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27/06/06 We hired a Jeep and headed East for Loei, after seeing a photo in an in-flight magazine of the Phi Ta Kohn festival. Drove for 10 hours, through winding forest hills with one eye on the fuel gauge and one on the winding turns ahead. Had to stop at one roadside police station for directions to a resort. The police asked me - the obvious driver - to join them for a quick beer. I couldn’t get my UK head off and my Thai head on quick enough to accept a beer from Police whilst driving so declined their generous offer and headed off. Collapsed into the Thai Fara Hills Resort.
28/06/06 Drove to the Ayatana Lake and hills resort to relax for 5 days and be closer to the festival town. Headed for the Thai - Laos Friendship Bridge and ran the border, much to the surprise of the Thai officials who sat their smiling as we drove straight through! Stopped at the Laos side by an official, we declined to offer our passports but gestured that we would turn round and head back to the Thai side. Waved to all the Thai officials again as we sailed
merrily passed back into their country. Beautiful scenery of Thai workers in the rice fields, wearing tradition Thai hats to keep off the sun. Had lunch in a resort with strange birds. Looked a bit like Toucans, as in my limited knowledge from the infamous Guinness posters. I was worried about getting close enough to these shy creatures for a photo but needn’t have worried as they proceeded to come far too close to me and try to eat my foot through my trainers, with their huge wooden like beaks. They looked like they had swallowed blue or yellow tennis balls caught in their throats. Strange but beautiful and very curious.
30/06/06 Met up with a celebrity French chef - Frederick, traveling with a Director and Cameraman making a travel cookery TV show. Gave them loads of useful info on Phuket and may get our names on the credits of the show. Will we ever know ?? Bought some sparkling wine from the Chateau de Loei. Tasted dreadful! I think that the clue was in the complete lack of any sound when the cork plopped rather than popped out! Walked through the Phu Luang Wildlife Reservation. Didn’t see any
Wildlife but did walk about 5km to a viewpoint where we could look out over the whole area from 1500m - except all we could see was cloud. We were in the cloud and looking into more of it! We think our guide had the runs too, cause he kept leaving us and running of into the bushes for a few minutes at a time. All a bit strange and definitely the coolest day in Thailand so far at that dizzy altitude! We actually could have worn… wait for it … coats in Thailand!!!
1/7/06 First day of Phi Ta Kohn festival in Dan Sai. All very fascinating and a bit surreal. We awoke at 2 AM to see the start of the festival, before the sun rises a sacrifical rite is performed to invite Phra Ub-pa-kud (a white marble stone) from below the water of the river to the ceremony. The procession brings Phra Ub-pa-kud back to Phon-Chai temple where sacred worship in his honour begins. From the Festival information leaflet…
Phra Ub-pa-kud is a monk with supernatural powers. After reaching the highest stages of meditation and having become so powerful that he has lived an eternal life, Phra Ub-pa-kud could be transformed into anything he chose. He decided to become a white marble and live a solitary and peaceful existence below the water. Because of his supernatural powers, the villagers believe that Phra Ub-pa-kud is the only one who can protect the villagers from evil spirits.
We waited by the riverbank for the procession and nothing… except it started to rain. A few Thai, A few Farang and the French chef and
film crew. Rumour circulated that the monks were watching the Spain vs. Ukraine world cup match. Suddenly a procession of monks and musicians arrived all dressed in white with hordes of photographers and cameramen from a Thai TV station. A monk was lowered into the muddy waters of the river by rope and kep disappearing under the waters out of sight whilst frantic drumming and old string instruments reached a crescendo, the monk surfaced and emerged with a small
BLACK stone!!! Everyone cheered, ignoring the blatant fact that we were expecting a white marble stone and the procession headed to the town temple, where incense was lit at the spirit houses with much chanting and occasional soundings of a gong, normally with hilarious timing and occasional firings of a musket into the air.
Come daylight and the street procession began. Colourful masks and huge wooden phalluses were the order of the day, with much dancing and joviality the whole town seemed to soak up the carnival atmosphere. Thai dancers and Phi Ta Kohn dressed spirits danced through the streets. The Phi Ta Kohn dancers wear a
mark-ka-long traditional cow bell that creates a tinkling sound as they
dance through the streets.
2/07/06 The second day of the festival features the same dancing in the streets, but also a bamboo rocket procession. Out of nowhere the procession arrived at the main temple, with cross legged monks on boards carried by a sea of ecstatic followers whilst a main character, Jao-por Guan sits on a bamboo rocket on a decorated float, throwing small gold objects (we thought they looked like chocolate money) to the crowds, from a monk’s alms bowl. Absolute chaos - but great fun!
In the evening was the Som Tum (Green papaya salad) making competition. Monsieur Fred, our French chef was one of the competitors, cooking and dancing in the rain. I tried all the entries and they were all very hot, despite all the Thais advising me that they weren’t. I needed plenty of Leo and Asahi beer to wash them down and my mouth continued to burn.
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Beck
non-member comment
Kings, Spiders and Emperors
(sorry, that was the only reference I could think of to marbles, the worst thing being that my head is currently stuck in Dutch...and I had a great little black marble when I was at Summerbee. Always wondered what happened to it....) Anyway, I am so jealous!! I wish I was there too. Well, you know that already. Although would I be able to resist the temptation to try and seduce a monk - just to see if I could..?? But I loved reading your comments and the photos are great. Keep the Blog up if you can, especially next year! I'm so looking forward to seeing you in August. Lots of love xxxx