When it rains, it pours

To paraphrase the opening line of Apocalypse Now, "Aran... Shit!" It's that time again when I have to dip my toe outside of Thailand just to set foot inside yet again. A pointless exercise that, perversely, earns far more money for Cambodia than Thailand. But that's not my problem - my problem is steeling myself from the coming assault. I can cope with the children carrying parasols. "Free?!" I beam a smile "Free, OK!" They don't understand much English but they know that 'free' means an empty outstretched hand. It works.

The visa touts are more persistent but in a world of scams and lies just keep walking and lie. "I have a visa from one of your scamming friends, thank you." Is far too complex a sentence but makes me feel better. "Cambodia visa stamp. Quick. No long waiting! This way!" I keep on walking... smile and lie and walk. The visa to get into Cambodia officially costs US$20 - the actual price being whatever they can take off people - but the actual border stamps are free. The scam is to tell foreigners that they can just sit in no-man's-land for a few minutes and all will be done... for a fee. Except that walking the extra 100 metres reveals that there is rarely a queue for foreign visas. However, looks like some of the guys manning the Cambodian side must be feeling they live at the arse end of the border food chain so have started charging for the stamps. A mate of mine reported this back to me after his recent adventure.

Being in no-man's-land is always one big joke. It must be one of the largest bits of lawless land in the world, crammed with casinos and peddlers of alcohol and cigarettes. You could, of course, get one of the visa touts to get you some smokes as you wait idly for your visa stamps, except that they charge you double the going rate, which is about 10 Baht for a packet, that's under 30 cents. Even if you don't smoke, worth buying some to sell to your friends in Thailand. The actual packaging is an illusion designed to charge you more for popular international brands such as Marlboro, but once unwrapped the actual cigarettes are all the same.

The Cambodia visa scam seems to have moved up a gear. I figure the border guards are probably making more than I do, which is pretty impressive for a third world country. However, once into Cambodia the air is a touch more peaceful - the busy border market is on the Thai side as that's where the money is. I was offered a trip to the famous Angkor Temple and a young Vietnamese girl, so figured there must be just two types of tourists here. I can't believe a Vietnamese girl is going to be working in a Cambodian border town - Thailand or Singapore, yes, but here!?

I got my free stamp on the way out so was waiting to see what would happen on the way back in. Things were not looking good. A group of Asian tourists were shouting at the Cambodian guard who was safely shielded from the barrage behind his glass counter. It was hot, I could be standing here for ages before the UN sorts this out. They speak a bit of English: Vietnamese tourists doing the Southeast Asian trail. The guards want money for a splash of ink that by the sound of it should be free. "Ask them for a receipt!" I say helpfully. It worked - I jumped the queue as they were getting processed en masse. The UN wasn't needed and I got an appreciative round of bowing. "Enjoy Thailand."

Half my day's work was done and I drove off with my Thai friend. The horizon, however, looked bleak. As the sky turned to lead the rains descended. The windscreen wipers were overwhelmed by the waterfall so was safer to pull over and grab a late lunch. The rainy season has now started in earnest. Unsurprisingly, this coincides with the monsoon in India, as Thailand gets the trailing edge of India's weather patterns. It's at times like these that I feel justified in my dislike of the ubiquitous pick-up truck. The open back-side has some advantages over an estate or van for stacking boxes of beer or cramming Thai workers, but during the rains everything, and everybody, gets drenched. I need to pick up some furniture and try to calculate if better to abandon the project today and postpone it till tomorrow morning. My friend is adamant that this will pass and we'll get it all done by night-fall. The rain is deafening as it hammers onto the tin roofs.

The rain eventually eases a notch just below torrential so this is obviously a cue to resume our drive. The rains signal the end of some cycles and the start of others. Many fields of cassava had recently been dug up and lying fallow, waiting for a fresh crop to be planted once the rainy season comes to an end. In contrast, I saw many workers planting rice in the paddy fields. Much of the land around this area is without an irrigation system so the rains are crucial to avoid even more paddy fields being turned over to less risky products. The occasional break in the cloud cover shone bright beams of sunlight to reveal a lush emerald landscape below a petroleum sky.

The lack of irrigation is coupled with a general lack of drainage so that water-logging and mudslides are not unusual. The landscape here is fairly flat so there aren't the same serious problems as in the mountainous north, but sliding the car into a paddy field is not on our itinerary so we take a detour through the dirt-tracks rather than the slick and slippery tarmac roads. We see a cow standing in the middle of the road like a sentinel. Cows and buffaloes are not an unusual sight but a solitary beast parked there seemed slightly surreal. Driving slowly past it so as not to startle the creature (as it can do serious damage to a car) we noticed one hind leg was raised up off the ground, most probably nursing a broken bone. Cows are expensive and seems unlikely the owner would just abandon it but in its statuesque grace it showed no intention of moving so was probably safe to leave it where it stood, waiting for the butcher to arrive.

