Kornography

I finally got to go to the Shan refugee camp, a place I had been hearing a lot about, and was really looking forward to visiting. (the area that I was in borders Burma, but more technically it abuts Shan State: within Burma there are different ethnic states, most of which are in some state of fighting for their independence, to which Shan state has perhaps the best case) Me and Meeber went on separate motorbikes, and upon arriving first, I was greeted warmly by the leader of the camp (the same man, I quickly realized, who Meeber had been telling me about). He rushed to get chairs (the customary plastic mold in primary colors that is ubiquitous in Thailand) and arranged them on the corner of an old metal table, left outside for many rainy seasons, with a rainbow of rusts half consuming the words ‘Rotary International.’ A boy emerged from inside with glasses and weak green tea. Within a minute, it became clear that he had no real idea of who I was, or why I had come, and although Meeber had been here a number of times—apparently never in an official capacity—he didn’t recognize the name of my organization when I offered it. Instead he saw someone who had specifically come to his camp—a process of navigating a pitched and pot-holed gravel track on a motorbike for about an hour—and welcomed him with open arms. Read the rest of this entry »

Repeatedly being told about things that “you must do” in Chiang Mai, as well as learning about that which is quintessentially Thai, has resulted in my keeping of an ever-growing checklist in the back of my mind. Every guidebook and Buddhism tract discusses the daily morning rituals of monks, yet my body has vetoed the pre-dawn wake-up that is a prerequisite for witnessing this event. So this morning, frustrated with the relentlessness of work—precluding me from ticking anything off of my mental list for longer than a week—I set the alarm, and more importantly, mobilized myself to get out of bed. Read the rest of this entry »

The party, if you could even call it that, was a relaxingly casual affair—a table of food next to a pot of boiling water to make your own food, a few bottles of whiskey, clusters of people grouped around the stone walls that surrounded the flagstone driveway—with a man playing the guitar as if no one was listening. Read the rest of this entry »

The same wanton disregard for the safety of themselves and others that is readily evident in their traffic etiquette seems to be the implied theme of Loi Kratong for most Thais. In actuality, Loi means “to float” and Kratong is an offering usually made of flowers and banana leaves that is “Loi”-ed down the river to appease the river spirits. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever since I got here, I have been hearing about the festival that is coming up in early November called Loi Krathong. Everyone speaks about the paper lanterns(Kom Loi) that fill the sky during the festival. Kom Loi, incidentally—in what is yet another example of the proliferation of booby traps within the Thai language is only a slight mispronunciation away from the word that means “lady boy”—an catch-all phrase for transvestite, transgender, etc.—a fact that amuses the Thais to no end. Lucky for me, in Northern Thai—a discrete language that sounds almost nothing like Thai, and one in which there seem to be markedly less opportunities for non-native speakers to make a fool of themselves—the name of the festival is Yee Ping, which is both easy to say, and not easily confused with any sort of transgender-taxonomical classification. The purpose of this festival is somewhat unclear, and Thais have given me a broad range of meanings, but what is clear is how one celebrates Loi Krathong. In addition to letting Kom Loi float into the sky, the Thais create small banana leaf boats(Kratong) set them on fire, and send them out to float (and burn) in the river/moat/insert your own body of water here. In modern times the Thais have taken liberties with the ways in which they celebrate, and small burning boats, and paper laterns, although still figuring prominently, have been largely overshadowed by fireworks, fireworks, fireworks.

It seems that many residents of Chaing Mai share my own affinity for all things that go boom, and as a result they (and, in turn, I) have been unable to wait until the true start of the festival to begin the fun. As I write this, still almost a full week before Loi Krathong, I have become totally desensitized to bone rattling explosions occurring at all hours of day and night without warning. Last night, while playing basketball under the lights, the night sky was suddenly filled a huge red Fourth-of-July-style flower firework—a truly impressive display of amateur pyrotechnics, and one it would seem would be better served during the actual festival. However, I have been unable to discern whether this state of affairs comes as a result of the insatiable need to deploy fireworks when one possesses them, or a desire to work out all the kinks, so all can go off without a hitch next weekend.

While it has taken only a few days to get used to living under blitzkrieg, there is one element to all of this that has remained novel and breathtakingly beautiful, and that is the Kom Loi. Out on my balcony, overlooking the moonscape, I watched as fireworks rose like comets over the Chaing Mai sky line, and then showered the ground below with reflected light. I watched as one such comet moved in slow motion, patiently overcoming the tallest building, and as I continued to stare, waiting for the inevitable explosion, the second shoe refused to drop. This was either the slowest moving firework in history, or else I had somehow managed the marginal super-power of so many B-grade movies, and could now will time to slow down. As it turns out, neither was true, and I was in fact seeing my first Kom Loi.

A Kom Loi consists of a large white bag with what looks like a sterno dish from a puu-puu platter at the center of a cross of wiring at its opening. The large lantern fills with the hot carbon dioxide pouring out of its flame, and rises majestically into the night sky—majestically that is, unless it has been adorned with dozens of fireworks hanging below on a long fuse. I was overcome with this my first Kom Loi, and started to get really excited for the festival, where I’ve been told hundreds of these Kom Loi’s adorn the sky.

Today I realized that I had been living in Chaing Mai for three weeks and consequently recognized two important facts that I can no longer ignore: 1.) I had yet to visit Wat Doi Suthep, a must-see on even a two-day trip to Chaing Mai; and 2.) I had been living in a city surrounded by mountains for this long and still hadn’t climbed any of them–what were my South African brus and boetes to think?(See pic of Devil’s Peak over Cape Town). Lucky for me, Wat Doi Suthep is on Doi Suthep, the largest mountain overlooking Chiang Mai; I was presented with only one real option. Read the rest of this entry »