UP-COUNTRY SONGKRAN

by

Ray Storey

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Leaving Bangkok

2. Beer for Breakfast

3. Meet the Monks

4. Monks Reprise

5. The Kitchen

6. A Simple Shopping Expedition

7. Making Merit

8. Gone Fishing

9. More Fishing

10. Washing the Old Folks

1.  Leaving Bangkok

On Tuesday evening all the exit arteries from Bangkok are clogged by traffic taking the up-country folks....bar-girls, building labourers, sweat shop factory people, soldiers....back to their home villages. The traffic pace is slow, but the trip is not dull. Each vehicle has a story...

- there is the 1 tonne pickup, with its 10 tub-dwellers, sitting with their knees drawn up to their chins, or sleeping supported by each other, and with their baggage stacked and lashed to the dropped tail-gate; clothing in plastic bags or perhaps in cheap back-packs; maybe the brand-new 21inch TV still in its carton and taking up way too much space. Some of the folks might be awake; there is lively chatter; eye contact with me in my air-conditioned capsule of a mini-van, small shock at discovery of the rare farang [foreigner] in this pilgrimage, some kind of wordless communication including a mutual wishing of Happy Songkran.

- there is the converted 1 tonne pickup, with its tub extended to provide seating for 15 people and their luggage; perhaps a bottom tier with its 2 lines of passengers seated side-ways and their luggage under their feet, and a second tier of several people sitting on the make-shift ceiling/floor and with their knees drawn up, and maybe even a third tier of just luggage .....clothing and family gifts.

- there is the enormous play bus with its entire skin painted garishly with the scene of someone's idea of a utopian paradise; 2 decks of passengers in the regular seated formation of long-distance bus travellers, but the back quarter of the upper deck has the seats removed and the equipment of a live rock band installed, including full drum kit and disco lights; the bus seems to pulsate, as though some huge pressure is causing the walls of the vehicle to bulge out and collapse, bulge out and collapse in time with the driving beat of the rock music; the dancing groupies are standing close together, and supporting each other with every lurch of the vehicle; a temporary cloth banner roped to the side of the vehicle might tell something of what binds these people together...perhaps they are a group who have raised money for a poor hill-tribe village and this is their pilgrimage to deliver the proceeds in cash or goods.

- there is the Lexus SUV, with its uniformed driver, and its under-chassis blue and green LED lighting; the expert driver has found the cadence of the traffic and seems to be effortlessly weaving back and forth across the full range of lanes and making twice the speed of the mere mortals with whom he is sharing the road; the 3 passengers have the benefit of entertainment from the 25inch LCD TV that is showing the latest Hollywood sensation, their cordless hifi earphones ensure the driver is not distracted by the sounds of bombs or steamy sex romps depicted.

- there is the ubiquitous mini-van; like ours perhaps, a small school bus when performing its usual vocation, but now a different role as the owner/driver is presented with a wind-fall opportunity; there might be school bus-route numbers stencilled below the wind-screen, signs inside to draw attention to the need for courtesy, cleanliness, decorum; the driver, too, has the cautious style from many years of responsibility for the care and safety of his young charges; his senses are taking in the signs of a different type of passenger but he is tut-tutting inwardly this trip.

There is a sort of carnival atmosphere at each of the service stations at which we pause to off-load bladders or on-load diesel fuel for the vehicle and food/drink for the passengers. Maybe 200 vehicles at a stop, disgorging 2000 passengers to instantly congest all the facilities....queue to pee, queue to select beer from the fridge and again to pay for it. No stress...just friendly smiles, "Sawasdee Krub"s [hello] and sharing the limited space.

For 11 hours and 400 kilometers we share the road...no road rage, no accidents...arriving relaxed and ready for Songkran. 12 people and baggage and boxes of food and gifts...a driver and vehicle we are familiar with from using the combination several times previously and always 100% satisfied; he will be part of our family up-country, as he has had to leave his real one behind in Bangkok.

2. Beer for breakfast

I am still involved in off-loading the baggage from the van when a glass is pressed into my hand. It contains about equal quantities of ice and beer. So, I complete the unloading one-handed, and then make my way to the back of the house where the blokes are congregated and seriously into drinking their favourite breakfast...either Beer or Thai Whisky.

Re-wind! It's about 7:15am as we turn off the paved road and onto the narrow gravel track to our destination. There are people outside each house, watching us as we are watching them as we slowly make our way down to the last house on the right. The people don't seem to be doing anything....just sitting quietly, and watching us as we glide by in our air-conditioned cocoon. The chicken are up, and into their foraging already; the dogs are scratching off last night's infestation of fleas, and keeping one eye on the people just in case there is a food opportunity. Looks like the people are waiting for something.

So...here I am, standing about chewing the fat with 4 or 5 blokes at the back of the house. My glass is perpetually full, so I quickly learn to sip rather than guzzle....I intend to stay awake and somewhat alert at least until 9:00am so the pace needs to be moderated. To be honest, I am more into observing the fat being chewed by the others, necessitated by the fact that the fat-chewing language in this village is Khmer, and I do not possess a single syllable of that language. I do laugh, when I pick up the cue, or grunt, smile and hold up my glass when a question is asked of me and some response is required...most times that response seems to be acceptable, but sometimes it causes the others to laugh a lot and suggests to me that they asked me something about thermodynamics or perhaps WorldBank policy, so they were expecting a slightly different response.

The females have also gathered at the back of the house; that's where the kitchen is, and they are engaged in preparation of the solids that complete the breakfast. A slow-moving chicken has been relieved of its feathers, and the rest of it is being converted into 4 or 5 different dishes...there will be BBQ chicken ribs, deep fried head and feet, stir fried innards, and a green curry with hints of chicken flesh. There are 3 mini charcoal BBQ units in operation, and a gas ring for cooking the rice; its a hive of activity.

