Witnessing

Photo: Young monk with begging bowl, taking part in the sticky rice ceremony of alms-giving at sunrise, Luang Prabang.

It's curious to go from very touristed places to very undertouristed ones, as your presence means such different things.

In a city like Luang Prabang, which in the past years has seen a huge surge in tourism, which as a small city is awash in the visiting, mostly European foreigners, you are one of a lucrative herd. People aren't surprised to see you. They might be enterprising, they might be weary, they might be genuinely friendly, but they've seen your type before.

When you get further out, even just to the outskirts and sidestreets of the same tourist town, is when you get more of a reaction. People look twice. Sometimes they even look shocked, frightened, as if you've intruded somewhere they thought they were safe - this is a terrible feeling. More often though, people stare openly and with interest, and usually with a generous smile.

It's a whole other feeling entirely in Mae Sot, a smallish town just east of the Thai-Burma border. It's not that foreigners are particularly rare, but most of them are longer-term visitors: volunteers and NGO workers. People's friendliness is stepped up a bit. You're a neighbour, probably even a good neighbour, since you're here for altruistic reasons. So many people say hi, especially kids, and your cheeks ache from smiling back.

The impact that your gaze has is very different too, from Luang Prabang to Mae Sot. Even though I love this photo, I have misgivings about having taken it at all. One of the most popular tourist sights in LP is the early morning alms-giving ceremony. Women get up in the dark to cook sticky rice, make meals, and then dress in their best sihn and blouse, with a temple scarf draped over their shoulders. They kneel in the early morning damp, mist, and chill with woven bamboo baskets in front of them. They wait patiently for the slow approach of the orange-robed monks in single file. The monks will come holding out their begging bowls, and each woman will offer a small ball (which she has pre-rolled) of rice to each monk, each offering a blessing. While the women wait, some chat, while others sit quietly with their faces closed in private meditation. When the monks approach, all the women become still, faces relaxed as they hand out the rice with a prayer, until all the wats have had their turn, and the women can return to their daily work.

It sounds beautiful, and it is. What the photo doesn't show, though, is what a miracle it is that there are no tourists obtruding into the still moment. Even though all over town there are stern documents instructing tourists on how not to ABSOLUTELY DESTROY the alms-giving ceremony, foreigners stand with their enormous cameras right up against the waiting women. The clicks and flashes (because it is still quite dark) rob the moment of its proper solemnity. Though their faces are controlled, it's not hard to imagine how irritating it is to drag yourself out of bed at 4am as a religious duty, a gift, only to have the meaning leached out by the presence of gawky pale people in quick-dry microfibre and fleece. Of course I still went, and I still took pictures, so I am just as guilty (though at a slightly greater distance).

It's the opposite in Mae Sot. There are so many pictures I haven't taken with my camera - but everywhere my eye falls I try to fix the image in my head - faces, artefacts, detention cells. Since being here (where I tend to forget I'm still in Thailand, so Burmese a town it is) I have learned so much more about the situation in Burma, culture and history as well as current deprivation and atrocities. I have met so many open, incredibly generous people, who are so willing to give of themselves, to sit down with me and teach me, even to house and feed me, so that I'll understand.

And on a trip that is largely on the other side, the tourist side of the equation, it's good to be reminded of the impact of witnessing. There is a sense of importance just in knowing, in being able to share stories when across an imaginary line, a border, there is so much armed force commiting crimes of silence, of lies and purges and misinformation. There is a value in seeing, listening, and bringing reality to what was previously abstract.

And there's more of a value when those stories are shared again and again - which I look forward to when I am home.