BURNING RIVERS: (WHERE CITIES MELT) A STUDY OF URBAN WATERFRONTS THROUGHOUT SOUTH-EAST ASIA SUBMITTED AS A REQUIRED FULFILLMENT OF THE S.O.M. URBAN DESIGN FELLOWSHIP BY

MICHAEL LAVIANO

I wish to offer my gratitude to the S.O.M. Fellowship for making this once-in-a-lifetime trip possible. It’s hard to say how much this trip has changed my life. Now that it’s over my outlook on life and the world has changed. When I finally flew out of Asia to head back home I looked out the window down on Hong Kong. Soon enough Macau became visible in the distance, with the Chinese mainland spreading out to the horizon. I envisioned the Himalayas and then India beyond, remembering fondly the people and places I had the luck to encounter. Needless to say this departure wasn’t without a sense of sadness. After a long sobering flight I remember flying into New York, looking down at the city, a city I had seen from above innumerable times. After more than seven months in Asia, New York looked very different from before. Physically it appeared the same, but what seemed different was it’s placement in the larger world. What once appeared as a semi-autonomous city revealed itself as a part of a much larger whole - only a piece in the puzzle. A puzzle which marches on to the infinite vanishing points of a bedazzling horizon. Thank You, Michael Laviano

STATEMENT OF INTENT

World Satellite Photo: We think of fish living a contained life - confined within fishbowl, ocean or sea. We forget that this world is primarily an aquatic environment. The need for water unites everyone, whether desert dweller or fisherman.

Where Cities Melt: A Study of Urban Waterfronts In Southeast Asia 05/1999 Where Cities Melt: a Study of Urban Waterfronts in Southeast Asia elaborates on aspects of Connecting the East River Waterfront. This project examines a variety of issues relating to New York’s East River while focusing on the need of further implementation of connections between the waterfront and the community. Where Cities Melt carries this research forward by proposing a study of multiplicitous urban relationships affecting urban waterfronts in Southeast Asia. It specifically examines the physical and social connections between waterfronts and their public. The waterfront as a ‘place’ consists of a variety of physical urban spaces. Streets, parks, paths, piers and other architectural spaces work as interrelated elements which provide public access to experience of the water’s edge. While traveling to different cities I would document the typology of these different urban spaces. As diverse communities interact at these places, social activities vary depending on local rituals, planning policies, and contemporary trends. The public use of the waterfront occurs in the forms of recreation, commerce, transportation and cultural events. By visiting cities with variegated socio-political landscapes, I would document the richness of activities which animate urban waterfronts. Each of the cities on my travel itinerary offers a very different urban relationship with the waterfront. The sites in India have a sacred regard for the water. Dhaka, with its yearly floods, has a more temporal relationship. Rangoon, at the mouth of Burma’s Mandalay River, has

resisted densification and maintains many open-space connections to its waterfront. In contrast, Bangkok’s rapid development around the Chao Phyra River leaves this waterway one of the few open spaces in this dense city. Vietnam’s large agricultural base is still evident in the rice fields surrounding Saigon while Singapore’s waterfront embraces highly commercial development. Modern skyscrapers contrast with vernacular structures along Jakarta’s Java Sea unlike Hong Kong’s harbor which is more developed than most Western cities. My tentative itinerary is as follows: Bombay, Calcutta, Dhaka, Rangoon, Bangkok, Pnomh Penh, Saigon, Singapore, Jakarta, and Hong Kong. These densely populated cities face increases in development and population in the near future. The metabolic growth in housing, transportation, infrastructure, and commerce will disrupt current patterns of local and regional activity on the waterfront. Urban designers and architects will be called upon to implement plans for these urban edges. This study will inform the dialogue surrounding our urban waterfronts by illustrating the need to increase contextual connection to the waterfront. I hope to develop this study by means of the Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill Urban Design Fellowship.

Whether in the half immersed Bangladeshi plains, in mountainous Tibet, or in Cambodia’s wetlands, water has an inescapable influence on everyday life.

ABSTRACTION

IMMERSION

People have a much more direct contact with the natural environment in less developed countries. While they may not enjoy certain comforts the first world takes for granted, they enjoy the luxury of having direct contact with their surrounding environment.

The Northern most pilgrimage site in Varanasi, India: where the Varna river meets the Ganges.