Stoically I sip on. I become aware that numbers of people have swelled; there is now at least a dozen blokes, and a similar number of females. Now it is obvious what the folks in the other houses were waiting for; they have timed to perfection their arrival; the van is unloaded, the starting group has slowed down, the BBQ units are fully tended; really, there is nothing to do but scout for a [temporarily] discarded glass and restore it to use. I am beginning to flag...empty stomach, lack of sleep, several refills of the bottomless glass; I see a way out of this...I'll just abandon the glass, and there won't be a spare for me to take on, so I'll just wander off to the front of the house and read a book for a while. Bugger! Found in minutes by a smiling host, bearing a large glass of whisky on the rocks for me. The local whisky is called "40 degree" cos it is 40 proof; it costs 20baht for a 600ml bottle; tastes fine, and mellows the partaker very rapidly. It's only 8:30am, and I really need somewhere to lay down for a few minutes or I won't be able to do a decent job of assisting the chook with its last voyage.

Someone hands me a towel, and I feel some kind of suggestion that I might feel ready for the next part of breakfast if I take a relaxing shower. Saved!

3. Meeting the monks

The house had received a bit of attention from hammer and paint-brush recently, so it was time to call in the Monks to put a positive spin on it all. 9 is an auspicious number, when counting Monks, so of course the place was prepared for receiving 9 Monks.

Actually, preparation commenced early in the afternoon, when we were in Prasart shopping, and a hell of a lot of the purchases seemed to be multiples of 9 of all manner of Monkish paraphenalia. There was the kit, comprising all manner of things like toothbrush, toothpaste, soap holder, flashlight, roll of toilet paper, tin of sweets, face cloth, all in the saffron Monk color and supplied in a 10 litre plastic bucket also in saphron; there were the 9 large bottles of soft-drink, the 9 botles of drinking water, the 9 paper envelopes.

"When are they arriving?" I asked late in the afternoon, when all the purchases had been arranged in 9 groups and I was beginning to get some inkling that we were to be visited. "Soon!" I was told.

A handsome middle-aged guy showed up, stripped to the waist, replaced his pants with a sarong, and commenced chanting and mincing about the place. Clearly, he was not a Monk....too much hair, too few clothes, too hands on with the ladies! After some huddles with the oldies, quite a lot of chanting, and sundry miscellaneous preparation of objects, he approached me and sat down. In a loud voice he proclaimed to me "I no speak English very good. I am farmer. What is your name? Where you come from?" Turned out he was a guy from the next village who understood the ritual following, and who was quite willing to officiate ....for a fee of course!

Soon he produced and unrolled some sort of flag; sewn into it was a modest size pocket, which he proceeded to encourage us to fill with cash. While he was doing this, one of the guys walked around the perimeter of the house yard unrolling a long (300 metre, he told me later) string which he strung as he went from tree to tree; he made occasional deviations to wrap the string around important objects such as the betel-nut tree, the cow shed, the house, the bore pump. Pretty soon we all walked up to the highest point in the yard, where we tied the flag to a long bamboo pole, and then raised it with chants of "ooee ooee ooee yeehah" or something like that.

Back at the house, the ladies were beavering away at preparation of large quantities of food. Evening had settled. The guys were all mellow by now from liberal indulgence in beer or whisky. The officiating guy was especially well lubricated...at short order he managed to put away 2 7ounce glasses of 100Pipers whisky from the 2 bottles I had contributed to the bar.

No-one was eating. I was fairly sure I would do something pretty silly if I didn't put down some rice soon to soak up the beer/whisky mix that was sloshing about in my gut. "When are they coming?" I enquired, already knowing in my heart that the answer would be "Soon!". Time passed. My new friend [in the sarong] engaged me in loud and personal interrogation; I asked him a few questions too, to shift the focus off me, and my salary; wasn't very effective as my Khmer is worse than my Thai which is even worse than his English. One of the guys disappeared on a motorcycle, another in a pick-up truck; the motorcycle returned soonest, with fresh supplies of ice for the beer.

Finally, the pick-up returned, the tub full of Monks! They all piled out and repaired to the prepared room.....only 8 of them; one had either fallen out of the pick-up on the way, or was detained by something more important than blessing house renovations! The most senior Monk recognised me from a previous encounter, and said something to me which I presumed was a greeting.....up to the occasion, I responded immediately with thumbs up and the word "OK!" On the previous occasion he had informed me, through an interpreter, that his English vocabulary consisted of one word, and that was it. Then the Monks sat cross-legged, at their appointed stations; a couple of them, including head Monk, spat out their betel wads into the spittoons that had been thoughtfully provided, and waited. The official facilitator sculled the remains of his 3rd glass of straight 100Pipers, approached the head Monk, and started to chant loudly. Soon, the Monks were responding, and they seemed to have a bit of a thing happening. A few of the family members wandered in and sat down; a few who were already in the room wandered off; a couple of conversations got started; a few of the family members got into the chanted responses; I got some direct guidance from whoever was nearby on what I was supposed to be doing with my hands and other body parts.

The head Monk was leading the others along...whenever he was short of breath he would stop and let the others make the noise; when the others started to run out of puff, he would come in again and assist them in getting it all back together. I cannot speak any Parli; no problem, I started to predict what the next bracket would be, and pretty soon I was into the act as well.

