Lazy Nights, Water Fights and Food Delights

We'd heard stories of sleepy little Mae Hong Son before we got there. Spending a few tired days in and around the town, it became clear that the stories were true. It was sleepy and beautiful in its own right. The center of the town has a lake bordered on its Southern edge with temples, and illuminated at night made for a picturesque spectacle.

Mae Hong Son at night
And they have a small cave that is occupied by big fish. Just because.

Fish in a cave. Why not? Get into it.
The rural areas surrounding this city are famous for their tribal communities, and if you’ve seen anything about Thailand on the news or the net you’ll recognize the long neck villagers. Fantasies of my meeting with these tribes’ people have long been mythologized in my daydreams. I would enthrall the villagers with tales of trains, planes and automobiles, their giggling children would lose themselves with bewilderment in play with my hairy chest and arms, and the Chief would attempt a peace envoy between our two cultures by demanding I impregnate his daughter.

After some research, the reality became incongruent with these fantasies. I read that the tour guides have taken these villages and turned them into human zoos, with scores of snap-happy tourists passing through and barely any return to the village infrastructure more often than not. I just didn’t feel it would be an authentic experience, so even though the trip would have made excellent photos, I decided to boycott the villages. Ethical accounting of pros and cons found the cons lopsided with exploited ring-necked village folk having to deal with my plastic water bottles and huge amounts of fecal matter, all paid for outside of the village.

So Mae Hong Son was a pleasant quaint town, and we enjoyed our time not doing much at all, but who wants to read a blog about the things a person didn’t do? Bearing this in mind, we jumped on a plane that was barely more than a large toilet paper tube with wheels, wings and an engine and headed back to Chiang Mai.

We all remember those precious days at the end of the school year when our dull lunchtimes were transformed into a battleground for throwing water at each other. Those spontaneous outbursts of teenage anarchy set the stage for the onset of summer and the end of curricular oppression, like a prisoner released from bondage or the first shavings of light cutting holy ribbons through the dawn. The memory of these fights has held a special place in my mind in the 15 odd years since, but after having experienced the Songkran festival, I now realize how simple those days in the schoolyard were.

Songkran is the name given to the Thai New Year, and is quite unlike any New Years I am accustomed to. Instead of being surrounded by roving packs of Cavemen seeking an outlet for their 'Roid Rage', (which seems so typical when I scan the field of my memory), Songkran is a street waterfight with barely any steroids at all, and absolutely no rage. And to my astonishment, for five whole days and nights, people of all ages throw water at each other without the aid of alcohol or drugs. Mostly. And for almost all of those five days and nights, it is just as fun as it was in my school days, using the school fire hose as a way of covertly creating a teenage school uniform wet t-shirt competition to enliven my raging pubescent hormones.

Deep in the war zone
It was a bonding human experience. Anyone who has been to a rave or dance party will know how psychopathically communal people are when they are all on the same drugs. The walls are broken down, there is no social awkwardness, and people relate to each other with ease through a shared experience. I remember hearing stories of people who had been to such events, how they longed for normal life to mirror that sense of unity.

Street party
Sadly I can’t relate to these tales of debauchery and sin as I didn’t complete my strict training to become a kung fu master in the ancient mountains of Tibet until quite recently, but even I understood the kinship they spoke of after I experienced the Thai New Year.

Exercising my discipline as a kung fu master
Thousands of people drenching each other in the streets is an evolution of the Thai custom where people use tea to bless possessions, points of interest and people over the five days of the New Year celebrations. Although a street waterfight might seem a strange mutation of those customs, it is not unwelcome with the Thais. As the people of Thailand see this festival as a happy way for people to give blessing to one another, it does not anger them to be blasted in the face at close range and with force by a bucket of water thrown by an English skinhead. This abhorrent but hilarious misunderstanding by the skinhead is viewed as a blessing on the emergent dreams and wishes of his victims. It doesn’t matter if you are old or new, red or blue, fake or true, Buddhist or Jew, a blessing is a gift to be thankful for when given by anyone else.

Taunting my next victim
And that is what, at its core, made the festival so fun. The hilarity of shooting water at a 75 year old Thai woman dancing in the street is made funnier only because it is in retaliation to her squirting you first. Everyone smiles, traffic stops, and people dance together on the road in the midday sun, all in the name of living a better life. For five days. And the fact that it is done in good humor and without the aid of hallucinogenics is yet another reason why I love the Thais.

Street Party at Night
Don’t think it was all roses though. Being trapped in a constant waterfight did tend to lose its mystique after the fourth day, when requirement for basic necessities required attending to. Successfully picking up dry washing, takeaway food or toilet paper relies on the assumption that you will remain dry for the duration of the endeavor. Our efforts to dodge flying pails of water proved fruitless, as I surrendered to the age old process of turning used underwear inside out to maintain an illusion of cleanliness.

We also enrolled in a cooking course for a day, which involved us biking out to a farm on the outskirts of the city and learning to cook a wide range of Thai dishes in the traditional manner.

Riding my bike.... like a boss
I didn’t know that I could cook before I did this course, but now I could whip you up a curry so good it would literally change your gender. I realize now that it’s like anything: you’ve either experienced through practice the things you have learnt, or you’ve made a choice to do bugger all. Talk is cheap, and ‘can’t’ is a word we use to disempower ourselves because we don’t believe our own truth. Committing to being more than idol utterances feels truly empowering.

Me changing your gender
It makes me smile to look back and see how far I have come in such a small amount of calendar days. Killing time in a bus station reading about Chiang Rai, I sit in eager wait for my next life lesson, when I chance upon meeting a travelling volunteer surgeon that writers have dubbed “The Chinese Mother Teresa”.

Stay tuned.