The Lantern Festival

The Loi Krathong Lantern festival was spectacular last nite.  The full moon with the lunar eclipse and thousands of lanterns dotting the sky like stars was brilliant.  Imagine a sky full of wishes and dreams - with each lantern that went up, a wish, desire, dream went up with it. Where do they go?  To heaven of course where all prayers and wishes incubate till the timing is purrfect to manifest.

I watched a newly wed couple on their honeymoon
who launched their lantern (aka Khom Loi) up
- what a sweet thing to do.

honeymooners setting sail their dreams

with a little help from a monk

into the cosmos

Like a sea of jellyfish floating into the sky

I decided to launch mine with the monks near a temple.  I wanted to be around their energy rather than the river area which was sardine packed, though at the river I launched my light boat.  The concept with the little boat is to release your sins (providing you are interesting enough to have them), bad deeds, habits, worries - whatever you would like to or need to release and as the boat sets sail off sail your sins as well.  Goodbye.

I bought my sin boat from this sweet 

Thai guy just because of his smile.

Lighting the boats by the river's edge

A pretty collection of them gathered against a wooden pier.

These decorated boats or floats are officially dubbed Krathongs and come in all different sizes and colors handmade by the locals and sold for 25-60 baht - $1 to $2.  They can be quite ornate.  Mainly they are made with beautiful flowers set on some material that hopefully floats.  One woman plucked whites petals one by one to make a lilly looking boat.  In the middle is a candle and incense to light before you consider what you want to launch the heck out of your life as you put your boat of sins into the dirty river to be cast away forever.

The lily like boat

swan like boats

I love the symbolism and I perform similar rituals on full moons yet this was particularly magical with the energy of Chiang Mai along with people from all over the world joining in on the festivities.

Some of the lanterns were really large

and a whole group would set it off

I was just like a kid seeing balloons for the first time as I looked up into the sky in complete awe.  It brought tears to my eyes a few times.  And the kids were particularly fun to witness . . .

This little girl/boy was so excited when it went up 

that s/he ran and gave mom a hug.

With the lantern launch you light up this coil ring (a fuel cell) that is attached to the bottom of your lantern which is made up of rice paper.  You hold it up and wait for it to heat up the lantern.  Then you make a big honking wish and release it.

a monk helping me light mine

My lantern, my wishes . . . 

Letting go

This comes with some side kicks, like I got burned by my lantern which really freakin stung (not sure the significance of that).  So now I have a red mark reminder on my hand.  As well I got burned by my little boat, hmm.  Yet my boat did not sink which would have been a bad sign.  There were also a few fires as lanterns got caught in trees and along electrical wires.  Apparently there are a few mishaps every year and praps a couple deaths but not enough to ban it like they did to our lovely lantern nite in Vancouver.  I mean magic comes with a price right . . . and I am obviously willing.  And though there were big bleepin crowds, Thais are so gentle that they don't trample you down like a herd of holy cattle like they would in India.



There was, and likely still is, so many festivities wrapped around this event.  There was some kind of strange beauty contest where the women/girls look like geishas and the men/boys look like some kind of spartacus era type manliboyness with material wrapped around their loins in a particular present wrapping method.  It was their version of Barbie and Ken I surmise.

Pageant winners

A princess on sticks

 
There was also a parade which I found rather ornate and strange.  Lots of decorated women with loads of makeup wearing bright colored costumes sitting pristinely on top of wooden platforms that young virile menslashboys in their present wrapped loins carried on their youthful shoulders.  The women would pose and smile preciously for us as the gamut of tourists took a gamut of photos.

A lantern float in the parade

Fireworks and annoying firecrackers are exploding perpetually.  This makes me particularly nervous and one went off at my foot as I was walking with the parade down to the river which seems to be the protocol walk.    This event starts as the sun goes down and goes well into the a.m..  I got a good set of earplugs otherwise I wud be looped for zee's.

There are also lanterns and candles lit around
homes and venues.

Plus some fancy boats in the moat.