This was great fun, I thought. At least, that is what I thought for the first 20 minutes or so; then my legs and back began to object to the hardness of the ceramic tile floor, and the lack of backrest. On they went for an hour. Finally, the head Monk reached for his grass broom; I knew what was about to happen, and he did not disappoint! This Monk has a lot of fun with water. Pretty soon everyone in the room was drenched from the water he was dispensing in all directions from his 5 litre bowl with his broom; the bowl emptied, he called for more water and went at us again. Finally he was done; the freshly painted walls had water stains; everyone was shivering as their temperatures plumetted from the effect of the electric fans on wet skin.

The chanting stopped; several of us carried a feast of food in and approached the Monks on knees and offered it to them; the women were busy with towels, mopping up the water that rendered the tiled floor dangerous to the half-pissed food carriers. So, we left the Monks to the serious business of eating; we wandered out to the verandah and put some effort into getting the blood-alcohol levels up again. Afer a while, I wandered back to see what was happening...the Maonks had made a pretty fair effort with the food, had drunk lots of pepsi and fanta, and some of them were now back to chomping on their fresh wad of betel-nut. Then we gave them their buckets of goodies, and they got up to leave. The head Monk said something to me, and I gave him the thunmbs up and the "OK"....he laughed.

The Monks departed in the pick-up. The leftover food, and a lot of fresh ,was assembled on grass matting on the verandah, and we all tucked in. In felt that the house renovations had been officially recognised.

4. Monks [reprise]

Must have fed them well, because the Monks came back next morning, to perform a reprise. Some of the routine was the same, and some was different.

There were 9 of them this time...all the previous guys plus a new little 7 year old, whose costume was so new that he might have become part of the team only a few days earlier.....perhaps last night was just too late for him. They arrived in a pick-up again, around 8:00am, and immediately made their way into the room that was now familiar to them. This time they had their bowls, the large metal pumpkins, with a metal lid, and all encased in a woven basket with a stout carrying strap. The bowls were left outside, in a row, on the tressel table which had been set up for the purpose.

At one end of the table were 2 large cooking pots, filled with freshly cooked rice. Here's the routine; the Monks waited inside; the family gathered outside at the table; each family member, including me, spooned a hillock of rice onto a carrying plate; we moved down the row of Monk bowls, placing 3 spoons of rice in each bowl as we went; this we repeated 3 times; the Monk bowls were quite full.

Then we assembled inside, with the Monks. Once again the facilitator was on hand to kick things off. An altar had been assembled at the end of the row of Monks and next to the head Monk. He took a roll of string, attached one end to the Buddha image on the altar and then the roll was unravelled down the row of Monks right to the little guy at the other end; each Monk had the string over his hands and there was evidently a symbolic linking of all the Monks to Buddha. The head Monk lit a couple of saphron candles and placed them over his water bowl in such a way that the melting wax fell into the water.

The chanting got underway again; seemed like pretty much the same set of chants I had experienced yesterday, so I settled in for the long haul. This time, I spent quite a lot of time observing each of the Monks, and trying to recognise their voice in the chant. Several of the guys were quite elderly...I put them in the 60-70yo category, then there were 2 40-50yo, 1 about 20, one about 15, and the little 7yo.

Apparently the head Monk is quite an interesting guy. Some years back, the then head Monk ran foul of the locals due to misbehaving along the lines of stealing the temple money, or something like that. So the village threw him out, and imported the new bloke from another province. A little while after arriving at the village, the new bloke acquired some notoriety by having sex with a local lady who showed up at the temple one day with the intention of getting advice on how to go about becoming a Nun. Not sure why this did not qualify him for the scrap heap; perhaps the village was all spent from getting rid of the previous head Monk; I like to think the villages felt the head Monk had wisely decided what the lady needed more than to become a Nun was a decent application of the Pork Sword cure.

The 20yo old was an interesting specimen; he sat very straight and still; his countenance was borderline fierce; his singing was loud and melodious; his skin was very dark. The 15yo was a gangly, fresh faced, relaxed youth; he eyed off the soft-drink frequently, but managed to resist while he was chanting. The 7yo was a very handsome little boy; he had huge, black eyes; he sang energetically at first, but found the going tough after about 15 minutes; by 30 minutes he was having a lot of trouble stifling the urge to yawn, and did a lot of shifting of weight from one buttock to the other.

At about the hour mark, there was a repeat of the water flinging behaviour; I seemed to receive more than my share, and it was evident the head Monk found it particularly amusing to direct hit on me. Then, things all tied up quickly; much food was handed over to the Monks for them to take away; the 9 envelopes, into which the family had inserted some cash, were distributed to the Monks; they drank a glass of soft drink each, collected their rice bowls, loaded into the pick-up and disappeared. Soon after, the facilitator put away another glass of whisky, collected his fee and disappeared also.

Hungry by now, the family tucked in quickly to what food was left after the Monks had been provisioned.

5. The kitchen

The house is big...big enough for sure to contain a kitchen. In fact one large room, about 7 metres by 3, was almost certainly intended to be the kitchen; somehow, though, all it has is a large gas ring that is used mainly for cooking the rice.

The serious cooking, as well as the food preparation, all happens out the back of the house. There is a low table, of the kind that works for Thais as a bed, a place to sit, a work bench; it is big enough to allow 4 or 5 people to easily work together on food preparation. Usually there is 1 or maybe 2 chopping blocks, several pans, pots and woks, a large mortar and pestle along with numerous, newspaper wrapped parcels of food ingredients; there might even be a young child asleep in the middle of it all.

Nearby, on the ground, are 3 or 4 small earthenware BBQ's; each has a skin of tinned steel from off-cuts of the blanks from the steel can manufacturing machine; one says "Heineken", another "Pepsi", and the 3rd one has a clean-skin wrapper. There's a fertilizer polybag filled with home-made charcoal, made in the special earth oven just about 30 metres away from the kitchen...the oven is standing open at the moment, and there is a small pile of dry wood that has already been collected from the rice fields for the next batch of charcoal.

