Photos: Laos and Cambodia

There about 20 pictures or so that I compiled from Laos and Cambodia. Click here.

Rocket Festival: A Diamond in the Rough

With a population standing around 23,000, Yasothon is by no means a bustling metropolis. On 362 days of the year, it’s a mere thoroughfare town en route from Ubon Ratchathani to Khon Kaen on Thailand’s route 23 highway. The fact that most people haven’t even heard of those two cities should say something about the size of Yasothon itself. It’s a mere blip on the map. Except, that is, during its annual Rocket Festival. On those remaining 3 days of the year, you’d be hard pressed to convince locals and visitors alike that there’s anything outside of this country town.

Boom Bang Fai is a festival held annually in a number of agrarian towns in the central region of the Southeast Asian peninsula (Southern Laos and Eastern Thailand). Local folklore attributes its origin to a time when Praya Than (the god of rain) was angry with mankind and refused to allow rainfall for 7 years straight. The resulting famine and death sparked a war between man and Praya Than, in which rockets were fired into the sky. To make a long story short, Praya Than agreed to allow the rains to continue and told mankind to send rockets to the sky when more was needed.

A pyromaniac’s wet dream, Boom Bang Fai features dozens of teams who parade their homemade rockets (anywhere from 1-8m in length) through town and then send them skyward on the festival’s final day. The rocket launching takes place all day Sunday over Yasothon’s river. The sounds of the rockets up close are deafening and the smoke that pours to the ground makes it look like a certified NASA launch.

The rockets are only half the fun, though. The shamed technicians whose rockets fail to fire are thrown into a mud pit, which quickly escalates into full scale mud wrestling amongst throngs of participants, both willing and unwilling. During the days leading up to the launch, 42 concert-sized stages (I counted) lined the main street, blasting music during all waking hours and playing host to dancing, drinking, and merrymaking. Saturday featured a day-long parade of traditional costumes, dance, eccentricity, and, of course, rockets.

The best part about Boom Bang Fai was its relative obscurity amongst foreigners. Though it wouldn’t seem so to most people back home, Thailand is one of the most touristed countries in the world; one of those ‘no rock unturned’ places. At Songkran in Chiang Mai, for example, there seemed to be at least 1 foreigner for every 5 Thai people. By contrast, out of the thousands of people at Yasothon’s rocket festival, I counted less than 15 foreigners in the whole town. The result was a genuine sense of welcoming from the Yasothon locals, who were clearly beaming with pride that a foreigner would take interest in their most important of events. I was taken in to a number of parties and barbeques and treated like a guest of honor. It was nice to find that for all the popular tourist destinations it has, there are still rocks like this one to be turned over in Thailand.

Long Live the King

In 99% of countries around the world, Monday is the worst day of the week. It's the first day of the work/school week and it's the furthest you could possibly be from a relaxing weekend. It gives rise to the Office Space expression "Somebody's got a case of the Mondays." Thailand, however, falls within the other 1% of the world, where every Monday is [We Love the] King Day.

Gold is the official color of the King (corresponding with the color attributed to the day of the week of his birth, Monday) and on Monday, you'd be hard pressed not to know it. Everyone who is not in business attire dons nearly identical gold polo shirts bearing the crest of the royal family. Add to that the golden wristbands engraved with the phrase "Long Live the King," and you have yourself the genuine monarch roadie wear. It has a very 'Casual Friday at the office' feel to it.

In Thailand, it's pretty much national law that you have to love the king. I'm not kidding. That's actually not far from the truth, as Thailand has some of the strictest laws prohibiting blasphemy against the monarchy. Shrines and pictures of the King in various regal and humanitarian scenes (meeting with a peasant, showing his love of photography, taking a walk through the countryside) dot the streets and literally almost outnumber traffic lights. About a month ago an elderly ex-pat decided to go out and spray paint a giant "x" over a couple of these portraits and was subsequently sentenced to something like 75 years in prison. The King ended up pardoning the man 'in his infinite wisdom and kindness,' and he was released, albeit stripped of his visa.

The penultimate experience of the Thai reverence for their King came for me at the beginning of a movie at a Chiang Mai theatre. After the previews and before the feature, a message came on the screen that said, "Show your respect for His Majesty the King." Suddenly, everyone in the theatre arose and what ensued was a video montage tribute. Rice fields, countryside, and other beautiful Thai landscapes filled the background while raindrops containing pictures of His Majesty floated down the screen. The background music was the Royal Anthem... that's right, not the national anthem, the King has his own song. As the rain cleared, a rainbow came across the screen and illuminated one of his portraits. This happens before every movie in every theatre in Thailand.

