Village Life

Life in a Thai village does not appeal too many farang (westerners) but to me it really is ideal. Wake up early, maybe six in the morning and you can bet your bottom buck most of the village are well into their day. The sound of pots and pans banging and scraping outside means Wi’s mama is up and about, cooking something or other to take to the Wat (temple). Every morning mama cooks outside, a meat or fish dish with sticky rice as an offering to the three monks who live and practise at the temple. Wi rises around seven and we head for the garden, coffees in hand, sit at our garden table and watch what little there is of the world go by. Admittedly our house is very mod con, shower, air condition, satellite TV, fitted kitchen all under a good solid green roof, makes life a little easier but it has not always been that way.

Before walking to the end of our rainbow we stayed at mama’s house and that is more horse and cart than state of the art, nonetheless I still enjoyed my village life there. Mama’s residence is the old style built on stilts wooden box with a corrugated roof, by mid afternoon on a very hot day you really did need a good reason to go upstairs. Afternoons were best spent downstairs under the house where a cool breeze would often blow through. There is a shoulder height walled bathroom on ground level with a half metre gap to the tin roof with trees around the outside to give a little privacy. No hot water though(one reason why farang dislike village life), showers were taken by scooping near freezing water from a large blue plastic drum, gritting your teeth and pouring it over your head. I can only sum up the daily showers as you gotta try it but trust me don’t do it.

I remember one day Wi told me her mama wanted to buy a pig, I asked how much, gave her the money and anxiously waited for Porky our new pet to arrive. Next day a youthful but plump Porky turned up and was tethered to a post half of a stones throw from mama’s house. I had never realized before the smell that came off a pig, Porky stunk to the high heavens and I started to wish the stone had been smaller and the throw a lot harder. The first two days good old Porky broke free from his post and ten or so family and friends spent about an hour each time chasing him around the village until they eventually caught him. On the third morning I noticed Porky was gone once more and enquired to Wi what time we were forming the posse to hunt him down and chase him around the village again. Wi explained that mama had taken Porky to the temple where he would be presented as an offering to Buddha and afterwards spun on a spit and cut into small slices for her family and friends. Poor old Porky, bought to be the sacrificial pig. Village life is such fun.

Back at our house, the coffee’s drunk and we settle on the sofa to indulge in the morning news. Give it five minutes and I’m getting restless, it’s the Thai news and I cannot understand a thing. I tell Wi to call me when the sport comes on and again head for the garden for a few more cigarettes and hope the world is coming by this time. The occasional car passes slowing down as it approaches our house to catch a full view of the farang behind the cloud of smoke sunglassed up at eight in the morning. Plenty of small motorbikes roll past but they don’t tend to look, no blacked out windows to hide them as they stare out at the chain smoking red faced unshaven farang. Every morning you will normally get one overladen motorcyclist gingerly pass by buried beneath everything including the kitchen sink, chased by three or four village dogs snapping away at baskets, fishing poles and nets. Showered and revitalized it is time to jump in the rented car and head off to Udon Thani, Nong Khai, Ban Dung or wherever takes our fancy, well eventually. I sit in the garden and wait patiently for Wi to change into five or six different outfits before she appears looking a truly radiant Wonderful Wi.

The routine then follows a familiar pattern of eating together somewhere, Wi going off to shop and me bedding down in some bar for a beer or two. Very often Wi gets into a ‘ I must fill every conceivable space in the car with flowers and plants’ mood and returns to pick me up grinning like a two headed Cheshire Cat. I hack my way into the passenger seat and we head home with me peering through shrubbery feeling like a Gurkha staking out an enemy village. Safely home by late afternoon we both head for the garden and the cooler early evening sun. Wi attacks the garden with a finesse and art that I can only admire, I slump at the garden table smoking and drinking, waiting for the returning ‘ slow down and stare at the drunkard farang behind the cloud of smoke ‘ motor gang.

Evenings are spent with mama and Wi watching Thai TV soap dramas and I’ll normally share the Bangkok Post with a beer and cigarette. Late evening and mama’s called it a day, gone to her room to dream about the day Porky met his maker, leaving the two of us to watch the squawk box that I can’t understand. Occasionally Wi will indulge in a whiskey and soda, sometimes two, she’ll then tell me she’s dunk (most Thai’s find it difficult to pronounce r’s) then peacefully sleep on the sofa. This is often my cue to gaze out the front window at the village swathed in peace and total darkness then reach for my JD and coke and chill for an hour or so. Village life so ideal. Footnote…Wi’s family and friends still talk about Porky. They reckon he was the best crackling they ever tasted. Poor old Porky. Snap Crackle Pop.   

© 2008, Martyn. All rights reserved.

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