5:15am for the "Dawn of Happiness Ceremony," the literal translation
of the name: Sukhothai. We knocked on the adjoining door in our room
when we were ready to leave, driver's quarters apparently, but he was
already waiting for us outside, asleep on his tuk-tuk. We awoke his
wife instead. Oops. She opted to come along for the ride though. It
was cold because the broiler hadn't been turned on yet and the moon
was still up from last night, giant and golden orange.
Our tuk-tuk took (:)) us right to the ceremony, already in progress.
Many people were still arriving though, so no worries. One thing that
did worry me, however, was that we were empty handed. Everyone else
was carrying at least one bag, if not several. Then we realized part
of the ceremony was making an offering to the monks, who depend
entirely on gifts because they have given up personal possessions or
possessing things on general, aside from gifts, which they may keep.
We stood in the back and tried to be inconspicuous in our gleaming
white skin. I didn't see any other farangs crazy enough to attend, but
every pair of eyes I met was friendly. Maybe we weren't intruding. The
other attendees were in their Sunday best and the ceremony reminded me
a lot of the sunrise services I used to attend with Mom and Omie for
Easter. When the monks came around with their alms pots, I disappeared
behind the camera and Robert impersonated a stump. It was a strange
situation, similar to any time you end up attending someone else's
religious ceremony. Is it more rude to fake participation or stand
aloof? Not sure, but we managed. The monks ended up collecting 15-20
giant rice bags full of offerings, soap, non-perishable food, mosquito
spray, umbrellas, etc.
We found some breakfast soup nearby and then visited a temple we
hadn't seen yet. It was nice to be up when the rest of the world was
just awakening. The temple was a small island with one chedi and a
replica of the Buddha's footprint. It didn't take long to explore, but
we sat around a bit, just enjoying the early morning shade in this
eddy from the crowds. I also enjoyed finding and photographing lots of
buddhist sayings that were written in Thai and English on wooden
boards and tacked to various trees around the compound. Eventually we
bused back to the New City for a nap before the full festival got
started in the afternoon.
We laid about in the guesthouse until 1, when we got noodle soup for
lunch and I did my damndest to order a green milk tea from a roadside
stand so I would have something to drink while we waited for a bus. It
took awhile because my pronunciation was shoddy. Key-ow = green, chaa
= tea. She had loose tea leaves, steeped them in hot water, added a
shot of condensed milk, a tablespoon of sugar and a splash of cream.
Then poured it over ice and viola. Tasty! Robert got to just point
because a man had just received his iced coffee, no fair.
We walked towards the bus stop, but a nearly full bus honked on it's
way by. A hand flap brought them to a halt and we added two more to
the mix.
The parade started at 1:45 according to our schedule and hordes of
people lined the street, sitting on bamboo mats or plastic maxi pad
packaging taped together and sold by various vendors and everyone who
was anyone had an umbrella. There was constant motion in the crowd: as
the shady spots shifted, the crowd followed suit. It was fun to sit in
the middle and watch. We watched a family buy and eat two sticks of
bamboo, filled with sticky rice and raisins. The vendor s sitting
behind us, so we bought our own. You peel the bamboo back like a
banana and dig out the rice with your fingers. It tastes like coconut
and the raisins were actually black beans. I tried to ask what it was
called, but I couldn't decipher her words. For now, I will call it
maprao khao, coconut rice, because I know those words.
There was a short, lackluster procession. Was that it?? As minutes and
no people passed, we decided we had missed it somehow. We bought
tickets for the show tonight and wandered to get some food. Right as
we finished ordering food, we heard the parade. The real parade.
Miraculously we figured out how to get our fried rice to-go, but I
left Robert there to go take pictures. Somehow he found me again,
despite my deviance from our meeting spot. We walked upstream to the
VIP tent, where the parade would stop and perform occasionally for the
fancy people sitting in the shade on plush couches while we baked in
the inadequate palm tree shade.
The parade was interminable. Robert left me multiple times to sit, use
the squat-a-john, etc, yet the parade continued. I kept scurrying
around, driven to take pictures by my dark, ugly alter, until I
regained my self-control and admitted that all the costumes were
looking the same. I think the idea was to feature each of the
different civilizations' traditional dress, but there were so many. A
lot of the kids looked like they were forced into the parade by their
parents or teachers and just looked hot. One amusing part was the
women walking with hanging baskets full of food. After they visited
the VIP tent, their wares were up for the taking and kids and this hot
photographer scurried up to them to snatch tasty bits. I scored a
banana leaf -wrapped coconut dessert, which Robert consumed. As the
parade continued, we joined the flow for a while and then snuck off to
the side, no more parades for a while. I wish I wasn't the one who
I'll have to edit the outrageous number of pictures I took.
I think we found more food at this point and then went for some
snacks...ice cream topped with sticky rice, peanuts, black jelly bits,
and sliced corn. Oh - and fresh coconut. I feel like those of you who
know my aversion to shaved coconut worms would be relieved to know
that I love fresh coconut scraped out of the shell, which also topped
the ice cream and it was in fact served in a small coconut shell. We
also had a bit of cassia flower curry and I got the name this time
(gang kee lek). By this time it was getting late so we headed for the
Light and Sound Presentation, getting coconut rice on the way. We are
adapting well to the Thai custom of eating your way through the day!
The show was okay. We got an english sound radio, but reception was
crappy and their earphones worse, so we just watched. They lit hot air
balloon krathongs at one point which was neat and the scope of the
presentation was cool - the cast was about 100 people, if not more.
Perhaps not worth 500B, but now we know.
After the show we walked around the festival a bit more, but quickly
tired of fighting the crowd. There were so many more people here today
than on Friday. We got on a clown car bus to go home and it didn't
disappoint. I counted 45 people this time, after we had started
dropping people off!! Each bus is run by two people: a driver and a
money collector. The money collector won't let the bus leave until
there is no possible way to put another person on the bus without
using the roof racks. She even convinced a German woman to sit on a
stranger man's lap! I feel like the German retaliated by stealing the
money taker's seat when someone got off. The money taker then had to
crouch/stand the rest of the way, with her rather large rumpus
impinging on my already tempered public bus ride-sized personal space.
Home again, home again. Zzz.
Miscellany:
4T: We rented a private room with en suite bathroom and hot water
shower. It was a nice enough room with one small challenge. It had two
large windows, one on each outside wall of our corner room. They were
great for circulating air when coupled with our standing fan, but the
curtains were a thick burlap-esque material, opaque, but stifling. In
order to not die from heat stroke, we had to keep them open, but it
was often quite annoying because I always felt like we were on display
to the passersby, who could easily see into our room. Oh, and we (I
say we, but I mean Robert dearest) strung a double clothesline across
the diagonal of our square room, which was helpful and cleverly
executed, but damn annoying when you wanted to do anything in the room
besides sleep.
Naa: I remembered two more comments Naa made that amused me. One:
Robert introduced himself and she repeated his name, then paused in
thought, saying, "Robert. Like the people that are all machines." and
she moved her arms stiffly. Robot! Yes, exactly.
Two: She asked us how much we were paying for our room and I tried to
respond in Thai. I replaced an "r" with an "l" how everyone I have
spoken to does, but she corrected me, rolling her "r" instead. I
explained that I knew it was supposed to be an "r" sound, but people
only understood me when I used the "r" sound. She said, "yes, people
will understand, but the wrong people." I took her to mean that
uneducated people speak with an L sound, while more educated people
speak more correctly, but I haven't met many educated Thais besides
her...
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