Travelers' Tales Thailand: True Stories (Travelers' Tales Guides)

by James O'Reilly

  How is it that the staff of Tham Krabok have succeeded in rehabilitating addicts where most Western programs have failed? I asked Peter if Tham Krabok’s methods could be applied elsewhere. No, he said—the secret herbal medicines cannot be exported because the abbot is afraid they will be misused. But that’s beside the point: most of the cure is counseling—it depends on the Thai reverence for monks. A monk plays the role of guard, nurse, and confidant—half the monks are ex-addicts. The monks use every trick in the book—peer pressure, pressure from relatives-in-residence, marriage counseling, spiritual counseling. Without the monks there is no cure, but the monks cannot travel to other countries because they cannot walk there—so the program remains at Tham Krabok. Westerners, if interested, simply have to go there: the week after my visit, 30 Australian addicts were on their way to the monastery.

  Michael Buckley is a writer and photographer who lives in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of Moon Publications’ Bangkok Handbook, and is co-author of Lonely Planet’s China - a travel survival kit. He is working on another guidebook for Moon on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

  Pointing at anyone with your foot is extremetly rude. In fact, using one’s foot for any purpose for which hands are normally used, such as kicking a door shut, is also very bad manners in Thailand. We Westerners are apt to use our feet for un-footlike actions much more than Thais do, and this has given rise to a very telling Thai expression for the feet—meu farang or “ farang hands!”

  —Denis Segaller, Thai Ways

  CHARLES NICHOLL

  Moonsong and Martin Luther

  In northern Thailand, a former tuk-tuk driver tells the story of Buddha and Mara to the author and his Thai friend, and wonders about that turbulent priest.

  KATAI AND I MET THE OLD MONK THE NEXT DAY, IN THE BIG OPEN-SIDED sala of Wat Pa Sak. We sat beneath a large gilded Buddha in the sleek etiolated, Burmese-influenced style of Lan Na. His name was Moonsong. He was a thin, knotty, myopic man. He said he was seventy but he looked younger. He was unshaven, his orange robe creased and tattered, his heavy spectacles sellotaped at the hinges. He had once been a tuk-tuk driver in Bangkok. He showed us an old photo: a tough bare-chested man leaning against the door of a repair shop. It’s odd how the monk’s robe seems to partition the wearer off from “normal” life, so one is surprised at this secular past. He had gone into the monkhood twelve years ago, seven of those spent as a novice.

  Did he prefer being a monk?

  “Of course.” Then, with a little laugh, “Most of the time.”

  He was keen to practice his English. He taught English to the temple boys of the locality. There were certain rather specialist points he wanted me to explain to him. On the blackboard in the sala I defined as best I could the distinction between angels and fairies. I corrected his impression that Martin Luther was a “famous English monk”, and that Henry VIII had murdered him. I said he was thinking of Thomas à Becket and Henry II. Luther is a well-known figure in Thai religious circles, because he opposed a corrupt and mercenary clergy, and because, as Moonsong now put it, “he taught that God was inside us, not”—he gestured to the raftered roof of the sala—“up there. So it is with Buddhism. It is just following the good inside you, and putting aside”—an effortful pushing-away gesture—“the bad.”

  I said, “It is difficult to put aside the bad.”

  “Of course,” he said quickly, a touch of irritation in the reedy voice. “Of course. The spirit of Mara is always ready to make trouble. But look.” He gestured up at the bronzed Buddha above us. “You see our Buddha here. He is seated on Mara. Mara is all that you wish for, all you desire. The Buddha has risen above this, and now he may sit in meditation on top of Mara.”

  Mara was in the form of a serpent coiled up like a cushion beneath Buddha. I remembered Katai talking of the naga performing this office for the Buddha, and asked if they were the same.