Use

Access

Architecture

This report attempts to illustrate some of the many different conditions and urban typographies occurring along different waterfronts. I chose the image above as a key for this study. At the northern end of our world’s most ancient city, Varanasi, the temple in the upper-right corner marks where the Varna River meets the Ganges. Despite the seemingly rural quality of the place, most of the ingredients of any city’s waterfront are present. While my categorization may only frame one of many such attempts to develop a topography of waterfront typology, it straddles conditions which appeared again and again throughout my travels: use, access, architecture, edge, infrastructure, geography, and streets. The following are some recommendations / observations I’ve made while visiting different waterfronts:

Edge

Infrastructure

Streets

Geography

Use: The most vibrant waterfronts are those where people engage the water.

Streets: Streets running along-side the waterfront should help activate, not separate, the water’s edge.

Access: The most important and often ignored requirement for public utilization of the water front is adequate access.

Geography: Rivers and mountains are the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, of what we know as the world.

Architecture: Architecture should respond to, and enhance the water’s edge. Edge: Whether fragmented or streamlined, the water’s edge should provide a diversity of different spatial experiences. Infrastructure: Water-controlling infrastructure should designed to augment the environment.

b e

ITINERARY December

November

BANGLADESH

INDIA New Delhi Hardiwar Rishikesh Chandigarh Ahmedabad Udaipur Pushkar Jaipur Agra Varanasi Bodhgaya Calcutta

January

Dhaka Ganges Delta Khulna Bagerhat Mongla Sundarbans

March

February

April

BURMA

THAILAND

CAMBODIA VIETNAM

MALAYSIA

INDONESIA

Rangoon Mandalay Bagan

Bangkok Kho Phi Phi River Markets

Pnum Penh Siem Reap Batdambang

Kuala Lumpur Padang Melaka

Lake Toba Lake Menigau Jakarta Yogyakarta Bali Mt. Bromo

3

4

2

5

Saigon Mekong Delta Da Lat Na Trang Hoi An Hue Ha Noi

6

1

7

8

2 BANGLADESH

SINGAPORE CHINA Hong Kong Guangzhou Chongqing Chengdu

8

9

June

(TIBET)

CHINA

Lhasa Lake Shigatse Gyantse

Xi’an Datong Beijing Shanghai Hong Kong

10

Here I am on a boat through the Sunderbans Mangrove Forest in Bangladesh. I was the tourist attraction for locals in most places.

The ordered appearance of this time line veils the excitingly varied experience of getting around between these many different places. All night busses, trains, and boat rides disappear behind dashed lines. Innumerable guest houses hide behind each number. If low-budget world-travel were only as easy as 1,2,3...

1 INDIA

May

3 BURMA

4 THAILAND

5 CAMBODIA

10 9

1 2

3 6

4 5

A linear path? I like to think of this whirlwind trip around Asia more as a mandala: a spiraling journey. Trying to better understand rivers I ended up falling towards the mountains.

7 8

6IETNAM V

7 MALAYSIA

8 INDONESIA

9 CHINA

10 TIBET

GETTING STARTED / STEP ONE : INDIA Perhaps the smartest move I made in laying out my itinerary was to start in India. Firstly, because the Hindu belief in the curative and spiritually cleansing aspects of water has lead to the formation of cities which have rich waterfronts ripe with striking detail. Secondly, because India’s cultural legacy has influenced the rest of South-East Asia over the centuries. Thirdly, because of the spiritual richness of the land and it’s people. In order to understand the culture, history, and architecture of South-East Asia one must understand something about India.

Excerpt from E-mail sent from Delhi 11-9-99: Namo Ganesha Vighnesavarata Hello! These words bring protection and guidance to new adventures by calling upon the powers of Ganesh, the elephantheaded god of protection and initiation. God knows, I can use all the protection and guidance I can get! My first hours in Delhi were straight out of the Lonely Planet’s warning section on taxidriver scams… Though my first few hours in India may have been less than ideal, it has been entirely uphill (literally) from there. The only problem I’ve been having is

Looking down to Hardiwar, near the source of the Ganges

a slight case of upset stomach. This is undoubtedly caused by the same agent which - at least temporarily - seems to be its only cure, spicy Indian cuisine. There is one other highly infectious ailment that has overtaken my system: Indianitis. I don’t know if this affliction has a cure, and it’s too late for an inoculation (the side effects of which I don’t care to imagine). Inevitably, it seems, I will carry this for life, despite the fact that many smells and sights counter its influence. The oppressive smog of Delhi, the poverty, and the insanity of its streets hold it at bay. But like any microscopic agent it is too invisible to see and works from the inside out.