Our work completed and back in town I needed some food and a drink and headed for my local bar. People don't go out much when it rains. As scooters are the main mode of transport around town, arriving drenched from the rain and steaming from the heat is not the way to start a night out. However, Thais are a sociable lot and any break in the rain is a cue to drive around and check out who's hanging out where. But just as night follows day, so a power cut inevitably follows a rainstorm. A city plunged into darkness is an eerie sight, illuminated only by the searching beams of cars and motorbikes and the flickering of hundreds of candles quickly lit to ward off the darkness. A bar immersed in a candle glow may seem a romantic setting but without music or TV there is just the sound of subdued human voices, as if telling stories of import round a camp fire.

The glow of my mobile phone could illuminate the short path home, so long as the battery didn't drain away. But why hurry, there's always another beer and the light will come back soon... probably.

Durian Season

Love it or hate it, you just can't ignore it - at least, not if you live in Southeast Asia. Durian has hit the streets and aficionados of this controversial fruit are in raptures.

I have never seen fresh durian in Europe which, on the one hand, is surprising as should be very easy to export, yet on the other hand is perfectly understandable as every supermarket would stink of durian all year round! Durian is native to Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia but also grows in the Philippines, Cambodia as well as here in Thailand. It looks like a spiky version of a jackfruit and once opened has large fleshy parts surrounding stones the size of an egg - the colour and sizes depend on the precise variety and country. However, what is controversial is the smell that durian exudes once opened.

The 19th century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace rather kindly described it as "a rich custard highly flavoured with almonds," although even he had to admit to certain wafts of "onion-sauce". The novelist Anthony Burgess is less complimentary, writing that eating durian is "like eating sweet raspberry blancmange in the lavatory." The overarching stench is often described as like rotten onions, yet to me it smells as if someone has thrown up after eating a crème caramel.

Thais are not immune from the smell but, like many other foods here, they've grown to like it. In spite of the popularity of durian it is banned from most public places such as hotels, trains and buses. I've seen 'No Durian' signs in hotel lifts just in case anybody was thinking of taking one up to their room as a snack. You can, however, get a feel for the fruit's popularity from these articles from Malaysia and Cambodia's The Phnom Penh Post.

Much of what we describe as the flavour of a food is also partly due to its smell - witness our lack of taste when we have a blocked nose. The taste of durian flesh is not unpleasant and it has a thick rich consistency like soft bananas and high calorific content, but it's just not feasible to try and eat it whilst holding one's breath! I've almost got used to it - my stomach doesn't churn at the durian haze enveloping the market - but I'm not about to rush out and buy any as can eat fresh watermelon, pineapples and bananas at a fraction of the price. Maybe one day I'll try some again... just not today.

Lersi Initiation and the Thai Forest Hermit Tradition

Anybody who visits rural Thailand, and especially the temples up in the mountains or close to caves, will come across shrines dedicated to Lersi, a mystical hermit. Last weekend I had what I can best describe as a tantric initiation into a Lersi teachings.

Firstly, had a look online and found very little information. One problem with many Thai words is the variability in their transliteration into the Latin alphabet - the most common spelling I've found is Lersi although my dictionary gives 'Lussi' and 'Russi'. This is, of course, the forest hermit (or hermits rather) with long beard and tiger skin. Have had an attraction to these hermits since coming to Thailand although strangely have never found a statue I liked to add to my collection.

I have also often wondered why I've not come across any esoteric teachings in the style of Tibetan Buddhism and, more particularly, tantric or even vajrayana teachings. No Thai I've met, or even monk, has a clue of what I'm talking about so I have assumed nobody teaches this stuff. At the weekend I was proved wrong.

I was in a village half way between Korat and Buriram for a weekend festival to mark the recent deaths of some family members of my Thai friend. It's a village of some 300 houses yet has an impressive temple complex. Not in itself unusual but it did have living quarters for far more monks than I could see and two temples.

My friends were all excited because a particularly well-respected monk was there for just a couple of days before going for his own retreat into the forest. I spotted him walking around and he had a very different air and demeanour than the other monks, apart from also standing out as he was not in the customary saffron robes but a dark red, rather similar to the Tibetan Gelupta order. His name was Luang Phor Toh (or Tho?) - I'll have to check the name at some point - and we ended up spending about an hour together. (Again on transliteration, the Thai 'Luang Phor' is probably best pronounced 'lonpo'.) I had my wife there with me for about half this time so managed to get a little bit translated but I suspect that some of the finer points of Buddhism are outside of her English vocabulary, and of my Thai. Luckily, I have had initiations before so I knew more or less what was going on.

