After leaving Cave Lodge I headed to Mae Hong Son and found myself in a punching match with a mosquito. Not long before this match I was thinking how I have only had a few mosquito bites. Maybe it is the Thai food I am eating? Or the jungle juice I use as perfume. What ever it is, I have been pretty fortunate. Until I scooped up one very angry mosquito inside my fishbowl of a helmet. He entered at the time I began a very twisty downhill steep section with no shoulder to pull off. In five minutes time he was able to fatten my lip, brow, cheek, and ear. When I was able to pull over and release this very full angry mosquito I was cursing Murphy’s law. He walloped me.
I arrived at my hostel a couple hours later and most of the swelling had gone down but it was taking every ounce of restraint to not itch. My luck has turned, the owner of the hostel told me I had arrived on a very auspicious day. One of the senior monks had passed and the Shan (a hill tribe ) were going to have his ceremonial cremation at 6PM. All are welcome.
Of course, I have no idea what to expect and just show up at this Wat where there are hundreds of people dressed in their traditional clothing having a feast. Tables are lined up under tents surrounded by food stalls. I obviously look out of place and someone motions for me to go get something to eat. There is no money exchanged and I go and sit on some steps just to get my bearings and observe what is going on.
A horn blows and everyone starts walking in a certain direction so I follow. There is a large ornate wooden sled painted bright red with two thick long cables attached and laying on the ground. This sled is twice the size of what you might imagine Santa’s sled. Everyone grabs a hold of these cables as if we are going to play tug of war. The monk says some words of prayer, and then yells some words of encouragement and we start pulling. The sled goes no where. The monk is getting excited and continues to encourage us. It starts to move, I m not sure where we are dragging this thing until I notice we are going up hill. We are giggling and laughing as we stumble our way up. The cables are the length of a soccer field and being pulled by over a hundred people. I am the only farang and I don’t feel out of place. It takes us about 20 minutes and many breaks.
We get the sled to the top and the whole time I am wondering if the body of this senior monk is inside the sled. We say prayers, offer flowers, and follow up with chanting. I just mimic what everyone is doing. The sled is lit and everyone starts walking down hill. Aren’t they going to watch the cremation? Now where are they going? The body is not in the sled, it is in a beautiful built pyre next to the Wat. Everyone circles around and I watch from above. Prayers and chanting go on for about an hour and I find I have tears in my eyes. The Shan are celebrating the life of their monk and praying for his good passage and rebirth.
Then the fireworks begin, the first one startled me from my sentiment. This must be the rejoicing part. The show was incredible the first firework lit was choreographed and structured to light the next firework. Fireworks were spinning, sparkling, shooting, booming in every direction. One of the best shows I have ever seen. Not because of the large flower blooms and booms but the technics of the ground work.
The last firework shot into the pyre and set it on fire. This was a controlled burn and we sat around and watched as the structure around the coffin started collapsing and disappearing in flames and revealing the box. You could clearly see the elevated box as it dropped a couple levels into the hot embers. I stayed until the fire was mostly settling down. In the morning there will be another ceremony to collect the ashes. These ashes will be placed into an urn and then I believe housed in some sort of space at the Wat. Not sure how that works.
The next day I did some more incredible riding in the mountains and bumped into my friend Pierre from Germany. Just kidding… Pierre is from France of course. I met Pierre at Cave Lodge with Jeanine and Micheal. We planned on meeting up for dinner that night. We had dinner at this place suggested by the owner of the guest house we were staying in. We were looking for authentic food. I got it. I ordered a chicken with herbs dish. It came in a bowl with broth and was full of surprises. I spent quite a while digging through this bowl of twigs, berries, leaves, knuckles and some chicken. Each bite was a surprise; I was not sure what I was supposed to chew and swallow and what was meant just for the broth. I was spitting stuff out laughing at the grace of this meal. Their were berries that had a bitter tough skin and soft spicy flesh; leaves like bay; twigs that were similar to lemon grass that I tried to chew and swallow but ended up spitting them out. I felt like a cow chewing my curd. I even choked on something and had a coughing fit for a minute. Did I enjoy this meal? I really did. It felt medicinal and educational if not confusing. Thanks Pierre for experiencing that with me, and bringing comic relief to Mae Hong Son.