You may wonder why I don’t just get to the meat of this story. Why I don’t tell you about the amazing things I’ve seen since arriving with fresh eyes. Why the long pre-amble. Because, I am convinced that the most important things in this remarkable place are not the things that you can see. After spending my first day in Delhi I hired a car and driver to head up to Hardiwar. This sacred city is located near the source of the Ganges River, where it emerges from the mountains. Every night at sunset people head to the water’s edge for a remarkable festival. Small banana-leaf boats filled with flowers, incense and

a brightly burning candle are offered to the sacred river. The dancing lights bounce spiritedly into the blackness downstream. The following day I went to Rishikesh, another small town just up-river. I woke at the break of dawn to chanting Yogis from Rishikesh’s many ashrams, and headed to the cool, dimly lit banks of the crystal-green river. After shedding my clothes down to trunks I joined the other pilgrims and immersed myself in Ganga’s purifying waters, effectively purging myself of a number of previously misdiagnosed ailments.

Excerpt of E-mail sent from Dhaka, 12-7-99: Kashi Ke Kandar Shiva Shankar Hai The very stones of Varanasi are Shiva Guided by Ganesha, Vishnu, and ultimately Shiva, my travels brought me back to the Ganges at Varanasi. Abandoning course to visit the dessert landscapes of Rajastan, then tacking towards the great Yamuna River at Agra and Matura, I skirted through the Kamasutra’s homeland of Khajaraho to re-engage the greatest of rivers where life and death eternally embrace.

This most ancient of cities marks the place where Shiva abandoned the wild ways of his bachelor lifestyle in the Himalayas and settled down with his new wife Pavarti: “The entire cosmos joined together to form the great chariot on which Shiva made his entry into the city. The Ganges and Yamuna Rivers became the shaft of his chariot;... Accompanied by the Seven Seas and by all the rivers and mountains and trees of the earth, Shiva entered Varanasi.” My arrival to Varanasi was a good deal less heroic. I arrived at an inglorious four o’clock in the morning after intermittent sleep on a second-class sleeper train following twelve hours of the worst bus ride imaginable.

India was the perfect place to start my journey. The waterfronts of Hardiwar, Pushkar, and Varanasi are the most sacred places in the world for Hindus. The many stepped ghats allow people to have direct access to the water.

Varanasi

Pavarti didn’t take to Varanasi well, at first. I must admit that as much as I was looking forward to visiting this remarkable place, it took a while for it to grow on me. The first impression it gives is of amazingly narrow streets (three feet wide in some places) which are periodically blocked by the random cow and littered with their not so pleasant by-product. Narrow doorways open onto the fascinating landscape of riverfront steps, or ghats, flowing down into the Ganges. The fascinating display of pilgrims and local Varanasi residents washing in the river is constantly interrupted, however, by people trying to sell you boat rides, hashish, or massages. To top it off, there is

the constant presence of death. I walked out of my hotel after first arriving to stumble on five or so cremations taking place in full view, ten or so feet away from the walkway. The next day my spirit of adventure took me past the city, under a bridge, along a beach path on its way to the Varna river. When I passed a corpse in advanced stage of decay my awareness of death in this world’s longest living city made me gasp. Breathlessly.

USE

Throughout Asia most people have some form of contact with natural water-bodies on a daily basis. In smaller villages rivers are used for bathing, washing clothes, fishing and drinking. In large cities rivers provide much needed corridors for transit. Throughout India rivers are sacred places, where people travel far to visit in order to facilitate a better life in the future. Whether people come to the water in order to find spiritual cleansing or physical nourishment, the direct contact and interaction which occurs there make the waterfront an active and fascinating place. Bangladeshi village waterfront

RITUAL

COMMERCE

TOURISM

HABITATION

TRANSPORT

THE MOST VIBRANT WATERFRONTS ARE THOSE WHERE PEOPLE SPIRITEDLY ENGAGE THE WATER

GATHERING

RECREATION

CLEANSING

WASTE

HARVEST

RITUAL

At the foothills of the Himalayas where the Ganges emerges from it’s mountain source, the cities of Hardiwar and Rishikesh are sacred pilgrimage sights. Every night candles are sent downstream in small flower filled boats as a blessing, or Puja.