Standing against the wall of the house is a home-made set of shelves, and this contains all the cutlery, crockery, herbs and sauces of the kitchen. The glasses are all shapes and sizes; left overs from sets that have suffered losses over the years. The plates are mostly melamine, but there is an occasional ceramic plate and even one or 2 of chipped enamelled steel. The cutlery is mainly forks, dessert spoons and short-handle soup spoons of stainless steel, and chops sticks of melamine....no table knives as Thais do not use them, but either prepare food in small enough pieces to not require cutting or use the edge of a spoon to cut with.

Under the larger mango tree there is a wooden device like a stool for a dwarf; nailed to it is a steel device that reminds me of an old sheep shearing comb; this is the "machine" used to shred and scrape out the meat from the mature coconut; out it comes, ready for squeezing to remove the coconut milk that will be a key ingredient in the richer curries; there's probably a small mound of the coconut meat on a sheet of newspaper on the preparation table right now.

Also under the mango tree is the large plastic dish that serves as the dish-washing sink; next to it a row of 100litre glazed earthenware water pots, each with a dragon pattern on the side, and an aluminium lid on top. The pots are filled from the house roof whenever it rains, and the water is suitable for washing as well as drinking.The house has some spouting, but no down-pipes; rather, there is a metal funnel at one end of the spouting, and a plastic tube can be fitted to it and then used to fill the pots.

There are numerous cats, dogs and chickens, laying about or wandering about, perhaps looking for the scrap of food that has fallen off the table. The chickens need to be careful, else one might well end up providing the meat component of several of the dishes being prepared. The chickens seem to be quite partial to the coconut meat discarded after the milk has been squeezed from it. Incidently, all the animals are fed rice, mixed with vegetables and occasional left-over meat dishes.

Very little food is stored over-night. There is a medium size fridge in the house, but it mainly contains beer and soft-drink and, perhaps, medicines. 2 or 3 times each day, a pick-up truck drives slowly up the street; its tub is filled with a large variety of ingredients; mainly vegetables and fruit, but also selections of pork cuts as well as a couple of varieties of live fish sloshing about in a big blue esky lashed to the tail-gate. The food in the pick-up is quite fresh, and inexpensive.

There is no dining table or chairs; a large grass or poly-grass mat is spread on a tiled floor under a verandah, the food and eating utensils are arranged in the middle of the mat, and people around the edges of the mat. There is a large pan of steamed rice [khao suay = beautiful rice] which the officiating person...usually female...manages by spooning a pile of rice onto each person's plate. Up-country Thai people frequently eat with their fingers rather than utensils....they will use their spoon to transfer small amounts of communal food onto their personal plate, then pick up a small amount of rice, squeeze it together into a small ball, either dip it in a sauce or jamb it down on some small piece of solid food so that the morsel adheres to the rice, open mouth wide and insert the whole bolus into the mouth and chew silently with mouth shut; they do not lick their fingers, but use toilet paper to wipe their fingers clean.

6. A simple shopping expedition

In the middle of the afternoon, Na says "We go shopping now. Have to buy drink for Monks, and maybe little bit of food".

We have access to a small motor-cycle, a late model 125cc 4stroke, step-thru machine, of the style most popular in Thailand. Actually, for Thailand, 125cc motorcy [motor-bikes] are in the medium/large category. Clearly, I am supposed to be driving, so I quickly finish the rest of my soothing mid-afternoon whisky/soda, slip into my safety gear [slip-on sandals] and climb aboard.

By the time I have the bike started, and got it facing the right way, Na has located Mawin, wrestled him into his shoes, and looked up just in time to see I am not totally in control of the machine at low speed in soft sand. I keep upright, and pull up next to the verandah.

Mawin sits behind me, legs swinging free and perilously close to the back wheel; Na brings up the rear; she is wearing shorts so sits astride rather than side-saddle as is the norm for Thai ladies in skirts or dresses...the seat is fully occupied. I have seen up to 5 fully grown Thais on a bike this size, so it doesn't quite compute that we fill it with just Na's petite butt, Mawin's baby butt and my farang butt [hmmmmm...I guess farang bums ARE big!].

Off we go! First challenge is to get through the house-yard gate...no problem. We are on the road...surface loose gravel...and skating a little. "Don't try to hurry", says Na. Chickens all over the road, and I don't want to run over one as it might deprive the owning family of their next meal. A large dogs bolts out of a house-yard and onto the road just about under the front wheel....I'm cool, the dog is likely to know how to avoid me, even though I have no strategy for avoiding it. Gear change...oooops....toe down to change up, and up to change down....I am a bit rusty...the engine protests loudly, and the jerk just about puts Na over my head....Mawin laughs!

We stop, briefly, at the end of the gravel road where some guys are erecting a large marquee; Na chats to a couple of the guys for a while, hands gesticulating wildly, voices loud and seeming to be arguing, but there is quite a lot of laughter stirred in to the mix. She climbs aboard again.

"Where to?", I ask; "next village", she replies, pointing left up the main road in the direction of the Cambodian border. Not far....we are quickly past the school and temple on the left, and the police station on the right, and immediately into the next village. Our village is the home of most of the shared services, used by several small village that virtually merge with ours. Around the bend, and there is the shop on the left. I park among the several motor-bikes at the front of the shop, and we step into the local "emporium".

The veranda is a plastic advertising sheet for Pepsi, and its floor is dirt. The shop has an open front; once onto the concrete floor, we are in the shop proper. There is a concrete garden setting, with round table and 4 stools...obviously the attached restaurant. Behind that there are several rows of home-made shelves, that seem to be groaning under their load of all kinds of convenience foods and household goods. There are a couple of display fridges, filled with the usual 7eleven assortment of soft-drink, beer and bottled water. Off to one side there is the huge blue esky which, I know by now, contains consumption quality ice.