With a big smile he said that I reminded him of Lersi and asked me if I knew about the hermit. I obviously had and he turned to look for something on the altar behind him. Typically Thai in its syncretism, the altar had a mixture of Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist deities. Flanking the central image of a huge rainbow-coloured butterfly were two striking statues of Lersi; one in traditional head-dress, long beard and tiger-skin, the other with what seemed to be a leonine head (I thought with the tiger symbolism this would have been a tiger but it really looked like a lioness, smiling in meditative posture). The Luang Phor can't find what he's looking for and gets up to go into his office next door. I'm told he's looking for a statue of Lersi to give me! And indeed, he quickly emerges with a huge statue that must be about 18 inches tall. He hands it to me and it's really heavy – I thought it was made of painted plaster but feels more like stone or concrete.

The statue is of Lersi seated in meditation on top of a coiled snake, with the stylised head of a snake coming out of his head, rather than the more traditional head-dress. The monk inscribed the back of one shoulder so that this was now my own personal Lersi. I was asked to move closer as the proper initiation was about to begin. At the very back of the altar were two large golden face-masks, as can often be seen in Thai plays and parades. He picks one of them up and sits down to recite some dedicatory prayers. He then places the mask on my head as, in pure tantric tradition, I was to become Lersi. Now, this bit ended up being funny as the mask is obviously designed to fit onto a Thai head, but being European I have a long nose! I have the same problem with standard Thai motorcycle helmets – they seem to assume one has a cue-ball shaped head – that often hurt if worn properly. Anyway, as my head was now firmly stuck inside this Lersi mask we were all having a good laugh. I was wondering what life would be like walking around as a famous hermit. Eventually I managed to prise my head out of the mask; as of writing I still have a bruised nose bridge. I was also given a short mantra and after a bit of discussion figured out how the meditation was supposed to be done. My first initiation in Thailand was done!

I was given various other objects and asked to sit to one side with the Luang Phor as he held court to Thais who had been waiting patiently. They all wanted some goodies too! But collecting trinkets wasn't the point and he was jovial but firm with anyone begging for things they didn't need. Thais are very respectful towards monks, and famous monks in particular have a halo of reverence around them that is not especially relaxing or conducive to having any meaningful discussion. Perhaps I've been around Tibetans too much, but this teacher reminded me more of that tradition than the stiff protocols that I'd seen before. Respect and courtesy go without question, but to be paralysed by reverence is, I feel, counter-productive to a teacher-student relationship. When I was a teacher, I wanted my students to understand what I was teaching, not to just parrot what I was saying.

As I looked around to take in the symbolism of the altar it struck me that I had stumbled upon a school that was not traditional Theravada. Indeed the main symbol was this butterfly I had previously mentioned. One large poster had variations on this butterfly theme as if they all had subtle shades of meaning, but the border was formed of tiny yin-yang symbols. The yin-yang icon is Taoist in origins, not Buddhist, although in Tibet a triadic version of the yin-yang is popular. Unfortunately I was unable to make much headway in finding out the origins and philosophy of this butterfly cult. I have seen this symbol before, but that was up near Chiang Rai and my wife bought a poster which at the time I just assumed was a mere work of art.

Word spread quickly around the village that this falang (foreigner) had been initiated by their beloved teacher. Soon those people who had also been taught by the Luang Phor and had gone into the jungle with him on retreat were showing me their butterfly amulets and their own Lersi images. The master had also extended an invitation for me to go into the jungle too one day. But that will be another story.


Image from Thailand Amulets.

The Ligay Theatre Experience

Last weekend I paid a short visit to the village of a Thai friend for a marathon wake in honour of three members of his extended family who had recently died. The village is half way between Korat and Buriram and in what is generally referred to as Isaan, the north-eastern part of Thailand and its agricultural heartland. Thais are not particularly squeamish about death and on arrival I was shown a wall of photographs that included scenes from road accidents with bodies in various states of dismemberment. A certain amount of stitching was needed before being embalmed and placed in their refrigerated coffins – Thailand is hot, so between death and cremation it is absolutely necessary that the body be kept cool.

