Forty-eight full holiday hours
in Phayao, Thailand
On Wednesday July 16, 2008, Thais headed home so they could celebrate
one of the holiest of Thai holidays, Ahsala Bucha, the day Buddhism began. Ahsala Bucha depends on the lunar calender,
this year coming on Thursday the 17th. On
the following day, Friday, Thais honor the beginning of Buddhist Lent and
welcome the first day of the rainy season.
The two holy days made for an extra long holiday weekend.
On Wednesday Paul and I joined the throngs at the Chiang Mai bus station. A couple of days earlier we had scored the
last two tickets on the late morning VIP bus to Phayao. Our bus quickly loaded with university
students. As we sat in air-conditioned
comfort waiting to depart, I watched more and more people pack into the regular
long-distance buses. More travelers
stood than sat. The cheaper buses filled
with workers going home to their ancestral villages, many to see their children
who live in the villages with grandparents.
We traveled on this busy day as my friend Aom
had time off for the holidays. We were
going to visit her and her three-year-old daughter Cream (my Thai "granddaughter")
in Phayao. We
had planned a special day trip to nearby Chaing Rai to tour the famous, new,
Aom had made reservations for Paul and me at a
brand new hotel in Phayao, directly behind the
hospital where she works. Paul thinks we
were the first Westerners to stay there.
Promotional price: about $11 a night, with breakfast and free wi-fi to boot. While
I freshened up after the three-hour bus ride, Paul headed downtown and suddenly
came across a holiday parade.
In the parade groups of all ages wore uniforms or traditional dress as
they walked the parade route. The groups
came from schools, offices, clubs, and so on.
One group of young girls had their black hair cut exactly the same same way, what Paul calls a sugarbowl
style. They wore exactly the same
dresses, shoes, and ribbons to match. Old
ladies joined in the fun, always with elaborate long dresses. The parade floats were carved from golden wax
and had scenes related to Buddhism. The
use of wax for the floats reflects individual offerings of large golden candles
to the temples during Ahsala Bucha. In ancient times these candles lit up the
dark days of the rainy season, assuring that monks would have enough light for
their scriptural studies and sacred practices. (Paul didn’t have a camera, but the above
floats are very similar to those in the parade.)
Paul returned to the hotel just in time for Aom
and Cream's arrival. We learned that
Cream attends a private bilingual nursery school in Phayao,
rather than the government school near her grandparents' village. On this special day Aom
had picked Cream up from the bilingual nursery school after she finished her
work day. Normally Cream would ride a private
school bus, with her ten-year-old cousin, back to the village where she and her
cousin live with Aom's parents.
Much to my surprise, Aom had bought a car. We piled in and drove down to the large lake,
Phayao's major tourist site. The rains came so we ducked into one of the
many lakeside restaurants for a scrumptious, spicy dinner. Aom gave us a
rundown of all she had planned for us over the next three days. We were looking at a full schedule. On the other hand Cream had a fever and a
phlegm-filled cough which, as it turned out, changed the schedule completely.
After dinner we all took Cream to the doctor in the well-equiped emergency room at the hospital where Aom works. Aom, who manages the
hospital's lab, took advantage of our hospital visit to introduce us to her
staff.
Cream had pneumonia and the doctor insisted she be admitted to the
hospital. All of our plans for the
holiday suddenly changed. We connected
with Thai culture in quite an unexpected way.
I mostly stayed with Aom and Cream at the
hospital until Aom's mother arrived the following
afternoon. Paul was on
his own, and went back downtown.
Cream's spacious room looked more like a Thai three-star hotel room than
a hospital room. There was a low queen
sized bed for Mom to be able to sleep with her sick child, just as she would do
at home. There was a stocked mini fridge,
couch, dining table and chairs, and a large color TV.
Cream started an antibiotic treatment and inhaled pure oxygen. The first set of antibiotics didn't work so
they switched to stronger ones the following day. To keep her as comfortable as possible, besides
giving her ibuprofen for her fever, the nurses or Aom
wiped Cream down with refreshingly cool water. The nursing staff attended to Cream's every need. The doctor checked on Cream twice a day and
had long chats with Aom; it seemed like compassionate
care.
On Friday morning Aom's mother showed up to
take care of Cream for the morning. Aom wanted to visit one of her favorite mountain temples on
the outskirts of Phayao to pay homage to Buddhism and
pray for Cream's well being. Me too. Paul came
along to see the beautiful sacred compound of Wat Analayo, the second biggest tourist attraction in Phayao.
After the temple visit we drove back to the hospital to say our goodbyes. Paul and I had lunch near the bus station. We returned to Chiang Mai Friday afternoon, a
day early. I called Aom
on Sunday for an update, and found she was back at work. Cream's fever had finally gone down on
Saturday, so she returned home to the village with her grandmother.
A final note: the four-day holiday weekend ended with dark skies and
pounding rain. The rainy season
certainly had begun.