Its a family business; mum and dad are both busy with customers...obviously there is a mid-afternoon run on beer, and both customers are purchasing 2 bottles of Chang beer. Then its our turn, and Na is negotiating with the shop-owners; it goes on for ages; I say "what's the problem?"; Na says "no problem. We are just talking about drinks for the monks. I buy 24 bottles of mixed soft-drink. We pay a deposit on the glass bottles, and box, and they give money back when bottles are empty". Turns out the deposit is equal to the price of the drink...we will never see the deposit, as it will be claimed by whomever decides to return the empties after we have left the village....a sort of villagers' version of salvage rights!

Na purchases a few other things as well. I am starting to wonder how everything is going to fit on the motor-bike. I decide to take appropriate action....grab a can of super-jolt iced coffee from the fridge, and put it away in a single gulp...that should clear the head of the cob-webs from the several soothing whisky/sodas I have been sipping all day.

Yup....did the trick...everything is now crystal-clear! So, I turn the motorbike around, load all the plastic bags of food into the front basket and thread a couple of excess bags onto the left hand-grip; I heft the crate of soft-drink onto the seat, and discover there is a couple of centimetres of free seat aft and fore for Na and I. I climb aboard, start the engine, motion for Na to hand Mawin up to me, and I sit him on my left knee and show him how to hold on the the head-stem of the bike with both hands. Bugger...forgot to lift the stand...I put Mawin back on the ground, lift the stand, then repeat the loading process for Mawin. I tell Na to "get on", and we are loaded.

Ye gods! I quickly discover why a couple of hundred people die each week from motor-cycle accidents in Thailand. The bike is completely unstable; it won't steer with all the weight of the food over the front wheel, and with several kilos of food swinging crazily off the left hand-grip. On top of that, Mawin keeps trying to grab at stuff, and deciding he doesn't really want to sit on my knee. Every time I change gear with my left foot, Mawin is in danger of being dropped. The crate of drink is rubbing skin off my back after 100 metres; goodness knows what it is doing to the insides of Na's legs!

There are no police at the station to watch us. I wonder how many infringements I would have qualified for, if they had decided to be on duty at the time we careened past the station?

Somehow we make it to the marquee site without casualty. We drop off the crate of drink, and return to the house. I feel the need for a soothing whisky/soda, and someone immediately obliges.

[Footnote: Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki are all in the market in Thailand, along with a couple of local and Indonesian manufacturers. The Jap bikes are quite superior, and Honda dominates the market here, as it does in every country where it is represented. The bikes have curious model names.... "Wave", "Joy", "Dream" and other words like that, which are obviously chosen to conjure up the feeling of pleasure one gets from cruising on one of these sleek and wonderful numbers. I wonder what the Suzuki marketing guru had in mind when he named the most recent model "Crash"?]

7. Making Merit

The Monks had been to see us at home a couple of times, so courtesy requires us to pay a visit to their dwelling.

She had been busy for the past 4 weeks or so organising a fund-raising to assist the village temple [wat] to complete its latest building project...the construction of a tall tower to house a number of large ceremonial drums. The construction was about 50% complete but had evidently stalled due to lack of funds, perhaps caused by a financial indiscretion on the part of the previous head Monk. She had become aware of this situation on our previous visit to the village a couple of months back and, by the time we returned to Bangkok, the idea of a fund-raising was quite developed.

A large number of the family members are interested so, as many as can, pile into the van and off we go the kilometer to the wat; its next to the school, and has a couple of acres of land. As we slowly roll up the drive, She points out items of interest..."Bright little building there is for burn dead people. Before we take them to wat in big village, but now family can burn their people right here".

We stop at a large, ugly, wooden barn of a building on stilts that hold it about 3 metres off the ground. Up the wooden stairs, drop shoes at the door and enter. The main room is enormous, and could hold about 500 people, if their weight was not too much for the foundations. The floor is wooden, with quite large gaps between the floor boards....possibly deliberate to allow circulation of air, or to ease the burden of keeping the place clean. At either end of the room there are raised platforms. To one side there is about 10 closed doors in the wooden wall, and I surmise this is the individual cells of the Monks. There is no ceiling, and I can see that the roof is of dull corrugated iron supported by teak-wood beams. The bulding reminds me of a large Australian sheep shearing shed. This is the wat, and it is not the structure I expected to see after my visits to many highly ornate temples in other parts of the country.

The Monks are all gathered in a knot on the platform that contains numerous small to large sculptures of Buddha. As we enter, The Monks move to their mats and sit down cross-legged, facing us, and in the now-familiar order. There are a couple of other old folks in the wat; later She tells me these people are the village officials who manage the wat money as a self regulating committee of three, appointed after the not-so-distant event the led to dismissal of the previous head Monk.

A small, dead tree branch has been brought here by the family, decorated with rolled up bank notes that have been tied like leaf buds; the money tree is placed near the head Monk, just in front of the seated Buddha image to his right. She has her thick bundle of envelopes, and these are placed on a gold painted plastic bowl near the money tree.