  “Mara is much greater,” said Moonsong. “The evils of water brought by the naga are perhaps a part of Mara’s work, but the naga brings the good things of water too. No, Mara is phanyaa mahn, the Prince of Demons. If you do not know it, I will tell you the story of Buddha and Mara.”

  We settled at his feet, which were dusty and crooked.

  “When our Buddha attained to truth beneath the bodhi tree, Mara gathered an army of demons to bring fear to him. Mara rode at the head of the army on his war elephant, Giri Mekhala. But the goddess of the earth, who we call Nang Thoranee, saw that the Buddha was about to be engulfed by demons. She squeezed all the waters from her hair and sent down a flood to drown the demons.

  “So next, Mara sent a plague of rats to devour the holy scriptures. The Buddha created at that moment the first cat in the world. She is called Phaka Waum. She chased away the rats, and preserved the truth of the Buddha’s teaching, and to this day we consider it a great wrong to kill a cat.

  “Now Mara hurled his most terrible weapon, a great thunder-bolt, but the Buddha caught it in his hand, and there and then he turned it into a garland of flowers, like the puang malai you see hanging on his neck now.

  “Last, Mara sent his three daughters to tempt the Buddha. His three daughters are Aradi, discontent;Tanha, desire; and Raka, love. Well, this was the hardest fight for Buddha, because now he was fighting the dangers inside himself. But the Buddha resisted their charms, and so today we say: the power of dharma—the truth of the Buddha—can save us from all the dangers inside us and around us.

  In almost every Buddhist temple in Thailand you’ll find representations of naga-serpents, mythical creatures from pre-Hindu days. Usually these naga appear as balustrades on the side of bridges or stairway entrances. According to one ancient myth, the gods on Mount Meru sent naga across the water to the shores where man lives. From here they were to carry all men wishing and worthy to be in the realm of the gods. Passengers were to walk the serpent’s back while meditating on love and kindness. Thus, these statues symbolically take anyone entering the wat into the realm of the spirits.

  —Wayne Stier and Mars Cavers, Wide Eyes in Burma and Thailand

  Naga serpent

  “So, yes, of course it is difficult to put aside the spirit of Mara.We must learn to turn our desires into beautiful flowers. We must learn to place ourselves above Mara, like the Buddha does. Not only so that we can be above Mara, but so that we can see the dangers. They are outside us: desires and discontents. They are no longer part of us.”

  “They are part of life.”

  “Yes, in one sense. But we Buddhists say, rather they are part of death. They are part of the world that dies. Mara is a principle of death. That is why he is not the same as naga. The naga is dangerous, but he is a principle of life. In the Festival of Lights in Thailand, the Loi Kratong, it is said that it was a king of the naga, Phra Upagota, who finally helped to capture and conquer Mara. This was in the time of King Asoka, who brought the Theravada teachings of Buddhism into Thailand.”

  “But aren’t desire and discontent a principle of life too?” I persisted.

  His lined face looked down at me, a little rabbit-toothed pout. He said cryptically, “After noon a monk may not eat, but he may take water any time.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Food is what you want, water is what you need.”

  He went still for a moment, eyes focused on something beyond us, mouth still showing two yellow teeth. I started to say something, but Katai laid a hand on my arm, and put a finger to her lips.

  I heard the leisurely rattle of a dried-up teak leaf tumbling from the tall canopy. The temple was called Wat Pa Sak because two hundred teak trees had gone into making its enclosure.

  After a bit he looked at me and smiled. “Your Luther says: Pecca fortiter, sed fortius fide. Sin strongly, but believe more strongly. I think that is a good beginning for us all.”

  He climbed wearily to his feet, and began to rummage in a wooden chest near by. He brought out a little medallion: a tiny tin Buddha inside a triangular blob of pe
rspex [transparent plastic]. Katai said, “It is a phra kliang to hang around your neck.”