INDIA

HARVEST

CAMBODIA

BANGLADESH

The ability of people to feed themselves in most South-East Asian countries hinges on availability of water.

INDONESIA

CHINA

TRANSPORT BANGLADESH: The only way to

get around in Bangladesh for much of the year is by boat. These are some of the ferries in Dhaka.

Rivers and canals offer faster commutes than most streets in the crowded cities and towns of South- East Asia. Due to the yearly deluge of rain, roads are often muddy or washed out. River travel is often the only viable way of getting between many places.

CAMBODIA: Make the girl do all

the work

CHINA: Yangtze River tour-boats

RECREATION The water-puppet shows of Vietnam and the beaches of Thailand are only two of the many forums for aquatic enjoyment.

VIETNAM:

INDIA

MALAYSIA

Water puppets are an age-old tradition in Vietnam.

INDONESIA

: Kids find relief from the heat in river, ocean, or pool.

THAILAND

VIETNAM

COMMERCE Not only do rivers provide ways of transporting goods, they also provide forums for the exchange of goods. The river markets of Thailand and Vietnam are but some of the more memorable examples shown here.

INDIA: floating candle wallah THAILAND: Floating markets

BANGLADESH BURMA

CAMBODIA

VIETNAM

CLEANSING

One is lucky to have running water, let alone a washing machine, in most of S.E.A. Washing clothes and bathing forms a daily ritual for most.

BANGLADESH CAMBODIA

INDIA

INDONESIA

AQUATIC / ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM

Water has a symbolic importance in most religions. In Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, and Buddhism water is used as a spatially defining element with spiritual significance.

Cities are formed around the ritual bathing in places of pilgrimage such as Pushkar above.

HINDUISM The spatial arrangements of most Hindu and Buddhist temples emulate the climbing of a sacred mountain. They form representations of a cosmic geography emphasizing a spiritual assent. Passing over a body of water has a purifying, changing effect along this journey.

Missing from these photos are the masculine symbol of Shiva, a lingham. Surrounding the lingham is the female surrounding chakra, which captures the milk or honey poured from above.

The most auspicious way to die for a Hindu is to be cremated along the river’s edge in Varanasi. While searching for water’s significance in India one find’s fire.

sacred cities and tombs of China and Vietnam feature BUDDHISM / TAOISM The bodies of water - one of the primary elements in Taoist mythology.

ISLAM

One of the most striking aspects of Islamic culture is the four-time daily prayer to Mecca. Before praying, the Koran demands that one must cleanse one’s hands and feet. This ritual has it’s most graceful architectural treatment in the pools and fountains centered in the court of most mosques.

The gardens of the Taj Mahal and other Moghul fortresses represent the gardens of Heavan. Waterways symbolize rivers of milk and honey described in the Koran.

In Tibet, Buddhist and earlier pagan traditions are united in the practice of hanging prayer flags. They span most rivers and mountains, flapping in the wind to release Buddhist’ Sutras while fending off evil spirits.

ARCHITECTURE

Western Architecture generally treats water as a decorative element, something which surrounds a building. Water’s symbolic importance in Eastern culture is integrated in the formation of architecture. Temples along rivers are not mere buildings, but reflect the mountains from which water flows. Moats around the cities of Angkor and in China represent spiritual hierarchies. The floating building in Vietnam or Indonesia bespeak of a non-dualistic interaction between land and water.

ARCHITECTURE SHOULD RESPOND TO AND ENHANCE THE WATER’S EDGE Can any other building compare with the tragic beauty of the Taj Mahal?

A traditional Indonesian Batak-house resembles a boat. The step wells around the Gujarati capital Ahmedabad are remarkable works of architecture. Rich in detail, and spatially dramatic they elevate the act of getting water to a mythic journey.