So far the boats just sit there all lit up like a floating Xmas ornament yet I have a feeling they are meant to do something else at some point though I rarely research these things.  For me it is mostly chance and circumstance which is why finding a hotel was such a chore.  I just didn't know all this was going down.  Mega people, fewer vacancies, hotel prices go up a few hundred baht, yet so worth the experience.

There are also these balloon like lanterns set up in certain areas to view.  Like this little plethora of mock buildings - Piza, the Eiffel Tower and the Orpheum and other monumental places depicted from around the world.  More pictures, always more pictures.  Click click.

In this pic there is a guy who is actually balancing a bottle 

on his forehead and a ball on top of that -  pretty impressive. 

 He was doing all kinds of turns and rolls and acrobatics 

with balls and balancing and with this
configuration on his forehead.

At one point I didn't bring my camera and thought, I can't see this without my camera.  Lately I don't bother with taking pics so much yet they are great to help illustrate writing (in this case blog), so I have been packing mine about and taking pics of things that I already know and have even taken pics of in the past, yet here I go again.  Hope you appreciate the pictorial version to accent my words.  A thousand words for one picture cuts out on a lot of writing yet makes for a lot of picture editing, filing and compressing, sigh.

One thing I observe is how much we document things.  Are we really experiencing things as we shoot pictures of what we want to see later or show others.  It makes me consider taking a hiatus from my electronic gear - laptop, iphone gadget, camera etc.  What kind of world are we living in when we document our experiences rather than living in the moment of now and experiencing it to the fullest.  Which also makes me ponder the idea of writing about it.  Anaiis Nin says, 'When you write, you live life twice'.  Do I need to?  Isn't once enough?

Yet on 'the other side' there is the akashic records and all events and memories throughout time are stored there.  I believe we are here to gather information, learn, share.  I feel this all gets stored somewhere besides our own memory bank.

Here are two wickedly cute Thai toddlers . . . 

they aren't toting any electrical gadgets . . . 

As I write this, I am outside at the Black Canyon Cafe now on Rachadamnoen Road kitty korner to the landmark Thai Pai Gate sucking up all the exhaust fumes that the brick wall from the fortress of the moat boomerangs back to me.  As you can see in the above pic, the locals are wearing masks over their faces even this little tot.  I noticed this first in Korea as many passengers boarded the plane wearing them and more wear them here in Chiang Mai, including a local policeman and one of my tuk tuk drivers.  Makes one think, yet how much good can it do.  You are still breathing the air with it's pollutants.

I am going to move to Aum, the healthy veg restaurant just a door away on the wall side of the street to have a mixed fruit smoothy.

Well the year is about to end so it was such a great time for me to let go of what no longer serves me and to invite in new magical things.  Though I figure my life is pretty magic for the most part.  An astrologer in India told me that the year 2013 would be amazing for me - that I would be in such a great spiritual place.  At the time I cried because that was 2 years away from the time of the reading and I didn't want to go through more difficulties.  I was dealing with dis-ease, injury and pain around then and was ready for a big break.  He didn't understand why that made me sad.  It also crossed my mind that I could be dead and that is why I will be in such a great spiritual place - home, finally, and free.  Yet I am not done.  So here is to letting go, inviting magic in and a great 2013 . . . soon come.

Wishes do come true . . .
Those are not star
Those are dreams

This blog took me from Black Canyon Cafe for mock coffee, to Aum the healthy veg restaurant for a fruit smoothie, back to my hotel room to figure out a system to upload pix quick (done) and then to my fave restaurant Blue Diamond where I had wide noodles with veg and tofu and a cereal coffee that was divine and a gluten free brownie for desert.  I am now waiting for my stomach to digest the food so I can go have a Thai massage and out into the nite again.

David, the sweet Thai guy who works nites at my hotel just came and put a lit candle on my table as I am now sitting outside and it is getting dark as the fireworks and crackers start up again on cue.

Writing this took as long as experiencing it.  Hmm.  
I live life twice and I am ok with that . . . for now.