She's fund-raising drill; about 1 week was spent in identifying and recruiting a small team of friends and family members as regional deputies; after a further week the deputies each gave She a sheet of paper containing the names and pledges of their friends and work colleagues who had agreed to assist; She compiled a single, neat hand-written list, which I scanned and then eMailed to She's friend Aof...a school teacher in the village; Aof printed the scanned image, and took it to the head Monk; a week later She received a parcel in the post...it contained a separate envelope addressed to each of the conscripts, with the pledge hand-written on the outside of the envelope and a purple spirit duplicator (I thought the photocopier had killed the spirit duplicator at least 20 years ago!) copy of the full pledge list and a picture and short description of the drum tower project; a week later, She visited her deputies to collect the envelopes of money and to thank the participants; the day before we travel to the village, She goes through the bundle of envelopes, checking they are all collected, and placing a small contribution from her own money in any envelopes that have been returned empty. Now everything is ok, and the envelopes can be returned to the wat. Its a process devised to satisfy donors that the fundraising is legitimate and that the money will almost certainly be used as intended.

Na's youngest brother, a professional soldier, who spent 3 months here as a monk about 18 months ago, kneels in front of the head Monk with his Dad, and they all have a chat for a few minutes; the head Monk produces a ball of string which is unrolled from the seated Buddha to the dead tree to all the other Monks, and the now-familiar hour of chants culminating in the water throwing is executed; the head Monk seems to be in a hurry, and he has upped the tempo such that the hour of chanting takes only 50 minutes. It's hot under the iron roof; the younger kids are restless, and run about making a loud drumming noise on the raised wooden floor.

The chanting, and water throwing is completed; the monks reassemble on the platform, in groups of 3, at low tables where they proceed to eat a meal with great enthusiasm; I guess the head Monk was in a hurry because he was hungry. Monks eat 2 meals a day, with the last supposed to be at mid-day, and it is close to that time when the chanting is done.

While the Monks are eating, the family has the task of taking all the money from the money tree and from the pile of envelopes; it is carefuly counted, then handed to the 2 older people who count it again....33,338baht, a very large amount of money for people in this community where average adult salary is about 120baht per day, and hopefully enough to take the construction project a long way towards completion. The head Monk is informed of the amount of the collection; perhaps not coincidently, he decided there will be another ceremony, so we all move down to the other end of the wat where we are all given Buddha icons and coloured string is tied around our wrists for good luck. The head Monk has produced a bottle of fluid resembling muddy water; it is a mildly alcoholic distillation the Monks make from coconut; the men all drink a small glass of the fluid; the head Monk produces 2 more bottles, and indicates we should not drink it at once but take it with us to drink later when we are at home.

The head Monk sends us on our way with another liberal dousing of water. As we leave, I notice the other Monks are settled into their afternoon activities; several are reading; a couple are set up with their betel-nut paraphenalia; a couple are sitting with the youngest Monk, who has set himself up with an exercise book and pencils, and they seem to be helping him with studies.

8. Gone fishing

When I think about fishing, it conjures up recollections of the delicious tediousness of the hours spent sitting semi-comatose on the bank of a river [probably The Mighty Murray], rod in hand, waiting for a fish to commit suicide. I never was much of a fisherman. Of course, this is not the only way to fish.

Up-country songkran is about renewing family connections; there is a living grandfather in Roi-et, a 90 minute drive from the village; there is a lot of enthusiasm, so a decision is made that we will visit him to pay our respects; as many as can fit in the van pile aboard and we are off by mid-morning.

We see examples of the Bangkok-style songkran at Prasart and again at Surin; young....and not so young...kids stand in small groups at the side of the road, next to a 200litre drum of water of questionable purity; as a vehicle passes by, one of the group throws a couple of litres of the water at the vehicle; if the vehicle is a car, then the large blob of water simply hits the windscreen with a loud 'bang!" and the driver is momentarily blinded until the wipers cope; if the vehicle is a motorcycle, then the effect is much greater...a direct hit in the head by a 2litre blob of water can temporarily concuss, and this must surely be the cause of some of the road casualties during Songkran. We see one young kid throw his water...accidently let go of the metal throwing utensil, which strikes the windscreen of a pick-up [probably would have brained the rider if it had been thrown at a motorcycle]...dash out onto the road to retrieve his basin and almost get hit by the following car. This behaviour is very common in every lane in Bangkok for the 3 days of Songkran.

All the passengers in the van are drowsy, so things get more and more quiet. P'Sart, the driver, is as alert as ever...very reliable and excellent driver. Suddenly, we arrive, disembark and invade. Grandpop is sleeping under the house on the bed/table, dressed only in a pair of shorts and with a small electric fan keeping him cool; a couple of women are under the house, tidying things; they have had no notice of our visit. Some looks of bewilderment from the ladies as the farang [me] steps out of the van first, following by cries of pleasure as they see who is with me. Everyone is enthusiastically wai'ing to everyone else; I get in the act, and begin to see what a satisfying act this is, especially in a group like this where there are 4 generations of family together.

wai is a very respectful form of salutation, used universally in Thailand. Sometimes it is performed silently; sometimes it is performed accompanied by the expression "Sawasdee krup/kha". It is very simply and elegant...the hands are brought together, prayer style, in front of the body and raised as the head is lowered such that the finger tips are about touching the forehead...simultaneously, the body is lowered a little and there is attempted eye contact with the person being wai'd....that's it. Normally the younger, or more junior, or poorer person initiates the wai and it is always reciprocated by the receiver unless they are particularly arrogant, bad mannered, or have not noticed the attention they are getting. Not so different from the western "handshake" except that there is no powerplay involved. Children are taught the "wai" from the time they have some control of the hands and arms.

Very quickly the salutations have been performed. Somehow, word has been passed to the nearby shop, and another lady shows up with several bottles of "Leo" beer [my favourite Thai local beer...a lager style] in a plastic bag, and several kilos of ice in another. Assorted glasses are found, and thirsts are in the process of being quenched. Isaan style beer drinking might be objected to by westerners...atmosphere-temperature beer is poured over ice in the "scotch on the rocks" manner, such that the beer is chilled quickly and diluted at the same time; when I first came to Thailand I had difficulty with this outrageous behaviour; I learned quickly, though, the first time I accepted an invitation to drink beer in a place where there was neither fridge nor ice available; now I drink beer this way by preference!