  Thais very rarely shake hands, using the wai to greet and say goodbye and to acknowledge respect, gratitude, or apology. A prayer-like gesture made with raised hands, the wai changes according to the relative status of the two people involved:Thais can instantaneously assess which wai to use when, but as a farang your safest bet is to go for the stranger’s wai, which requires that your hands be raised close to your chest and your fingertips placed just below your chin. If someone makes a wai at you, you should definitely wai back, but it’s generally wise not to initiate.

  —Paul Gray and Lucy Ridout, The Rough Guide Thailand

  I made a wai and took it from him. Katai too made a wai, and I got the feeling she was thanking him for what he had done to “enlighten” me, a poor farang who knew nothing. Phra Moonsong received our thanks with a slight bow, but no wai.

  Katai said quietly, “He would like you to give money for the temple.” I handed some notes to him. She too gave him money, but she placed the notes on top of the wooden chest. A monk may not take anything directly from a woman’s hand.

  “Thank you,” Moonsong said, “for teaching me about Martin Luther, and about Thomas the Becket. I shall tell my pupils.” He thought for a moment. “So. Is it right: ‘Who will rid me of this turbulent priest’?”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  He grinned, impish, pedantic. “Never perfect,” he said. He ambled off. At the edge of the sala, where its shade met the shimmer of the midday light, he met another monk. They conversed for a moment, a faint breeze catching their robes, a few more teak leaves slowly falling, and then they went their separate ways.

  Charles Nicholl is the author of The Reckoning, The Fruit Palace, and Borderlines: A Journey in Thailand and Burma, from which this story was excerpted. He lives with his wife and four children in Hereford, England.

  If you dine in a Thai home, don’t wait for your hostess to sit down before beginning to eat. She may not eat or drink with the guests. Begin when your host does.

  Never finish the last bit of food in the serving dish. It’s considered an honor to have it. Wait until it’s offered to you. Refuse it politely, and, when asked again, accept.

  —Elizabeth Devine and Nancy L. Braganti, The Traveler’s Guide to Asian Customs and Manners

  ALAN RABINOWITZ

  “To Eat” Means To Eat Rice

  In Thailand, rice is not just food.

  I THOUGHT OF THE DAY I TOOK ONE OF THE WORKERS TO HIS family’s home outside of Lan Sak [in the central plains region]. Sitting in one of those little island pockets on a bamboo mat outside the house, I gazed out at eye level with the fields. Before eating our meal of rice, dried fish, and fruit, his father put some rice to the side for the insects and birds, so that they could share in a bounty that was not seen by these farmers as being entirely their own. As each family member finished his meal, he gave a quick wai over his plate, to show respect to the Rice Mother. Later, we walked to the temple compound, where I was shown the new roof that the village was putting on one of the temple’s buildings.

  This little Thai community was like thousands of others around the countryside, the end product of millennia of tradition. The farmers’ homes were simple wood or bamboo structures and the villages were self-governing units. The temple was the focal point of the community and often served as the school, the hospital, the community center, and a refuge for the poor, the aged, and the mentally disturbed all at the same time. Until 1921, these temples were the only places for children to get a basic education in Thailand. These small villages represented Thai life at its purest, nearly undiluted by outside cultural influences. In a place like this, I could believe in magic and spirits.

  At different times of the year, the scenes and colors of the central plains change. Around May, toward the end of the dry season, the farmers and water buffalo labor at trying to till the brown parched ground for the next crop. Up before dawn and working in the fields by first light, they don’t return home until dusk. This is also the month of Visakha Puja, Thailand’s greatest religious holiday, commemorating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death. Even those who have been out all day in the fields go to the temple at dusk and join the procession, circling the chapel three times with flowers, a candle, and three incense sticks representing the Buddha, the dharma (his teachings), and the sangha (the monastic order).