Clearing the cobwebs

November 23, 2012-11-23

Chiang Mai is seriously hot yet we are not even in the summer season.   I slithered thru the crooked labyrinth lanes the second morning looking for better digs.  I went from luxury to a flophouse -  the hotel in Korea (thanks Air Canada) then the spot I opted for last nite after midnite called 'My Home',  Note the little weiner dog in the pic below in the 'My Home' sign . . . 

My Home, the ragamuffin hotel

I get a shoe box of a room with cardboard walls and windows that just open to the hallway.  A tattoo artist is set up in the front lobby of the hotel so I witness someone getting ink poked first thing in the a.m.   I wanted to check out his work but had my focus on getting out of this flophouse palace first.

The tattoo room

Wall Art at My Home

I got in way late and just took the second spot I saw to get a sleep and start fresh in the morning.  Little did I know that the hotels were all booked up partly because they have a beautiful lantern festival for a week so lanterns will be everywhere maybe even in the dirty river that acts as a moat around Chiang Mai center - the Old City, where I opt to stay.  Being a creature of habit I stay in the same periphery as 5 years prior.

Some things are the same same and few are really not, like the hotel I’d hope to stay at.  It’s just gone.  I was coerced to stay at this ramshackle castle by a tall Thai guy and his shorter oz troll tenant accomplice with purply burgundy gray hair pulled back in a bun and sporting a multi colored flowered skirt – that looks quite good on him actually.  He had a long feather earing in one ear and a dangly silver earing in the other and he smelt like a keg.  He was friendly and fun yet reminded me of the bad ass Texan in Costa Rica.  He even had a eerily similar Diablo voice when he chose to conjure it up and there is even a slightly scarey resemblance   Yet this oz bad ass is into ‘lady boys’ he tell s me too soon.  ‘Slutty lady boys’ he reiterates too loudly as one that fits the bill walks in front of us at the 7-11.  He repeats this line for special effect with no apparent results.

Oh yeh, the 7-11’s are rampant in Thailand and are often used as a reference point.  ‘Just past the 7-11’.  The only recognizable and pronounceable land mark for us westerners being that it is just digits. 
               

‘I am looking for someone to play with my Cock’, he informs me when I ask what he is up to tonite.  ‘Is that too much information?’ he asks.  Not really.  Yet he is willing to stray and hit a Thai straight pub with me so I can just observe like a  sober fly on the wall yet he ditches me the moment he finds out I won’t play the reindeer games and drink with him.  He peddles off on his bike, his short skirt flapping in the wind with his gay pride.

Resident Troll 'Richelle' sporting a skirt.

He seems a permanent fixture here and is even wearing a purple threadbaren shirt with the 'My Home' hotel logo on it.  I like him yet am reminded how I end up in places with a chronic alcoholic in my midst and he may fit the bill minus the chronic adjective praps.  Anyhow, he is a character and helpful, and seems to have taken on the role of a troll/gatekeeper at 'My Home', yet I really want to move from my cell sized room.

I walk around from 12:30 till 2:00 am the first nite and it is like walking thru a dream I had 5 years ago as I remove the cobwebs from my attic of a memory while walking down the snake and laddery side streets -  like a dejavu I see an array of pregnant cats with crooked tails, the wary mutt bred dogs, the street rats and cockroaches looking for scraps from all the food stalls set up selling Thai suppers, soup and slippery food and cut fruit in plastic bags.

I meet a sweet peitt french guy dressed like a monk who tries to charm me with an accent like Peppi la Pew. He has missing teeth that he is having replaced by a masochistic female dentist in Chiang Mai.  Dentistry is generally cheaper in Thailand though the prices have shot up a lot the past few years since so many westerners got on the Thai tooth wagon.  They boosted it closer to 'farang' prices now.  That is the moniker they dubbed us tourists/travellers with.  Not very flattering, yet I don't blame them.  We have invaded their country with no damage control for our rampage.

At the palace I am reminded of how Thais squeeze the shower and toilet together in one teeny room.  So the shower head is attached to the wall in the midst of  the toilet space.  So when you shower, everything gets wet – the toilet seat, the floor, the sink, the tp and most of your belongings if they are not strategically placed.