So, we are all sitting on Grandpop's krear (bed/table), rehydrating and relaxing. Apparently someone mentions food, or perhaps there is a spontaneous group stomach-growl. At that moment, up comes Na's 35'ish yo cousin, Ted [Taet], in his fishing costume....same as everyone else is wearing except he has a huge polygrass woven hat on his head and a fishing net slung over one shoulder. He puts away a glass of beer very rapidly, and is off down the road with several of us after him.

After walking about 100 metres in the hot sun, we come to a small forest of giant bamboo, walk through it and find several small rectangular ponds at one end of what appears top be a communal garden plot. Each pond is about 10metres by 5metres, and has a lot of water weed growing at one end. There is a grass thatch, no walls, building amongst the ponds, and we all gather in the shade there.

Taet is all business; he has the net off his shoulder and quickly shakes it to free up the snags and to position the metal-chain weight evenly at the bottom; standing at the edge of a pond, he castes the net in an elegant flowing motion that reminds me of the slow-motion scenes in recent Kung-fu movies like Crouching Tiger; in almost the same motion he is into the water...up to middle of his thighs...and is drawing the net towards him and gathering it in one hand as he goes; the net is out of the water, and I cannot count the numbers of 20-30cm catfish he has taken; the fish are transferred rapidly to the large woven cane basket that has suddenly appeared. Three castes and the basket is half-full...I estimate 40 fish at least.

We retrace our steps to the house. A couple of the ladies have a charcoal BBQ hot when we arrive; the fish are rinsed in clean water to remove mud from their skin; bamboo is rammed down their throats, to create handles; the whole fish are placed on the BBQ, turned every couple of minutes, and are cooked within 10 minutes.

By the time the fish hit the table, it has already been prepared for the meal; there are plates and utensils; there is a large cooker with fresh cooked rice; there is water and ice; there are 2 or 3 plates with fresh vegetables, including the fresh long-beans Taet gathered in seconds from a plot next to the fish pond; there is the fiery-hot fresh chilli sauce of the kind Thais always serve with fish; we eat.....delicious beyond description!

9. More fishing

Full of BBQ'd catfish lunch, we all just sit about for 30 minutes or so. I spend some time examining the nearly ripe jack-fruit on the nearby tree; jack-fruit trees are very big, and provide excellent shade; the fruit grow in bunches from special thin leafless branches that appear directly off the main trunk; jack-fruit are huge...maybe 4 times as big as a football, and weigh 10-15kilos each; the fruit is very attractive...pleasant lime-green skin, covered in small smooth lumps that make me think of fish skin; the fruit has a strong, sweet smell.

A few of us wander up the road to meet some relatives; I am surprised to discover the shop is owned and operated by the wife of Taet; we sit and chat with her for a while; I sip on a beer that has been thrust into my hand. Under a thatch roof hut, on the opposite side of the road, I see 2 young girls of maybe 7 or 8 years, playing with a tiny baby; I go over to look; the girls are very shy, but keep at their play; the baby girl is fat and healthy; with great effort I manage to discover she is 4 weeks old; I can observe that she seems to be quite comfortable, despite the 40 degree heat and high humidity that is sucking out all my energy. The baby belongs to Taet and his wife, and the young baby-sitters are siblings of the baby.

In this village the language situation is very confusing; some families speak Laos [which is a bit like Thai], others speak Khmer [which is not at all like Laos or Thai]; all the kids learn Thai as their 2nd or 3rd language at school; a few have a little bit of English.

While we are chatting, Taet has gone off on his mechanical water buffalo...a 2 wheeled, motorised contraption that looks like an oversized hobbiest's rotary hoe, but without the hoe, and which is used in place of the water buffalo to pull ploughs, tow trailers, etc. I notice he has the trailer loaded with the gear for a different kind of fishing. We return to the house, where we discover a few folks had gone to the river with Taet, and I decide to walk there to see if I can assist. The river is about 1 kilometer walk, and I simply follow the river for a further 500 metres until I find the group.

By the time I arrive, they have already set up the big net and are proceeding with the hard work of clearing all the dead trees from the area that had been enclosed by the net. The trees are placed in clumps in a bend of the river; they say it provides a refuge for the fish, from the cranes and other fishing birds; a large net is dragged wide around the clump of dead trees, held up by the long bamboo poles that are driven into the mud; the net is weighted, so rests on the river bed, and is stretched up so that it clears the water surface by about 1 metre...I guess this is because the fish are inclined to jump out of the water when they realise they have been trapped. The guys are stripped to their underpants..a couple are out of the water, and hauling on ropes attached to the trees the others have discovered by swimming about; that didn't look too technical, so I strip to my underpants, swim across the river, and get into the act.

First surprise I receive is from temperature of the water...patches are quite cold, others are uncomfortably hot. Second surprise is the discovery of vicious, 5 centimetre thorns on some of the branches; this discovery is made very painfully, when I stand on a thorn, and reinforced when I scrape another thorn across my abdomen while wrestling a large branch out of the water; the other guys do not seem to be having this trouble.

It is hard work in the sometimes unpleasantly hot water, and I feel as though I am sweating even though I am up to my nose in the water. Eventually we have the netted area clear of debris; one of the guys takes a smaller net and castes into the water in the manner Taet had demonstrated this morning; he drags the net out of the water and hoists it to a tree so we can clear it of leaves and mud....and fish. There are several kinds of fish; the only species I recognise and can name is the catfish; most are very small, but none are thrown back. It takes more than a dozen castes before the area is deemed to be empty of fish; by this time there might be 100 or more fish in the basket.