  When the monsoons arrive a month or so later, water inundates the paddy and the young, green rice plants start to emerge. As the plants seed, and the fields become “pregnant,” a spirit ceremony is held to strengthen the plants through this period of weakness and vulnerability. By early November, when the rains cease, the grain turns golden. In late November or early December, harvest time arrives. The work continues now well into the night. The fields are lit by lamplight, and some villagers sleep among their crops in make-shift shelters. During the harvest, the paddies are filled with women and children, their wide-brimmed straw hats hiding their faces, their voices occasionally drifting through the hot, still air.

  This system of paddy growing, called sawah agriculture, is practiced throughout Asia’s most populated areas. Because these irrigated paddies often produce similar or increased yields from the same land for centuries, this type of agriculture is capable of absorbing and feeding expanding populations in a way other forms such as “swidden” or slash-and-burn agriculture cannot.

  If you visit a family outside Bangkok, expect to find a mat on the floor and a small table with food on it.When you sit, do not cross your legs. Bend your knees and keep your feet behind you or to the side.

  —Elizabeth Devine and Nancy L. Braganti, The Travelers’ Guide to Asian Customs and Manners

  But rice is more than just a commodity to the Thai people. Symbolically, it represents a gift to be respected and shared. Rice grains are not to be intentionally thrown on the floor and, if seen on the ground, should not be stepped over. The Thai words “to eat,” geen cow, literally mean “to eat rice.” Eight out of every ten Thais are rice farmers. As of 1986, more than twenty million tons of rice were produced a year. Over a quarter of this yield was for export; Thailand is the only developing country in the world that is a net food exporter.

  Yet the irony is that as Thailand’s wealth increases and the number of Mercedeses and skyscrapers in Bangkok mushrooms, the Thai rice farmer finds himself plummeting to the bottom of the Thai economic pyramid. The farmer, who is often merely a tenant on the land, is a frequent victim of usury. Sometimes the farmer is forced to sell even his most cherished belonging, his water buffalo, just to survive. A 1987 survey estimated that 80 percent of Thailand’s villages were in debt. The enormous sums owed averaged over $80,000 per village. This economic instability causes chronic hardship that often results in landlessness, poverty, and collapse of family units.

  Alan Rabinowitz is the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in the Bronx, New York, and the author of Jaguar and Chasing the Dragon’s Tail: The Struggle to Save Thailand’s Wild Cats, from which this story was excerpted.

  When a baby is put in the cradle for the first time, a cat is placed there first and rocked to and fro for a minute before the baby is put in it. Undoubtedly, a domestic cat was in the past a necessity in a house infested by rats, especially in the vicinity of rice fields.

  —Phya Anuman Rajadhon, Some Traditions of the Thai

  KUKRIT PRAMOJ

  The Reverend Goes To Dinner (at 8 a.m.)

  A Thai statesman tells how King Mongkut (1851-1868) made use of an American missionary and learned to use a spoon and a fork.

  AND SO WE ADOPTED WESTERN TABLEWARE. WE DIDN’T REALLY adopt it, we only picked out a few to adopt. Two. The farangs turned up with tableware—20 knives, 20 forks, 100 spoons and so on—and put them all over the table. When that happened the Second King, Phra Pinklao, the younger brother of King Mongkut, invited Dr. Bradley, an American missionary, to go and have dinner with him
at 8 o’-clock in the morning. The invitation was in English and specifically said “dinner.” But at 8 a.m. The Dr. and his wife, Mrs. Bradley, were rather mystified about dinner at 8 o’clock in the morning but they couldn’t refuse it; the invitation had come from the Second King himself. So they went in full dinner attire, to dinner in the palace. They found a table set with all the farang tableware—knives, forks, and spoons, soup plates, and so on. They were requested to sit down. Just the two of them, and Western food was served accordingly. Like a grand dinner. Six courses.

  This is the same Dr. Bradley who took Anna Leonowens, of Anna and the King of Siam fame, under his wing. For an account of Anna’s imaginative life in Siam, see William Warren’s “Who Was Anna Leonowens?” later in this section.

  —JO’R and LH