INDIA: The remarkable Gujarati step wells

VIETNAM: Walls and moats; reflecting pools and towers BANGLADESH: Kahn’s National Assembly

BURMA: Every mountain or island features a pagoda

CAMBODIA:

THAILAND: Novelty and tradition

Floating houses and the monumental ruins of Angkor Wat

INDONESIA: Buildings seem to soar over land and water;

a pool offers cool repose

CHINA:

Modern architecture in an ancient land

ANGKOR WAT

The ruins of Ankor Wat are awe inspiring in many different ways. From the miniature stone carving to the incredible vastness of their endeavor, it boggles the mind to imagine how such monumental splendor ever arose. What made this vast empire possible in the first place? Management and control of water for food production. The relatively small but ornately detailed Banteay Srea temple. Sunrise at Sra Srong

The barrays of Angkor Wat were used to store water and provide a forum for worshiping it’s gods. The acknowledged importance of water to the Angkor civilization is evident in the detail of Neak Pean above.

Most temples are surrounded by one or more moats. They have more than a functional purpose. They represent spiritual progress towards the peak of Nirvana.

Details of the prayer platform of the Sra Srong overlooking a Baray

The pinnacle temples of Angkor Wat

Doors, pagodas, walls, moats, and paths intertwine in a fascinatingly layered hierarchy.

Pools of water and moats are as structural to the architecture of Angkor Wat as are it’s walls and temples of stone.

The smiling faces of the Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom are surmount the cleft of canyon-like hallways.

Chakra’s point towards doorways leading down corridors surrounded by moats

ACCESS

In most larger cities the access to the waterfront is fragmented and impersonal (the grand promenades of Hong Kong, Shanghai excepted). Rivers are often hidden behind barriers of industrial or commercial development I found that the smaller towns had more intimate relationships with the water, ones which larger cities might benefit from by emulating.

THE MOST IMPORTANT AND OFTEN IGNORED REQUIREMENT FOR PUBLIC UTILIZATION OF THE WATERFRONT IS ADEQUATE ACCESS

INDIA: As narrow as passages may be, there is usually a way to get to the water in most Indian cities. Most of Varanasi’s ghats fan out from the narrowest of walkways.

BURMA

BANGLADESH: Every small town hugs the streets leading to ferry stops in rural towns

CAMBODIA: The canal above is a street during the dry season

THAILAND

VIETNAM: The waterfront is a place of trade and of transportation linked to the rest of the town

INDONESIA: In a land of islands it is only natural that the water can be accessible for ferry or commerce

DETAILS

EDGE

There are many different ways in which cities meet their waterfronts. While some waterfronts have a very strong edge, others have more subtle transitions between water and concrete. Some edges are like steps, others are like walls. Still others blur the difference between water and land.

WHETHER FRAGMENTED OR STREAMLINED, THE WATER’S EDGE SHOULD PROVIDE A DIVERSITY OF DIFFERENT SPATIAL EXPERIENCES.

Varanasi’s waterfront has the most fascinating edge in the world. It features numerous steps, or Ghats where people bath at all times of day. Every year they must clean the mud off of these steps once the rainy season passes.

INDIA

Smaller Indian cities such as Hardiwar, Udaipur, Pushkar, and Mathura also feature Ghats.

Different ways of meeting the water in Pushkar

A melting between stone and water in Udaipur

BANGLADESH: the water’s edge is always changing in this country of floods on top of floods.

THAILAND: many people plant flowers along their backyard canal

BURMA: Most of the Ayerwady Riverfront is mud and sand. above are never far out of sight

Temples on top of hills

CAMBODIA: Towns encroach every river and pond

VIETNAM: Vietnam’s waterways vary from the soft-edged lands surrounding delta and beach to the hard edges of fortress and urban sprawl

INDONESIA

: Houses and boats blend in this country of islands

STREETS

Streets running along-side the waterfront of most cities help define the quality of the riverfront’s edge. Where belt-highways tend to cut off the water from the city, smaller pedestrian friendly streets provide access. The stores, markets, and housing along South-East Asian waterfront streets help frame a great diversity of different experiences.

Streets parallel waterways more often than not. This Burmese street defines a typical typology throughout South-East Asia where the street and housing are separated by open water channels.

STREETS RUNNING ALONG-SIDE THE WATERFRONT SHOULD HELP ACTIVATE, NOT SEPARATE, THE WATER’S EDGE.

INDIA: Walkways wind and twist

over the many Ghats in Varanasi; every waterfront street is more than a way of getting somewhere, it is a path of pilgrimage

BANGLADESH: streets and paths are also dam’s in Bangladesh;

dark markets often follow expansive waterways

VIETNAM:

Whether on the colonial streets of Hoi-An or along the rural Mekong Delta pathways, waterfront streets in Vietnam are always full of activity.

