Travel Diary #3: Goodbye Thailand, hello Laos

Mai Pen Rai

Which means “no problem”, “no worries” or “it doesn’t matter” depending on the situation, is one of the most frequently used phrases in Thailand (apart from “Farang Baa” which means “crazy Farang”) and goes a long way to explaining the Thai attitude to life in general – laid back; very laid back indeed.

Anybody travelling in Thailand sooner or later adheres to the Mai Pen Rai attitude to life – take yesterday for example. Myself and Anne got up early, packed our bags and were all set to make a quick escape from Chang Rai to Chang Khong, the border crossing into Laos. The guest house owner ‘Chiang’ (a very ‘Mai Pen Rai’ sort of guy) would have none of it!

“You leave today ?” he asked. “Today not a good day to leave, today a good day to stay ! We have Buddhist ceremony this morning to bless the new rooms – you stay, see ceremony, have good lunch and party”.

And that was that! Myself, Anne, an Itialian called Michele and his Japanese girlfriend Fu Chan were all led upstairs at 11 a.m. and into one of the new (as yet unfinished!) guestrooms to take part in the ceremony with Chiang and his family.

Four Saffron robed Buddhist monks sat quietly against two of the walls. In one corner of the room a shrine had been constructed, a teak carved Bhudda statue taking centre stage amongst the pungent burning incense and candles. Four baskets lay under the shrine, each containing an odd assortment of soaps, candles, food, incense and medicines. These would eventually be offered to the monks in thanks for conducting the ceremony – as Buddhist monks can own no worldly possessions except the saffron robe they wear, they totally rely on offerings such as this in order to survive.

We were instructed to sit in front of the head monk, a man much older than his counterparts and with a gracefully lined face and authoritive tone. A ball of string was unwound to encircle the room. The string was passed through the shrine and each monk held the section that lay before them.

Suddenly the religious silence was broken by a chorus of hypnotic chanting, each verse being led by the older monk. After ten minutes of various chants, each one more hypnotic than the last, the older monk blessed the room and everybody attending the ceremony (even the farang non-believers) with a Buddhist version of ‘holy water’, sprinkling the blessed water liberally on our heads with a small bamboo brush.

Chiang then signalled that we (the four farangs) would be the people who handed the offerings to the monks, a most important task indeed and one to be carried out with total reverance and respect for Buddhist tradition. This meant that Anne and Fu Chan could not touch the monks in any way (as females are never allowed to touch a Buddhist monk – just one of the 277 principles Buddhist monks adhere to). Instead, the monk lays a length of his robe on the ground, the basket is placed onto this piece of the garment and only when the ladies hands are removed can the monk retrieve the ‘offering’.

After this, the older monk decided that the farangs needed to be blessed in order to expel any bad spirits that we may be carrying and also to bring us good luck in our travels. Each of us in turn were placed before the monk and a piece of the string threaded from his hands around our left wrist. He then chanted a good luck mantra while the head of the household (Chiang’s father) knotted the string around our wrist to make a bracelet. At the exact moment that Chiang’s father broke the string in order to release the bracelet from the monks grasp, the monk blew on the string, divining our bracelets with good luck and chasing away bad spirits.

The ceremony over, we were all invited to lunch with Chiang’s family, the guest house staff and the tradesmen (and tradeswoman!) who built the new rooms but only after the monks had themselves eaten a hearty meal – a race against time for the monks as they are not allowed to eat after midday (yet another one of the 277 Buddhist principles) and it was nearing 11.45!

At midday, an array of traditional Thai dishes was placed on the table before us – Green curry, chilly salted fish, chicken with green chilli and cashew nuts and sticky rice followed by an assortment of fresh fruit and sticky sweet Thai puddings – every single one of the dishes was indescribably delicious and consumed with gusto by all.

Of course, a Thai celebration would not be complete without the inevitable dram of Sam Song whisky and so the rest of the day (and most of last night) was spent around the table drinking Whisky and soda, smoking the peace pipe and singing along to both Thai and European tunes being strummed by ‘Min’, one of the guesthouse’s resident jungle trekkers (and one of the hardest men I have ever had the pleasure to meet).

So, today, three days later than planned, we have finally arrived (slightly worse for wear) in Chiang Khong, one of the four border crossings into Laos that we farangs are allowed to use. I can see Laos 100m away across the muddy Maekong river and am already astounded by how undeveloped it looks in comparison to Chiang Khong – but all that crazy badness can wait for tomorrow, the clock has just struck ‘Singa beer’ hour, the time in which thousands of farang travellers purchase their first tipple for the evening…