It’s ironic
that my walk tonight lasted longer than normal, because I got caught up
in the celebrations for the end of rainy season – and that’s why I was
still half an hour from home when the most violent thunderstorm I’ve
seen all year hit. In Soviet Russia, weather celebrates the end of you!
I’ve taken to walking down, some nights, to a rather lively student food market that’s about halfway between my house and the Ping river; it’s a nice long walk (anywhere from an hour to two hours depending on the route), and it gives me a chance to explore the area a little more. I drive most places that aren’t in my immediate neighbourhood, so it can be fun to take the slow route: poke in small shops, get to meet stallholders, try and fail to befriend the local cats. (Moray can testify that I have very limited success making friends with Thai cats. By the end of his trip, he was jokingly telling me off for stalking the poor things. :)) I was on my way down there tonight when I heard music near the bus station, and when I followed it, I discovered the drunkest, least organised, happiest damn parade I have ever seen in my life.
There was a truck creeping along in front with a huge money tree on it; then a procession of about forty or fifty people carrying money trees and dancing (I gotta say, elderly Thai ladies can cut a rug; must be all the tai chi); and then another truck with giant speakers and a huge, rotating disco ball. (Money trees, by the way, if you haven’t seen them, are trees made out of sticks with 20- and 100-baht notes woven into the branches. They’re a form of Buddhist offering.) This was the only parade I’ve ever seen where the participants got more excited every time it was held up. Whenever the truck in front had to stop to let a bus past, the crowd would start dancing more wildly, swigging Leo, and setting off firecrackers right under their feet. It was kind of awesome, and I was curious about where they were going, so I kept pace with them. I didn’t actually go over and join them, for fear of intruding or putting a damper on the proceedings (“farang present, this is weird and uncomfortable, better tone it down”)… and, because, you know, what they were doing is a good way to lose some toes. :) But I joined the stragglers trailing after them, and we picked up more and more people as we went, with the music getting more raucous all the time, until we reached a temple I’d never noticed before, tucked behind the new bus terminal. The music and the disco ball stopped there, letting the worshipers process in with their offerings… while a few drunken older Thais stuck around to get funky in the middle of the road, under the swirling red and green lights.
I eventually peeled off and went to get dinner at the market (and also to hit my new favourite place – a laid-back bakery/manga library/internet café with fantastic chocolate pudding cake, which I would never have expected to find in such an un-touristy area). And I’d barely turned back when the wind started up all of a sudden. I didn’t think much of it, but all the Thai people did – they were instantly scrambling to batten down their stalls and close up the fronts of their shops.
I didn’t get far before the rain started: big, fat drops that quickly turned into a complete downpour. I ended up under a plastic shop awning with a middle-aged couple; a young dad and his son on their motorbike; and a young man, probably a student, who crouched near the edge of the awning and watched the rain with a surprisingly peaceful expression on his face.
And this was rain like you wouldn’t believe. Within minutes, the streets were flooded. It was coming down so hard that it kicked up a layer of mist a couple of feet thick, so that trying to see the road ahead of you was like peering through fog. There was a particularly bright flash of lightning, and every light on the street went out; a few emergency lights struggled back on, but a minute later, another flash took those out, as well. We were left with only the lightning and the headlights of a few cars that had pulled over by the side of the road; even in Thailand, where drivers are completely insane, no one was daring to move. (Watching raindrops in headlights is the weirdest thing, by the way. They look like they’re made with stop-go claymation.)
After maybe twenty minutes, it started to slacken a bit. The couple were the first to leave, her clinging to his back on the motorbike so that they could wrap themselves in the same poncho. A little while later, I decided that this was as good as it was going to get, and struck out for home.
The walk back was an adventure, let me tell you. The fun part was balancing precariously on the curb – the only part of the sidewalk still above water – and then having the sheaves of water thrown up by passing cars soak me up to the shoulder. (Well, that and walking by a lot of dry people smugly eating hot soup at a hotpot restaurant. Bastards. :)) But I was doing okay… until I reached the petrol station, where the forecourt had become a lake. The water was shin-deep; I ended up having to wade across, thinking uncomfortably about all those public-service animations from the time of the Bangkok floods, showing downed power lines and hidden sinkholes and families of crocodiles. (Well, okay, I wasn’t really focusing on that last one.)
The rain picked up again just as I turned into my street, about five minutes from home; I finally staggered home, so drenched that the neighbour’s dog didn’t recognise my smell and practically went for me. (Fortunately, we are talking about a miniature freaking poodle here, so I wasn’t exactly in danger. :)) I came home to a power outage, but thankfully it only lasted about an hour. Which means that I had to shower in cold water in the dark, but I didn’t care – it just felt so good to be clean and dry. And now I can actually heat up my dinner (which survived the walk – the Thai habit of putting everything in multiple plastic bags pays off!) and relax with some cartoons.
By the way, I did run into at least one refugee from the parade on the walk home. She was wearing a soaked and tattered pink tulle skirt, and was trying to keep dry by holding an overturned silver offering bowl over her head. Poor kid. The celebrations for Loy Krathong may start a few days early, but rainy season isn’t giving up that easily.
