Got up after the family had left, and took a walk down to the Family Mart to get some bananas, but they had none, and the woman frying hers for sale on the street would not sell me any uncooked ones. Picked up some yoghurt instead and had that for breakfast with toast. Read yesterday’s Bangkok Post Life section and thought about going to some ‘alternative’ theatre and/or a lecture somewhere and/or an art gallery; inspires me more than visions of tourist traps (even if ‘cultural highlights’). Apparently pensioners are replacing backpackers in Southeast Asia, and have their own acronym, SKIERS: Spending their Kids’ Inheritance. Stomach nominally fine but the yoghurt passed through me straight away. My period is probably past its heaviest now, which is just as well coz I’ve run out of tampons.
At 10am Awi and Shain appeared, and after some commotion I only vaguely followed around whether Shain had or had not dealt his cousin next door a life-threatening head blow, we drove to Naew’s university building for a Palang Chakawan consultation with her colleague, in an office overflowing with papers in Thai and hand-made Happy Birthday Mom! cards stuck to the walls. Shain went first and I watched as this woman somewhat older than me placed one hand on his head and one on his lower back, her eyes closed; he too had his eyes closed and looked like he was concentrating. She next touched his neck and shoulders, and he soon lost concentration and started looking around, even more so after Naew appeared at the door and hovered over the séance. It lasted 5 minutes, and then Shain folded his hands and thanked the healer, and it was my turn.
I took my place on the stool, and she asked what my ailment was, and concluded ‘food poisoning’ when I’d described my vomiting and diarrhea. ‘We’ll see if it helps,’ she said, and proceeded to lay one hand on my head and the other on my lower back and closed her eyes. I closed my eyes too, and felt a powerful heat and energy where her hands were and along an imaginary line in between, as though her hands were magnets and I was feeling the attractive force between them running through my back. When she placed her head hand on my stomach, the ‘magnetism’ wasn’t as strong, but I focused on her hands and on her breathing and on breathing with her. After a little less than 5 minutes she took her hands off me and that was it. ‘Can you describe what you do? I felt an energy.’ She said she channels energy from the surroundings to the chakra pertinent to whatever is ailing you; this involves visualizing the color related to the chakra. She added that what she does when she has food poisoning is to not eat for 24hrs, just drink water. (Naew has since told me her colleague went to Catholic primary and secondary school, then got her BA and MA in Electrical Engineering in the US. And started practicing Palang Chakawan after she returned to Thailand).
Drove the two or three campus blocks to the Friday Market (the market held on campus every Friday) where there was a plethora of food treats awaiting my not-to-be-indulged stomach; what a shame! Naew did some household shopping (mandarins and pomelo, fish paste and mushroom broth, some new wash cloths) and got take-away lunch for Shain (chicken and yellow rice, and some hot red syrup mixed with ice to keep him sweet as we wandered around) and Awi (sticky brown rice and spring rolls) and me (bananas). She herself left us to have lunch at the outdoor Electrical Engineering ‘canteen’ by her building.
Shain was bouncy in the car, turning his tongue red with his drink and puzzling over the meaning of ‘last name,’ and identifying flags. The three of us had lunch together at home, me some watery rice specially prepared by the housekeeper, with some dried shredded pork (it looked like carpet fluff) and some cracker (also pork-based; much better texture and flavor). Shain could hardly sit still, talking with his mouth full, eager to give the maid (Naw, as opposed to Naew) the bean-paste sweets he’d gotten for her at the market, fetching his sword as soon as he’d finished his chicken leg. Awi threatened him with withholding (or withdrawing?) ‘stars’ if he didn’t behave, and that got him to quiet down. Apparently the kids are awarded stars for good behavior; each star is worth 10 Baht (or something) and the kids can trade them in for stuff they want (toys, mostly) once they’ve accumulated a sufficient amount. The maids also get some kind of reward for good work, in the form of going somewhere with the family.
After lunch Awi took me to see the Chinese Temple in Nonthaburi, sister to the large temple in Chinatown. It was new and ornate and the first temple I’ve seen with an upstairs. Then, inspired probably by my appreciation and photo-snapping, he took me down the road to see the largest reclining Buddha in Nonthaburi, at Wat Ratprakongtham, another new-ish temple complex along the canal. There I also saw a Burningman-worthy cluster of miniature Buddha’s and other ‘dolls’ huddled around the base of a tree; Awi informed me that if a Buddha or spirit statue breaks, you must get rid of it immediately or it will bring bad luck, and one of the places you can dispose of it is at a temple under the Buddha-tree (the one with leaves shaped like the one in Lello’s Buddha sand-painting). Then we drove next door to an older temple, much more ‘authentic’ feeling, with three-faced-Buddha reliefs repeating around the walls. An orange-robed monk who was clipping the hedge outside let us in; a bonus, as Awi had never seen the temple open before. Inside it was similar in size and décor to the Chinatown temple I’d visited with Raf: large golden Buddha (this one seated as in a Western chair, unusually; and plastered with gold patches, also somewhat unusually), and murals on the upper walls.
We returned down the narrow road that hugs the square confines(yes, right angled corners) of Wat Ratprkongtham, over the canal by hump-backed bridge, and back to the Pantip part of Nonthaburi. Awi commented the road out to the temples had been widened to 4-lanes in the last year. Previously it had been one lane, with trees arching over it. Must have been a beautiful shady approach to the canals and the temples. The trees have been sacrificed to the city’s expansion. The BTS Skytrain is also being extended Westward along this road; the pillars destined to support the rails are already in place. Last time I was in Bangkok, in 2004, there was no Skytrain or Metro; next time I’m here, this new line will be finished, and who knows what else. Already the property prices along the new line have sky-rocketed.
Picked up period pads (no tampons) at the supermarket in Pantip with assistance from Awi (got the kind he always gets for his sisters), and he looked for a paper with the most recent interview with his father (who, as a former IAEA power plant inspector, gets consulted on nuclear matters) but with no success. Also bought a Rittersport bar for 76 Baht - the equivalent of two bowls of noodle soup; no wonder Awi has stopped eating chocolate.
Shortly after we got home, Naew called Awi from Pantip saying she was having dinner there with Shin; did we want to join. Awi drove me and Shain back to Pantip and we went upstairs to Black Canyon Café – a chain restaurant which serves steaks and club sandwiches as well as Thai food. Turns out Naew had bumped into the owner’s wife on the way home, who’d insisted she come eat at Black Canyon. Shin hadn’t wanted to, but needs must.
After dinner Shain wanted to catch a tuk-tuk home, so Awi drove back and the rest of us piled into a tuk-tuk. Squeezing is part of the fun, right?
Once home we watched The Blind Side (2009) on DVD, the uplifting story of a rich white woman (Sandra Bullock, who got an Oscar for her performance) and her family who adopt a homeless black boy (Quinton Aaron) who, with the family's support, becomes an NFL star. Naew commented that in Thailand adoption is not a common practice at all.
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