CAMBODIA: The colonial riverfronts of Pnonm Penh and Battambang front riverside parks;

INDONESIA

: People live and set up shop along the canals of Jakarta

they often feature cafes or vendors.

MALAYSIA

CHINA

INFRASTRUCTURE

Most places in South-East Asia do not have seasons in the traditional sense. There is only a rainy season and a dry season. To ameliorate the deleterious effects of the annual deluge followed by drought, water control projects have been popular despite their extraordinary costs and impact on the environment. From the great barays of Angkor civilization, to the controversial Five-Gorges dam in China being completed today, controlling water has equated with maintaining stability and a steady supply of food. Food supplies for overgrowing populations rely directly on water provided by overtaxed rivers, which more often than not cross borders. Hopefully neighboring countries can share this dwindling resource without recourse to war.

WATER-CONTROLLING INFRASTRUCTURE SHOULD BE DESIGNED IN WAYS TO AUGMENT THE ENVIRON-

INDIA: India’s public work water projects have a long history.

A former reservoir at Fatupr Sikri. After the emperor moved the capital here it was discovered that there wasn’t enough water to support it.

The damming projects in Udaipur enabled the Rajputs to maintain their strength against Mughal intruders while modern dams supply water for vast areas of farmland.

BURMA: The city of Mandalay ceters arround it’s impressive fortress and moat.

BANGLADESH: dirt roads more often than not contain the water within.

THAILAND: Ancient Khmer cities, modern canals, gutters and a bridge.

help

CAMBODIA: Ancient water control projects of Angkor Wat;

The Khmer Rouge’s ‘Killing Dam’ on the right. Many prisoners died in it’s making.

VIETNAM: Not only dams but streets, farms and harbor rely on the control of water

INDONESIA

MALAYSIA

:TheJavanesepeoplewouldnever

have prospered enough to build Borubadur if it weren’t for the steady supply of water to their lush farmlands

CHINA: The wier system built more than a millennium ago still provides produce-rich Sezuan Province with water

INDONESIA : Borubadur would never have been built if it weren’t for the steady supply of water to it’s surrounding rice paddies.

Agra: a small pool in a vast court

A step well at Fatupr Sikri

The water palace of Yogyakarta was the playground of the Sultans. Now children swim amongst it’s refreshing if somewhat brackish water.

The small town of Meningau in Sumatra is situated along steep hills leading to a lake. Houses are built alongside and above channels for water.

URBAN DIASPORA

Bodies of water offer a striking spatial contrast to the urban fabric of most towns. Rivers, lakes and oceans provide calm repose amongst the sounds and activities of any metropolis. They also provide a remarkable opportunity for a city to see itself. Like a mirror, a city can see the constituent parts which make up it’s face. Different types of buildings or activities have visual associations with each other which otherwise might not happen. Buildings, mountains, and vehicles play off each other in a unique composition mediated by the tempo of water and horizon.

EXPANSES OF WATER OFFER UNIQUE OPPORTUNITIES TO SEE A CITY’S FACE AND IT’S DIFFERENT FEATURES.

INDIA: The city of Pushkar offers a more homogenous facade than most cities thanks to the unwritten code mandating light colored, low buildings stepping to the lake.

Life and death, commerce and spiritualism merge on Varanasi’s river

Temples and mountains reach up along Hardiwar’s stretching waterfront.

BANGLADESH: Dhaka’s waterfront features every activity imaginable.

It is the Broadway of Bangladesh.

THAILAND: Temples and laundry lie side by side in Bangkok

VIETNAM: The floating markets have more stability in tradition than surrounding buildings

MALAYSIA: Georgetown appears to be an Island within an island

GEOGRAPHY

Geography is everything when it comes to the layout and location of cities. In the past, geography determined where people could prosper with adequate protection, access to trade, and sources of income. These pressures may have been mediated somewhat by modern technology, yet the form and layout of any city responds to natural pre-existing conditions. Man always works within the confines of natural limitation.

RIVERS AND MOUNTAINS ARE THE ALPHA AND OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END, OF WHAT WE KNOW AS THE WORLD.