I’ve taken to walking down, some nights, to a rather lively student food market that’s about halfway between my house and the Ping river; it’s a nice long walk (anywhere from an hour to two hours depending on the route), and it gives me a chance to explore the area a little more. I drive most places that aren’t in my immediate neighbourhood, so it can be fun to take the slow route: poke in small shops, get to meet stallholders, try and fail to befriend the local cats. (Moray can testify that I have very limited success making friends with Thai cats. By the end of his trip, he was jokingly telling me off for stalking the poor things. :)) I was on my way down there tonight when I heard music near the bus station, and when I followed it, I discovered the drunkest, least organised, happiest damn parade I have ever seen in my life.
There was a truck creeping along in front with a huge money tree on it; then a procession of about forty or fifty people carrying money trees and dancing (I gotta say, elderly Thai ladies can cut a rug; must be all the tai chi); and then another truck with giant speakers and a huge, rotating disco ball. (Money trees, by the way, if you haven’t seen them, are trees made out of sticks with 20- and 100-baht notes woven into the branches. They’re a form of Buddhist offering.) This was the only parade I’ve ever seen where the participants got more excited every time it was held up. Whenever the truck in front had to stop to let a bus past, the crowd would start dancing more wildly, swigging Leo, and setting off firecrackers right under their feet. It was kind of awesome, and I was curious about where they were going, so I kept pace with them. I didn’t actually go over and join them, for fear of intruding or putting a damper on the proceedings (“farang present, this is weird and uncomfortable, better tone it down”)… and, because, you know, what they were doing is a good way to lose some toes. :) But I joined the stragglers trailing after them, and we picked up more and more people as we went, with the music getting more raucous all the time, until we reached a temple I’d never noticed before, tucked behind the new bus terminal. The music and the disco ball stopped there, letting the worshipers process in with their offerings… while a few drunken older Thais stuck around to get funky in the middle of the road, under the swirling red and green lights.
I eventually peeled off and went to get dinner at the market (and also to hit my new favourite place – a laid-back bakery/manga library/internet café with fantastic chocolate pudding cake, which I would never have expected to find in such an un-touristy area). And I’d barely turned back when the wind started up all of a sudden. I didn’t think much of it, but all the Thai people did – they were instantly scrambling to batten down their stalls and close up the fronts of their shops.
I didn’t get far before the rain started: big, fat drops that quickly turned into a complete downpour. I ended up under a plastic shop awning with a middle-aged couple; a young dad and his son on their motorbike; and a young man, probably a student, who crouched near the edge of the awning and watched the rain with a surprisingly peaceful expression on his face.
And this was rain like you wouldn’t believe. Within minutes, the streets were flooded. It was coming down so hard that it kicked up a layer of mist a couple of feet thick, so that trying to see the road ahead of you was like peering through fog. There was a particularly bright flash of lightning, and every light on the street went out; a few emergency lights struggled back on, but a minute later, another flash took those out, as well. We were left with only the lightning and the headlights of a few cars that had pulled over by the side of the road; even in Thailand, where drivers are completely insane, no one was daring to move. (Watching raindrops in headlights is the weirdest thing, by the way. They look like they’re made with stop-go claymation.)
After maybe twenty minutes, it started to slacken a bit. The couple were the first to leave, her clinging to his back on the motorbike so that they could wrap themselves in the same poncho. A little while later, I decided that this was as good as it was going to get, and struck out for home.
The walk back was an adventure, let me tell you. The fun part was balancing precariously on the curb – the only part of the sidewalk still above water – and then having the sheaves of water thrown up by passing cars soak me up to the shoulder. (Well, that and walking by a lot of dry people smugly eating hot soup at a hotpot restaurant. Bastards. :)) But I was doing okay… until I reached the petrol station, where the forecourt had become a lake. The water was shin-deep; I ended up having to wade across, thinking uncomfortably about all those public-service animations from the time of the Bangkok floods, showing downed power lines and hidden sinkholes and families of crocodiles. (Well, okay, I wasn’t really focusing on that last one.)
The rain picked up again just as I turned into my street, about five minutes from home; I finally staggered home, so drenched that the neighbour’s dog didn’t recognise my smell and practically went for me. (Fortunately, we are talking about a miniature freaking poodle here, so I wasn’t exactly in danger. :)) I came home to a power outage, but thankfully it only lasted about an hour. Which means that I had to shower in cold water in the dark, but I didn’t care – it just felt so good to be clean and dry. And now I can actually heat up my dinner (which survived the walk – the Thai habit of putting everything in multiple plastic bags pays off!) and relax with some cartoons.
By the way, I did run into at least one refugee from the parade on the walk home. She was wearing a soaked and tattered pink tulle skirt, and was trying to keep dry by holding an overturned silver offering bowl over her head. Poor kid. The celebrations for Loy Krathong may start a few days early, but rainy season isn’t giving up that easily.
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