The actual cremations took place previously so that the weekend was dedicated to eating and drinking and, on Saturday night, fireworks and a local theatrical production. Although I mention drinking, it seemed like the local police were making a point of stamping out alcohol within the temple grounds. The Thai government has many problems on its hands so they divert attention away from this by implementing petty laws that annoy people even more. Alcohol and tobacco prices have recently shot up, but in a country where it is easy to buy locally produced 'white spirit' at a fraction of the price of a bottle of cheap whisky, putting up taxes is just going to increase the production of this home-made 'rice vodka'. Anyway, in most villages the civic centre is the temple – there is no such thing as the market square. People are always well-behaved and respectful inside the temples themselves, but the temple grounds are obviously used for funeral and wedding parties as well as for other festivities. A party without alcohol is somewhat like a funeral without a corpse. So, in the spirit of freedom and ignoring regulations many people bring small bottles of water with them... filled with 'white spirit', of course.

The centre-piece of the weekend was the fireworks and then a production of Thai Ligay (Likay) theatre. The firework display was short and cacophonous, as if war had broken out in this tiny village. I suspect the bangers were designed for Bangkok and best appreciated standing one kilometre away. Many Thais were cupping their hands over their ears – if it was loud for them then it was LOUD! Just as everyone's brain stopped ringing the band started up. I can't name every instrument but at the forefront was the Thai xylophone and a kind of Thai oboe or clarinet, usually heard pumping up the tempo during muay thai boxing matches. Now, I've been to many concerts in Thailand and the art of having an enjoyable experience is to find a place to sit where you are not deafened by the speaker system. The job of sound engineer seems superfluous here – just yank up the bass and treble and set the volume to maximum. Thais think this sounds good but when the sound gets clipped and distorted then it needs a more subtle tuning. Never happens! Reminded me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where the rock band is best heard from a neighbouring solar system... and even then best to be inside a nuclear bunker. When the 'singing' started it was like listening to a xylophone on speed accompanied by dogs barking. OK, this wasn't my cup of tea but I was supported in my reactions by the other Thais in my party who come from a different region - this was not just Thai culture, this was local culture! I went as far away as possible to see if it sounded any better, and was tolerable at the edge of the temple precinct wall. But then I saw a couple of kids creeping away to play with each other that I didn't feel like being accused of voyeurism.

Ligay is a traditional form of theatre. It goes on for hours! I think this play started around 9 pm and was told it finished about 5 am. I think that some Burmese puppet theatre is similarly epic. The actors are dressed in the most colourful and sparkling Thai costumes, giving them a regal or other-worldly quality. Most Ligay stories are like soap operas and deal with love lost and found, treachery and betrayal, and usually some kind of moral tale at the end. I think, from the little I could understand, that this story was eventually going to lead up to one of the characters becoming a hermit, but I'm not certain. The story itself is told in a mixture of singing and speaking (sounded more like shouting) and sprinkled with humour and slapstick to keep the punters happy.

Now, as this was the first time I'd experienced Ligay theatre I had to check if there was any further information online. I could find very little except that each play seems to be one long experience in improvisation! It remains very much a local tradition with the actors going through lengthy apprenticeships rather than having formal rehearsals and learning their lines from scripts. I will no doubt return to the village at some point and see if I can tune in to this Ligay culture – I suspect there are also few recordings as the play without the theatre is only half an experience. Luckily, my Thai friends agreed that it was very loud, but that they didn't mind it. I therefore left after an hour or so – could still hear it from my bed half a kilometre away.

After skirting around the experiences of the weekend I've actually left out the most important thing – probably the one thing that would take me back. Actually, my friend is now the head-man of the village so will see little of him back in Sakeo and will be guaranteed a warm and friendly stay whenever I choose to go back. But I have also got to know a little about his past, parts of which he has alluded to before without fully expanding on it. In a country that is predominantly Buddhist it has struck me as a little disappointing that I have not found anything more esoteric than vipassana meditation. Not till now.

Thailand Amulets

Thailand Amulets is a blog dedicated to, obviously, Thai amulets. A quick search will yield many websites selling Thai amulets but this one is more concerned with explaining how they are made and giving some very fine examples. For such small objects this blog has some excellent photos.

Most markets in Thailand will have at least one stall selling amulets, charms and pendants. Many mass produced amulets are very cheap and temples will also produce a mixture of simple stamped amulets plus a few of better craftsmanship. These limited edition amulets can be of exquisite quality with fine detail on objects that are only 3 or 4 cm in height. Thailand Amulets blog concentrates on these finer examples many of which are essentially miniature statues rather than medallions. The market is also rife with fakes so it is worth recognising quality products (whether original or copied) rather than believing the tall tales told by vendors.

I still think that, given the quantity of gaudy and tacky souvenirs on sale in Thailand, a bag full of amulets can make original presents for friends and family back home without damaging your wallet or bulging your suitcase.