Operation Transcendence: Wat Pratat and the Golden Teacher

Located about 60km outside of Chiang Mai, Wat Pratat Sri Chom Thong is a temple held in very high esteem amongst the Thai people. Part of that has to do with the precious religious relic it holds – a bone fragment of the Buddha. As one could guess, this is incredibly rare given the 2550 years that have passed since his death. There is actually a special structure just outside the main hall that’s only purpose is to wash the artifact during Songkran. When they rinse it, the runoff flows down a wooden chute and hundreds – if not thousands – of people scramble to touch or bottle-up the water.

The other reason Wat Pratat Sri Chom Thong is so well-regarded is the head abbot of the temple, Ajahn Tong (literally golden teacher). Having entered monk-hood at age 11 and now age 84, Achan Tong has been practicing Buddhism and meditation for almost three lengths of my lifetime. To say he is merely ‘held in high esteem’ would be a gross understatement. For the Thai people, he is something akin to a living Buddha. It is said that he doesn’t experience normal states of feeling and transcends all pain and suffering. The reverence was explained to me like this: the Buddha is quite a distant figure, having lived more than 2550 years ago, and boarders on intangible for most people. Ajahn Tong is basically a living saint, very real, and touches the lives of all the people in the community. When he receives a promotion in the hierarchy of Buddhist positions in Thailand, the whole town holds massive parades with elephants and all. Within the temple complex there is an altar with a statue of the Buddha at the back and a smaller, but equally holy-looking, Ajahn Tong kneeling in front. That’s how much this man is loved.

Anyways, because of both these reasons, absurd amounts of donations flood in from the community, have made possible the creation of the International Meditation Center, and fund the housing, food, and course for community members and inquisitive foreigners – i.e. me – alike.

Operation Transcendence: Rules of Engagement

On the first day of my Vipassana meditation course, I had a private opening ceremony with a white-gowned nun and an orange-robed monk. It was conducted entirely in pali which, along with Sanskrit, is to Buddhism what Latin is to Catholicism. Little did I know that I would be expected to read my vows on the fly in this antiquated language. I made three offerings of flowers, incense, and candles to the monk, Buddha and the teachings, and committed myself to the ‘eight precepts’ that would govern my conduct at the temple:

1) To refrain from killing any living being (easy enough, but includes mosquitoes and room-invading armies of ants)
2) To refrain from taking what isn’t given (alrighty)
3) To refrain from inappropriate speech (lying, slander, or discussing our own meditation with others)
4) To refrain from sexual misconduct (no problem)
5) To refrain from taking harmful intoxicating substances (beer and…caffeine?)
6) To refrain from eating after 12pm and before 6am (um… what’s that you say? That’s right, only breakfast and lunch. No dinner allowed.)
7) To only wear white clothes and refrain from wearing jewelry, accessories, etc. (see prison uniforms) and to refrain from distractions from meditation (books, music, internet… anything non meditation-related, not allowed)
8) To refrain from luxurious seats and beds (foreshadowing my sleeping arrangements)

And finally, though it wasn’t an actual precept, we had to abide by one final kicker of a rule:

9) To refrain from sleeping outside of the hours of 10pm to 4am (are you serious?)

So there you have it. For two weeks, my day was something like this:

Wake up to the beating of the temple gongs and accompanying barking of the 2 dozen resident dogs at 4am. Meditate until 6am. Eat Breakfast. Meditate until 9am. Morning meeting with instructor. Meditate until 11am. Eat Lunch. Meditate until 10pm. Go to sleep.

A few things need to be noted about this schedule. The first is that this was literally it. Apart from walks and breaks between meditations, there was nothing else to be done as per rule #6. Secondly, look at the schedule between lunch and bed. By the time it’s 12pm, you’re hit with the terrifying realization that you still have 10 hours to kill before your day ends. The third is that there’s no dinner. No eating for 18 hours straight daily. Call it a warm-up for my participation in Ramadan this year.

No coffee, no beer, no dinner (let alone eating after noon), no books or entertainment, and waking up at 4am every day for 15 days. I broke so many personal records there that my backpack should be covered with ribbons and medals for the rest of my trip.

Something Approaching Enlightenment

I’m back people! I couldn’t decide whether to go dramatic or grandiose with my picture so I decided to go with both.

I just spent 15 days up close and personal with Thai Buddhism and Vipassana meditation and man, what an experience. I started trying to put everything I wanted to write about in one post, but it was turning into quite the novel, so I'm just going to make a few small posts over the next several days. For now, enjoy the pictures of this enlightened Legend.