Lampang, December 11, 2019
In a little provincial town that would very much like to sleep, Lampang that perhaps misses quieter times, the era of walkers and bicycles, the age of boats gliding on the Wang river – even the time when vehicles could be counted, handful of cars and motorbikes for which the bridges were built.
Oh the narrow bridges of Lampang over the Wang river! White bridge with a low crown where the cars file by, just wide enough for both directions, adorned at both ends with a rooster crowing its colours. And a hundred metres downstream: dull concrete bridge, very cramped, for scooters only – scooters and those who have legs.
I walk on this bridge in the rush hour that allows no respite.
Lampang has sprawled, the concrete has flowed, the boxes on wheels have multiplied – as everywhere else. At the point of evening, on the cross streets of the little town, cars and motorbikes go in tight ranks – fluid without oxygen, oil without an air bubble –, cramped on these structures designed for a town that is no more.
In the middle of the scooter bridge, two crossbow fishermen, stock at the shoulder, weapon aimed at the dirty waters. On the right hand, a wide pipe vomits wastewater. On the surface of the Wang float brown and shady slicks, symptom of a sick water. Heads hooded against the sun, the crossbowmen hope for the fish that swims in this soup. At their feet, an asphyxiated tilapia, caught earlier today, left to dry on the concrete in the dust of the traffic. Tonight it will stretch out on the grill, turn over from time to time, dream of nothing at all – will have known our waters will have known our roads.
Soon it will be dark and the stalls of the night market will be set up. There will be skewers, fried things, cakes, little coconut crepes, pork offal. There will be grilled fish – plaa paw1. In the shops of the old market street – Talad Gao street –, in the pain d’épice houses – the gingerbread houses –, in the Chinese row houses, behind the accordion doors, merchants doze before flat-screen TVs, wide as the catches one brags about.
Something wants to sleep in this world, something slides under a screed – but the engines turn and turn and won’t stop droning.