Vietnamese monk weighs danger of crossing Myanmar on India journey

Resting after a long day of walking barefoot across the Thai countryside, Vietnamese monk Thich Minh Tue sat on a mat under a tree and talked quietly about the purpose – and logistics – of his 2,700-kilometer (1,600-mile) pilgrimage to India.

“I want to be grateful to Buddha, who has shown me and others the path of learning,” Minh Tue told a Radio Free Asia reporter who caught up with him and his entourage last week at Wat Udom Pattana temple in Nakhon Sawan province.

“I want to walk there to repay his gratitude and hope that all people in the world will be happy and peaceful and learn according to Buddha’s teachings,” he said.

Video: Conflict-ridden Myanmar is potentially the most dangerous part of Thich Minh Tue journey. (Pimuk Rakkanam/RFA)

Thich Minh Tue is a Buddhist monk who captured hearts in Vietnam last year when he undertook a barefoot hike across the country that met the disapproval of controlling communist authorities.

He has since gone international. In December, he crossed from Vietnam into Laos before entering Thailand.

His goal is to reach India, the birthplace of Buddhism.

Sporting a patched, multicolored robe, rather than a typical saffron one, the 43-year-old cuts an unassuming figure as he walks across Thailand, accompanied by about 16 monks. He carries a rice cooker pot as an alms bowl.

But after two months of walking about 20 kilometers (12 miles) a day on scorching asphalt, the hurdles are piling up. The hot season is starting, and smog from the burning of crops pollutes the grey skies.

Plus, his Thai visa runs out in a week and a knee injury sustained by a monk in his entourage is slowing his group’s march.

Myanmar strife

A bigger dilemma faces the monk, who typically stops overnight at Buddhist temples that dot the Thai countryside, or if not, stretches out on a mat amid the mosquitoes and under the stars in a roadside field.

How can he get across Myanmar – gripped by a civil war – to India?

Some of the monk’s supporters, as well as Myanmar dissidents who are well-informed about their country’s troubles, say he wouldn’t make it across that country.

As of Wednesday, he and his entourage were some 330 kilometers (200 miles) from Mae Sot, the western Thai border crossing to Myanmar, and 600 kilometers (375 miles) to the northern border crossing at Mae Sai.

Minh Tue – “Thich” indicates he’s a monk – said he intended to avoid the closer Mae Sot crossing, citing fighting in the area between rebels and the Myanmar military, which seized power in a 2021 coup and has been embroiled in a multi-front civil war ever since.

Instead, he said he was leaning towards crossing at Mae Sai, in Thailand’s far north, into Myanmar’s Shan state.

But much of Myanmar is in the throes of conflict and it’s not clear whether Tue and his entourage would be safe even if they take the alternative route, which involves a major detour.

Video: RFA Vietnamese’s Truong Son explains monk Thich Minh Tue arrival in Thailand from Laos. (RFA)

The naysayers contend he’d either be refused entry to Myanmar, or, if allowed in, it would be only a matter of time before he’d run into some sort of obstacle.

Moe Kyaw, a labor rights activist and veteran Myanmar dissident living in Thailand, said he’d rate the monk’s chance of crossing Myanmar at 1%.

“There’d be too many challenges. I simply don’t think it’s possible,” he told RFA.

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Another expert on Myanmar, human rights campaigner David Mathieson, said he doubted Myanmar’s military would allow Minh Tue in, both because of the “completely chaotic security landscape” and because he could attract crowds, which the unpopular junta would be wary of.

“I don’t think that the sakasa really wants to take the risk of people coming out to see him,” Mathieson said, referring to the junta. “They probably also don’t want to take the risk of having him or his followers injured by an airstrike or by a drone or landmine.”

But if Minh Tue were to bypass Myanmar, how would he complete his pilgrimage?

Alms from villagers

Last year, Minh Tue’s ascetic demeanor struck a chord in Vietnam where social media posts of his barefoot walks went viral and well-wishers came out in droves.

Vietnam’s state-sanctioned Buddhist sangha has not officially recognized him as a monk, but he has nonetheless garnered widespread admiration and support.

At one point, Vietnamese authorities, leery of his popularity, announced he had “voluntarily retired.” But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Though he is much less well-known in Thailand, villagers come out to greet him and offer alms of vegetarian food in the mornings. Along the way, people give the group water and policemen pay their respects.

Vietnamese reporting the trip on their social media channels and overseas Vietnamese supporters gather around their “teacher” when they get the chance.

Minh Tue told RFA that Buddhist teachings inspired him to practice “dhutanga,” or austerity, on his journey to India.

While he espouses Buddhist philosophy, authorities in Vietnam are suspicious of any political motive.

His name has come up in connection with a U.S.-based opposition party-in-exile called Viet Tan that aims to transition the country from communism to a liberal democracy, said a Thai security officer monitoring the monk’s journey.

Attempts by RFA to reach Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to clarify whether Tue’s visa could be extended have gone unanswered.

Doan Van Bau, a former Vietnamese security officer who has said he was assigned by his government to protect Minh Tue and be “head of delegation,” was walking with him for a few weeks, but is no longer with the group apparently after a dispute with the monks.

Bau has helped Minh Tue and two other monks get visas for Bangladesh and India and he has urged them to avoid Myanmar altogether and fly over it, members of the entourage said.

Minh Tue has said he does not know how many of the monks in his entourage would follow him into Myanmar, if he were to choose that option.

He has also raised the possibility of bypassing Myanmar entirely by flying to Sri Lanka, and then going on to India, tracing the route in reverse along which Buddhism first arrived in Thailand.

“If the route crossing into Myanmar is convenient, then I will walk from Thailand into Myanmar,” he said. “If Sri Lanka is better, then I will take this route.”

The uncertainty over the route has sparked some friction among members of the entourage, adding to a sense of anxiety.

But that doesn’t seem to affect Minh Tue.

“What will be, will be,” he told RFA. “Whichever side is favorable, I’ll walk there.”

Radio Free Asia is an online news service affiliated with BenarNews.