18 October
Today I woke up in my new apartment and looked about me with a certain satisfaction. The morning light was coming in through the big French windows and everything in my apartment looked clean and neat. Outside, I could see mountains and trees, fresh after the night’s rain. Mina was sleeping on the tiled floor – she liked the floor because it was cool. June was on the bed next to me although on the opposite side.
There was a knock on the door. I got up and opened it and Dook came in. The atmosphere today was so different from last night. All three women seemed inclined to be civil towards each other. After some rather stilted polite conversation, they discovered a common subject of interest – me. Or rather, all that was bad about me.
It is probably not a good idea for one’s current girlfriend and one’s previous girlfriend to get into an animated discussion together – especially when Dook and Mina started comparing dates. To their delighted horror, they soon discovered that my relationship with Dook had quite a considerable overlap with my relationship with Mina. For the rest of the day, they were the best of friends and, amidst much laughter, talked about my faults, the possibility of me having other parallel girlfriends, the invisible snakes in my hair etc. To my amazement, they did not bore of the subject – and even now while I write this at 9.30pm, they are still talking animatedly.
I went to Grand Tower hotel today and rented an automatic motorbike for 3,000 baht for 20 days. I went to buy petrol and it cost 65 baht to fill the tank up from empty.
This afternoon was the Jay Vegetarian Festival – an appalling and rather sickening spectacle. I had seen it in Bangkok and Chachaongsao – but there it had been a harmless affair of a handful of stalls adorned with yellow flags selling vegan food. Here, it was different.
There were the yellow flags and vegan food stalls – but they were only a small part of the festival in Krabi. The first I saw of it was when I was at the Grand Tower to rent my motorbike. Suddenly, there came deafening racket of firecrackers and then two half naked men, covered in body paint, ran into the shop. They were brandishing long whips, waving black flags, wailing in low voices and seemed generally agitated.
Half the staff dropped to their knees with awed looks on their faces, the other staff lounged about laughing and chatting. The two men in body paint were not put off. They rushed to the shrine (most shops in Thailand have a shrine), whacked the floor in front of the shrine a few times and then ran urgently around the shop, waving their flags frantically over the head of anyone who was in their way. The elderly owner of the shop followed them on bended knees and encouraged them to visit every corner of her premises.
The two men then hurried out with their whips and flags and leapt onto the back of a waiting white pickup while their white robed followers set off more firecrackers. The pickup then moved off in a convoy towards the town centre.
In the afternoon, we went to the town centre. There, a big crowd of several hundred people were gathered around a group of about 20 who were all dressed in white. They were engaged in polishing an extraordinary array of lethal looking knives, axes and metal spiked weapons of various sizes ranging from 18 inches to 10 feet long.
These instruments of torture were laid out on a big table and people kept adding to the arsenal. A toothless old man came up proudly holding aloft a huge and ancient tree cutting saw. The crowd watched on with a mixture of delighted horror and admiration. Women held up their babies to get a better look.
We went into Swensen to get an ice-cream. From our table, we had an excellent view.
A pickup drew up, the huge speakers on the back beating out a steady monotonous beat of a bass drum. The people in white started waving flags frantically and running around. There came the deafening burst of firecrackers and smoke. A man burst forth suddenly from the crowd. He was dressed in dark red robes and gaunt shoulders were covered in tattoos. He was shaking his head violently from side to side while he danced and pranced in some kind of uncontrollable crazed ecstasy. He ran out into the road and fell against the bonnet of a pickup, his whole body shaking as if in an epileptic fit.
Two men in white grabbed him and cracked their whips and waved their flags urgently over his head. The drums increased their tempo. More firecrackers were set off. Groups of men in yellow yelled and started shaking what looked like small spirit houses on stretchers amidst the smoke. Everywhere was a riot of noise and confusion. The crowd watched on delightedly.
Now was the time for the main attraction and all eyes turned expectantly to the table of weapons. Four men in white selected a ten foot long steel spike and gave it a final loving polish. The man in the dark red robes came staggering forth, his body still shaking, his eyes rolling and his head turning from side to side.
Two men in red caught him and held his head steady. Someone else produced a large kettle and poured water over his head. I have no idea if it was hot or not. The four men in white with the ten foot long steel spike came up and started discussing the best place to put it.
In the end, they decided to stick it through his left cheek. One of them took aim while the other three prepared to push. The man aiming gave the signal and they rammed it straight in one cheek and out through the other.
I decided to go down and take some photos. By the time I had made my way through the crowd to him, his friends had managed to stick several other smaller spikes into various parts of his face and neck. He stood there, clutching onto the big steel rod through his face, his body shaking as he tried to control the pain. I took his picture – he was a piercing addict’s dream.
There were several other unfortunate people standing dumbly behind him with metal spikes sticking out of their body. I noticed that there was a curious absence of blood. People were pouring water almost continuously over them so maybe the blood was washed away.
The tempo of the drumming increased. More firecrackers were set off, creating more noise, smoke and confusion. I glanced quickly around. Everyone had a crazed animalistic look about them. My instinct told me that it was only a matter of minutes before they would start lusting for human blood. It was time to go. I beat a hasty retreat towards my motorbike. I wanted to live to tell the tale.