The large net is recovered; the trees are thrown back into the river for next time; all the equipment is swum back across the river and loaded into the trailer behind the mechanical buffalo, Back at the house the catch is washed in clean water, and distributed among the fishermen. I smell peculiar, so I take a wash in the clean bore water, and then borrow the biggest pair of shorts that can be found; It becomes obvious just how much bigger I am than the locals...I estimate the Thai men from Isaan are mostly not more than 60kg, while I am a healthy 80kg.

A guy I have not met already, comes into the group; he has with him a bottle of the rice whisky he and his mates are experimenting with to see if they can produce a unique and sellable product from their village under the OTOP (One Tambon One Product) Government scheme; I am offered a large glass of the concoction...it is evident they think I am an experienced man of the world whose opinion is important in matters of quality of rice whisky; I look at She, who says "Should be ok, because they clean bottle before they put whisky in"; I look at the bottle again, and decide they will need to do something about their filtering technique as the fluid is cloudy and the bottom one third of the bottle is more rice grains than fluid; I take a deep breath, and drink the entire glass of whisky without a stop; the whole of my abdomen becomes instantly hot and I feel I must be glowing; my skin becomes cold like I have just stepped into a box of shaved ice; I feel peaceful, and give the guy a big thumbs up; I say "Good, Good; better more than Sake Nippon".

Time to go; we wai everybody; our group gives some small amounts of cash to the grandfather, and to his wife, and to the ladies who cooked the catfish; some money is given to Taet's wife, who contributed the beer and ice from her small shop. We are off. I sleep most of the return journey....must be the belly full of catfish!

10. Washing the old folks

I am given something to do; I get to fill 2 ten-litre buckets with clean bore water. She adds the powder from a sachet to each bucket, and then shakes the contents of a small vial into each bucket; we stir with our hands, and the powder slowly dissolves; I sniff my hand and discover the water has a strong sweet flowery smell....maybe jasmine. A table/seat/bed is carried to the shade of the young jack-fruit tree near the yard gate and next to the bore pump; a pile of clean, dry towels is placed at the edge of the veranda; everything is ready.

Presently, the guy with the loud voice offers a short chant; evidently it is a signal for the family to gather, and for the old folks to make an entrance; She's Mum and Dad, plus 2 other older folks, whom I later discover are part of the extended family, come out of the house and sit together on the seat; they are dressed in traditional sarongs.

The family immediately get into the act of washing the 4 olds; its not at all sombre....there is much enthusiasm, and laughter,and there is water going everywhere; then the 4 olds reciprocate, and all the family gets thoroughly wet as well. I operate a camera, and keep dry; I decide I am not part of the family enough yet to be a full participant in this very intimate occasion. She tells me they perform this act every Songkran, and for her family this is the essence of Songkran as it represents a committment to "family".

Then it is twilight, and time to walk up the road to the marquee we saw being erected earlier in the day. Halfway to the end of the lane; a fierce-looking young man runs out of the house yard and accosts us; we stop walking; Mawin shrieks in fear and hides behind She; the aggressor approaches me with his hands raised; I smile, and he rubs liberal quantities of talcum powder all over my face; I wai, and he retreats to the house where his waiting friends are laughing broadly.

Most of the village inhabitants are already at the marquee when we arrive; we drink some chilled water and chat with the other villagers; a few of the younger kids approach me, and a couple of them touch me on the arm before running off giggling loudly. The marquee has been set up for the Monks; I count...sure enough there are places for 9 Monks, and our softdrink is waiting there for their indulgence. Soon enough the Monks arrive, and settle onto their raised platform; someone produces ice, the softdrink bottles are breached.

There is an enormous bank of loud speakers a little way from the marquee, and a sound operator sitting nearby under a large umbrella that advertises the virtues of Chang beer. One of the village elders [Luong Pawp = something like Mayor] is making a speech, and then everyone except the Monks gets up and starts moving dirt around the place....not just any place; I discover someone has dug over some soil at the north, south, east and west compass points about 25 metres from the marquee; each family has a beaten-aluminium bowl which they fill with soil from west point and carry to north to build a small hill; then south, then east, until the hill in the north is about 1 metre high; the same bowls are then used to transport water from a 200litre drum to the hill where it is used to wet the surface soil of the new hill..needless to say a little of the water "accidently" spills on friends and neighbours, and everyone is having a lot of fun; a few arty types fashion the mud into a moat around the hill, and with 4 gates at the 4 principal compass points; then armloads of bright flowers are produced, and everyone is engaged in decorating the hill. I received no explanation of this ritual, except that it is performed at this village at Songkran every year; I would like to think it is an ancient ritual, and somehow is a kind of group prayer to the higher being[s] for rain and bountiful rice harvest.

We all sit at the front of the Monks' platform, and for an hour they chant; once again the head Monk is generous with his application of water. There is a problem keeping the candles alight, as we our outside and there is a little night breeze; one of the guys assumes responsibility for keeping the candles lit, but he is a little under the influence of an afternoon's marquee erecting with liquid refreshment, so his performance is a comedy routine with dropped candles, burnt fingers, much guffawing and occasional oaths. Finally the Monks are done, and they leave to walk the 200 metres back to their temple, the head Monk bringing up the rear....one large hand resting on the shoulder of the very tired little Monk who is walking beside him.

Many of the village men produce beer and prepare to settle into a serious evening of drinking. The loudspeakers are getting too much volume and their output is highly distorted Isaan rock....bad luck for any people trying to sleep in the nearby houses. I am offered beer, but decline politely with universal sign language. We walk home in the dark.

Songkran, up-country style..........