradiction, or come back again and again. No doubt, the close proximity of the two apparently opposing worlds (one and the same for the Thais, one might suspect) conjured onto center stage in The Great Railway Bazaar – of glittering sacred roofs propped up by the low murmur of whispered prayers and of shimmering mascara painted around fathomless eyes winking sensuously at even the ugliest new kid on the block – is a major part of the attraction for casual visitors like Mr. Theroux.
Last week, yet another passing celebrity grabbed local and international headlines. American actor David Carradine died under mysterious circumstances in his Bangkok hotel suite while in town for a movie shoot. Carradine was an early childhood hero of mine, who, as the Shaolin monk in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu, exuded puritanical feel-good morality - disguised as Eastern wisdom - but kicked enough ass to hold the attention of a seven-year old.
First the Thai police said the actor had killed himself; then the authorities claimed he had died in the course of an autoerotic experiment. The family’s representative dismissed suicide and suggested that Carradine was assassinated by a secret Kung Fu cult which might have felt threatened by his alleged attempts to investigate the secrets of such groups. Sounds like one of his movies.
David Carradine became famous around the same time Paul Theroux came to the conclusion that “this flattened anthill”, as the celebrated scribe called Bangkok, was merely a motley collection of the aforementioned houses of the holy and the not so holy.
Carradine was the ultimate trash actor, a B-movie hero. He is so memorable because he persistently played reliable villains in a sheer endless string of below-par schlock movies and never seemed to take it very seriously. Every now and then, he appeared in a real film, perhaps just to remind himself that he could act.
For those with short memories or the advantage of being too young to remember, his career did not start with Quentin’s Kill Bill, though Carradine did save Tarantino’s shallow revenge ditty with his brooding presence and a fictional death as poignant as his actual passing was absurd. His outstanding contribution to western culture was the character of Frankenstein in the tasteless, cheap and highly original Death Race 2000, the 1975 Roger Corman produced B- movie to end all B-movies. This amazing exploitation flick was driven into top gear by Carradine’s ridiculous yet engrossing performance and the film’s pervasive tone of irreverence and vulgarity.
According to interviews and biographies, David Carradine lived like one of his characters - he experimented with psychedelic drugs and liked fast cars. He was married five times and one of his ex-wives claimed he was a sexual deviant. I did not really understand any of these things when I was seven years old, though I too liked fast cars. Now, more than three decades later, I have lost interest in fast cars, but I do like an artist whose work mirrors his life.
The larger than life characters Carradine played, from kung-fu monks to sleaze-balls of all shades - in the recent and quite appalling movie Hellride, the actor appeared as a hundred year old, oversexed Chinese Godfather - and his tragic but funky end in Bangkok all appear part of an action-packed movie script called, well, life. It hardly matters whether he was assassinated in B-movie fashion or accidentally perished in a solo-sex act gone wrong. What’s certain is that David Carradine was still out there, at the age of 72, doing his thing, at a time in life when most of us barely know how to change channels on the TV.
All that’s left to do is to salute the man for entertaining us then and now. He was apparently happy to be in Bangkok. And that’s good news for Bangkok. The city’s obvious attractions, those mentioned by Mr. Theroux, would hardly have impressed the jaded palate of a true Hollywood survivor. Like I said, a city of eleven million people must have more to offer than that.
During his visit, David Carradine became a Bangkok transient, who enriched the city’s dark cultural underbelly with his tragic, mysterious and wacky curtain-call. Yes, I sincerely commiserate with his family and his fans, but what a way to go for a man who spent a lifetime playing avenging ass-kicking angels and sordid creeps.
Bring back Mr. Theroux for another visit, I say. He too might make a good transient.
Postscript: Fans will also remember the scene in Death Race 2000 in which American hero Rambo Stallone knocked out his female interest in profoundly un-PC like fashion. But Stallone is old snow. He came through Bangkok a couple of years ago on his way to liberate Burma and no one took note until he was caught with a bag full of steroids on his way into Australia. Burma has not been liberated. At least Frankenstein liberated America and drove away with his sweetheart. Don’t watch the remake of Death Race 2000 though - even if David Carradine reprised his role as Frankenstein, it’s a cynical corporate ride and hardly a final masterpiece – times have changed and great bad taste has given way to sick jokes for chavs, subsumed by mindless layers of CGI. Perhaps the days of the great B-movie actors are numbered.
Amerikas Geheimer Krieg in Laos - Neue Kinodaten
Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.
Tom Vater’s Three Pagodas Pass published in Traversing the Orient Magazine
At the Three Pagodas Pass, in the wild and beautiful far west of Thailand, the orchid and furniture trade is booming, shoot-outs between Burmese rebels and Thai soldiers are rare and the area remains one of those beauty spots that have not yet succumbed to mass tourism.
Read Tom Vater’s feature story on Thailand’s Three Pagodas Pass, republished in Traversing the Orient Magazine in May 2009. Photographs by Aroon Thaewchatturat.
Tom Vater’s Tea Total in Darjeeling published in Traversing the Orient Magazine
“Life is chaos, the world is chaos. The only constant is change. I like chaos and the way you position yourself in it. Where do we come from? What are we doing here and where are we going? We need to answer these questions to be free, to find our way. That’s what I’m doing in my tea garden.”
Not the sort of introduction one would expect from a tea plantation owner in the Darjeeling hills. But then, Rajah Banerjee is not an ordinary man. He is the owner of the most highly prized tea plantation in the world. Makaibari Tea Estates in Darjeeling have developed sustainable, biodynamic agriculture at high returns. Rajah Banerjee, the enigmatic fourth heir to the estate, sells the world’s most expensive tealeaves. His main clients in the US, Japan, France and Germany buy up his entire harvest - before it is harvested.