As well they have special toilets in Thailand - the squat toilets.  Some kind of hole in the floor set up that you squat over and do a one or two and there's a spray gun to wash your butt off and you can use your left hand to wipe off any leftover whatever and you are done.  I never figured out how to dry myself via this method and I try to remember to have tp on me all the time for these special event toilets.  It is custom and polite to use your right hand to pass anyone anything or to touch anything because it is common knowledge what your left hand is used for.  Or is that just in India . . .

The position of squatting is actually better for our bodies esp for pooping rather than sitting up all anal retentive like us Westerners - no wonder. Same with childbirth, squatting makes sense - not to equate the two.  And I am surprised they have a western toilet in my cardboard hotel.  And surprised again that there is toilet paper in the shared bathroom.  BYT - bring your own toilet paper to Thailand - now there is a good travel tip for you . . .  

Okay so this is the dog I dubb 'danger dog'. Tattoo guy Po finds this moniker amusing - it's his dog, which may mean it is his digs.  A weiner dog with major attitude - a chihuahua complex I reckon.  She snaps and snarls when you get close to her yet look at the big suck between Po's toes now - go figure.  He is the dog depicted in the 'My Home' sign pic.  A ramshackle castle where you can get alcohol and a tattoo at the same time.

Do you know the difference between a traveller and a tourist?
Tourists know where they are going but don't know where they have been.
Travellers know where they have been but don't know where they are going.

* I have permission to use Richelle (RCHL), the gatekeeper troll's pic and quote tho I had to make sure I spelt his name right and change 'penis' to 'cock' with 'a capital C'.  He doesn't seem to mind the 'troll' moniker either, yet he still has to read this, gulp.

Orphans & Elephants

A weird start with a car accident on the slippery Blueberry Paulsom pass from Crescent Valley to Vancouver. Then a strange 1 1/2 hour delay at Vancouver International airport. Then an odd turn about with the airplane mid flight due to a generator failing.  Apparently a rare event yet the pilot figured it might be best to turn and head back to Vancouver rather than fly for a day over the ocean on one less generator. Perhaps a good decision.

Now I am in Korea waiting for my flight to Chiang Mai a day late yet in one piece. It actually felt good to reboot here. At night I saw a documentary that highlighted a great Center in Cambodia called "Homeland" that I am now keen on seeing. It helps street kids, children that were human trafficked for the sex trade, and kids dealing with HIV. Wow.

I am also keen on volunteering at an orphanage yet we shall see which place allows foreigners to help out. I have also contacted the Elephant Nature Park to volunteer working with their elephants. This center works with abused and neglected elephants. A lot of them were hurt during their logging careers and some also discarded because they are no longer needed.  The park also have a heap of displaced dogs and cat there that they brought after the floods in Bangkok a couple years ago.  If you leave your door or window open you wake up to meows and a wet dog nose on your finger tips so my travel pal, who volunteered there recently, tells me.

I adore elephants and can't wait to see my favorite one in the funky town of Pai. I believe her name is "Chitty", yet I thought the owner said "Sweety", so I dubbed her that. The woman that cares for her really loves her and only allows Chitty to take people for two rides a day so she is not over worked like many others.

Gillian & I on Chitty (aka Sweety)

She loves to play in the river and that is what my friend and I did with her. She bucked us off, we got back on. She bucked us off and we got back on etc etc. I think Sweety just thought of us as two pesky monkeys yet she enjoyed herself as much as us. That was my favorite time in Thailand actually.

She was relentless with us



The treehouse - I stayed at the top



I stayed at a treehouse just beside where she lived and she walked by my place every day. I would go out and give her bananas when she was done her walk to the river with a new set of monkeys on her back. She remembered me and warmed up to me. She can seem aloof and independent, yet when one likes bananas . . .

Thanking her for the ride

She also likes corn stalks.  I also really appreciated the way the mahout treated her. He never hit her and walked beside us singing, smiling and then laughing at out antics in the river. What a blast. The treehouse was pretty cool to crash at too. And Pai is one funky town man. I look forward to revisiting there.