In Burma temples form islands; their pagodas are mountains

INDIA

The geography in India changes season to season. The canyons and riverbeds above fill up with the monsoon waters every year

BURMA: Cities and towns straddle ever-eroding and changing rivers BANGLADESH:

Where the Ganges Delta fans out to eventually meet the Indian Sea is the world’s largest littoral mangrove forest, the Sunderbans

THAILAND: Water erodes even mountains

VIETNAM: The thousands of small islands in Halomb Bay seem to float in this remarkable setting

INDONESIA :Mountains, volcanos, islands and cliff make the backdrop of most places in this archipelago of a country TIBET: The source of the greatest of Asia’s rivers, Tibet feels barren like the moon, most of the year

The ancient city of Bagan is slowly but surely being eroded

Mandalay from afar: the Ayerwady and mountains beyond

Above the city of Hardiwar one can visually see the heart of Indian civilization: the Ganges River comes from the mountains on the left and snakes it’s way out into the vast Gangetic Plains to the right. Most of Northern India’s agriculture and cities relies on this river for it’s water.

My trip began looking at the mountains below. It ended beyond them, at the roof of the world: Tibet

Rabindrath Tagore, Bangladesh’s Nobel Prize winning poet also known for his theoretical writing and travelogues, wrote in 1922, It is not always a profound interest in man that carries travelers nowadays to distant lands. More often it is the facility for rapid movement. For lack of time and for the sake of convenience we generalize and crush our human facts into the packages within the steel trunks that hold our travelers’ reports. Thanks to the travel enabled by the S.O.M. Fellowship I now see the world in a brand-new light. It is difficult to try and describe how my original intentions were fulfilled during my travel since they were exceedingly fulfilled in more ways than I could have imagined before departure. While I tried to better understand man’s relationship to water in its different forms, I ended up fascinated by mountains. I had originally intended on focusing on the waterfronts of large cities but ended up finding great reward amongst rural villages. I had originally intended on traveling for four months and ended up doubling that time. Ultimately this trip was a priceless one (and one which I could scarcely afford to take again). Perhaps the greatest fulfillment arose from the day-to-day getting about in places vastly different from what I know. There is a somewhat dark aspect to the kind of realization this exposure brings: attitudes inclining towards alienation or cynicism. As Barbara Kingsolver wrote in ‘The Poisenwood Bible’: “Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization.” After traveling through places which have so much less than our nation of plenty, I have returned with a greater appreciation for our liberties, prosperity, and grocery stores. I have also learned that we have much to learn from other and seemingly less prosperous nations. I was most impressed by how gracefully people lived without the bubbles of safety and comfort we take for granted. It is safe to say that people in less developed countries such as South-East Asia (S.E.A.) live more in tune with their surroundings; more in connection with the life giving and

life taking forces of nature. Even Bangladesh, the densest populated country in the world, is primarily composed of water, farm, and village. There is something remarkably different in the way in which people appreciate water in different lands. In most of S.E.A. water is regarded as a variable element of change. In the West we think of our lakes, rivers, and oceans as a sort of constant and pleasing backdrop. Floods and hurricanes periodically interrupt this notion and the real-estate plots assumed to be terra firma. In lands which experience yearly monsoons and their attendant floods people follow quite a different model. While we often think of water as that which is opposite of land, in S.E.A. the two intermingle and mix. Roads become canals for part of the year and then once again roads. Rice fields start as ponds and then end up as dry fields of golden grass. In Vietnam the same word for water is for country, ‘nuoc’. I suppose I have one regret about my trip. Since I traveled most countries during their dry season I didn’t have a chance to live through a monsoon. I wish I could have seen how different places changed when it rains every day. I wish I could have stayed longer and seen Varanasi flooded. It must be an entirely different city. What I learned most during my trip was how little I know. Michael Laviano

Some of the happiest days of my travelling were spent hiking around and painting amongst the mountains of Tibet. These efforts were more than exercises in landscape art. They were meditations on the impermanence and changeability of everything in this world. Of all things, mountains seem the most stable. Yet even the highest mountains in and around the Himalayas are evidence of the ever changing earth. As proud and austere as they seem in their relative geological youth, the yearly thawing of snow erodes granite to gravel to dust. What are now mountains will once again be ocean. Ultimately these meditations made me realize that we shouldn’t take ourselves all too seriously. Nor should we take the things and people around us for granted. If there is one solid thing I brought back with me, one jewel carved out of the experience of this trip, it would be this. Mountains, like anything else of seeming permanence, rise and fall like the ocean’s waves.