Read Tom Vater’s feature story on The World’s Most Expensive Tea, republished in Traversing the Orient Magazine in April 2009. Photos by Aroon Thaewchatturat.
Amerikas geheimer Krieg in Laos – Die größte Militäroperation der CIA - Rezensionen
Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.
Moon Cambodia by Tom Vater - Cover Preview
Check out the cover of Tom Vater’s up-coming travel guide to Cambodia, a Moon Handbook, out in October 2009.
The Most Secret Place on Earth - German Cinema Premiere
German Cinema Premiere for Marc Eberle’s film The Most Secret Place on Earth - The CIA’s Covert War in Laos (Screenplay: Marc Eberle/Tom Vater)
KÖLN – 26.April, 11.30Uhr | Filmforum NRW im Museum Ludwig: Bischofsgartenstr. 1, 50667 Köln | Tel. 0221. 221 24498 | http://www.filmforumnrw.de/
HAMBURG – 4.Mai, 20 Uhr | Kino Abaton: Allendeplatz 3, Ecke Grindelhof, 20146 Hamburg | Tel. 040. 41 320 320 | http://www.abaton.de/
FRANKFURT – 5.Mai, 20 Uhr | Kino Naxos: Theater Willy Praml, Naxoshalle | Wittelsbacher Allee 29, 60316 Frankfurt | Tel. 069. 43 05 47 33/4 | http://www.naxos-kino.org/
BERLIN – 7.Mai, 21.15 Uhr | Kino Babylon:Mitte: Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 30, 10178 Berlin | Tel. 030. 24 25 969 | http://www.babylonberlin.de/
The Most Secret Place on Earth - The CIA’s Covert War in Laos - Trailer
The Vietnam War was the most intensely televised war ever. However, next door in neighboring Laos, the longest and largest air war in human history was underway, which eventually made Laos the most bombed country on earth. The Secret War was the largest operation ever conducted by the CIA, yet to this day, hardly anyone knows anything about it. Critics call it the biggest war crime of the Vietnam War era and point to striking similarities to the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan; similarities that were tested and set in motion back in Laos in the 1960s. In The Most Secret Place On Earth, key players of the Secret War– former CIA agents, American pilots, Laotian fighters and war reporters — take us on a journey into the physical heart of the conflict: Top secret Long Cheng, where the CIA built its headquarters in 1962. It was from this base that the Secret War was largely planned and executed. As the war dragged on, Long Cheng became the busiest airbase in the world and a major center for the global opium and heroin trade. As we journey into Long Cheng for the first time — the site has been off limits to the outside world since the end of the war in 1975 — the film reconstructs the gripping story of the operation and illustrates its relevance to current American conflicts.
Director: Marc Eberle, Screenplay: Marc Eberle/Tom Vater, Producer: www.beetz-brothers.de, Co-Production: NDR/arte/WDR
Developed within the framework of Discovery Campus Masterschool 2003
Funded by the Filmförderung HHSH, Filmstiftung NRW, MEDIA NEW TALENTS and MEDIA BROADCAST
Marc Eberle’s documentary feature about how the CIA fights its wars is having its German cinema premiere next month and will be broadcast on numerous TV channels around the world later this year. A DVD is also in the offing. Having contributed as a screenwriter and researcher in Laos, Thailand and the US, I am really happy to see this amazing story finally being told. It’s been an incredible experience working with the film’s protagonists and exploring their stories within the historical framework.
The Secret War in Laos can only find closure if the story of the conflict is in the public domain. And only then can Long Cheng and its memories be returned to the world. Lest we forget, former CIA-Hmong fighters and their families continue to live in the remote mountains of Laos, on the run, trapped between past and present. I hope the film will become a standard reference for this captivating part of the larger war America fought in South East Asia and for US foreign policy from the 1960s and 1970s to the present time.
For more information on The Most Secret Place on Earth and an interview with director Marc Eberle, read this story by Andrew Nette on Inter Press Service
For information on the production and the film’s German premiere, visit Discovery Campus
Rainer Krack/Tom Vater Thailand Handbook translated into Polish
Rainer Krack’s and Tom Vater’s best-selling Thailand Handbook, a leading Thailand guide for the German market, is currently being translated into Polish. Publication details to follow. Spocko!
The 14th edition of Rainer Krack and Tom Vater’s Thailand Handbook with German travel publisher Reise Know How was published at the beginning of 2009. This bumper issue is packed with 900 pages of up to date travel information on Thailand. And for the first time, all the pictures are in color, shot by the authors and Thai photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat.
Art & Culture
- Aroon Thaewchatturat
- Mohans Adventure Travel, Hardwar, India
- NEW
- NoHansLand
- Orchid Books
- The Andaman Association
- The Horse Hospital
- The Riel Bar, Kep, Cambodia
Books by Tom Vater
- Beyond The Pancake Trench (English)
- In Heiligen Höhen (German)
- KulturSchock Thailands Bergvölker und Seenomaden (German)
- Rajasthans Palasthotels (German photobook)
- Reise Know How Thailand Handbuch (German)
- Reise Know How Thailands Süden (German)
- Thailands Bergvölker und Seenomaden (German photobook)
- The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu (English)
- Zur Quelle des Ganges (German photobook)
Tom Vater - Online!
- Bokor Palace Casino – forteantimes
- Iggy and the Stooges play London
- Interview with Tom Vater
- Savants of the sea engulfed by politics
- Tea Total in Darjeeling
- Tom Vater’s photography at OnAsia Images
- Tombraiders - Plunder of Prehistoric Artifacts in Cambodia