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| Calm before the storm: at Wat Doi Suthep |
After a few months back in London and
initially enjoying lots of theatre and concerts, and even the snow, I found
that the fag end of winter was dragging on and on, deep into April. Lashing rain, bone-chilling gales…
So thoughts returned to the embracing
warmth of SE Asia once again. And
if thoughts, then why not deeds?
Idly searching the likes of opodo and lastminute.com one day, I found
that flights to Chiang Mai could be had surprisingly cheaply. Having survived the Loi Krathongfestivities, and realizing that Songkhran was on the way…
Songkhran: the Thais’ new year; and though
they also celebrate the western and Chinese equivalents, this is the biggest
celebration in the calendar. The
citizens of Chiang Mai are recognized throughout Thailand as the best partiers
in a partying nation, and this is their high point. So it was obvious what I had to do. And I did.
In no time I was whisked from grey, drizzly
Heathrow at a fridge-like 4 degC, and found myself standing in a warm sunset
glow at Chiang Mai, in the high 30s, with a distant view of the local
mountains, blue silhouettes against a red afterglow. Welcome once more to the Land of Smiles: certainly there was
a big grin on my face!
I was welcomed into the little B+B by the
Thai-Brit couple that run it, and felt immediately at home. For the festival I made my base at a
nearby bar on one of the main streets, a tiny but very friendly place, where
they were very keen to initiate me into the mysteries of the festival. I later met the owner of the bar, who
turned out to be an American transsexual with, it seemed, a beautiful local
girlfriend (a real woman as far as I could work out). Only in Thailand! One of the bar staff, Sak, took me under his wing and
determined I was going to get the most out of the new year. Early one morning, he took me up the
mountain on the back of his underpowered motorbike (I had to get off and walk
the last bit!) to the temple of Doi Suthep, which is one of the most important religious
sites in the country. On this, the
first day of the holiday, it was packed with local people coming to pay their
respects. We bought candles and
incense then walked three times around the central stupa, its solid gold
cladding dazzling in the hazy early morning light against a Gaugin-blue
sky. Then we knelt as an ancient
tattooed monk in his tangerine bright robe blessed us and flicked water across
us.
This is the origin of the water festival, a
respectful and religiously based gesture.
In the past, people would pour a small libation from a cup over your
shoulder to wish you good luck.
Little did I know how this had metamorphosed over the years. Though perhaps I should have guessed,
given my Loi Krathong experience, where a calm tradition of floating candles on
the river had turned into a mad firework throwing event across the whole
city.
So back to the city streets, and things
were already kicking off at the bar.
Sak took me walking round the full perimeter of the moat of the ancient
city, and the streets were filled with stalls and pick up trucks. Not a water
festival – a water throwing festival! The stallholders were not so interested
in selling as dragging buckets of warm brownish water from the moat and
flinging it at every passer by – especially the farang!* The crammed beds of
the pick ups were full of giggling kids with monster water pistols – and no
feeble western types: think Kalashnikovs of the water spraying world – which
they constantly refilled from barrels of ice water. So you could simultaneously be getting a freezing face full
from the left and a warm drenching from the right, over and over again. All delivered with mischievous smiles
and cheers! I was completely
soaked within seconds, but still it kept coming. Then as we headed back towards the bar, the gods decided to
join in. With a huge echoing crack
of thunder, an unseasonable monsoon-style deluge fell from the huge black
clouds that suddenly appeared over the city, drenching everyone yet again.
Two more days of this! One evening I made the mistake of
asking Sak to take me on his bike to a restaurant on the far side of the city,
thinking things would have calmed down later in the evening. We had to run the gauntlet of a
thousand grinning kids and again arrived soaked. This wouldn’t work in London, but in temperatures in the
high 30s (90s F) it was good fun; and I ended the three days with a rictus
grin. Battered but very happy I
retired to the bar and ordered a stiff gin and tonic.
*foreigners
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