Thai Memorial Service

We are back in Chiang Mai. Last night, we were too weary to stay up and made a posting. We had TB (tired butt) from the day’s activities and trip back from Fang yesterday. Miriam was raised in Fang and her brother Yong lives next door to the house Miriam grew up in, a house the family still owns. In front of Miriam’s parent’s house in the picture to the right are: Tim and Yong, David and Miriam, Toy and Lek (another of Miriam’s brothers – Lek and Toy, his wife, live in Chiang Mai).

In addition to visiting these family members (and numerous aunts and uncles in Fang), another major reason to be in Fang was for the family to hold the annual memorial service for Miriam’s parents and for the daughter of Yong and Tim, who passed away last year in her early twenties. In Thailand, cremation is the standard, not burial. Similar to our Memorial Day, a visit to their version of the gravesite is customary. The family waited until Miriam and David arrived to make the memorial visit. Just like us, the family takes flowers. In addition, they take remembrance items, such as the deceased’s favorite food. The family is also responsible for the upkeep of the area. In the above picture, Lek is trimming the tree branches away and the women are arranging the flowers and food. The urns containing the ashes are inside these small monuments. On the right, Lek and Yong are fixing the top of Yong’s daughter’s monument, as it hadn’t sealed properly. They are leveling and mortaring the top down. Each of us present was given a burning stick of incense, which we placed in a jar and had a moment of silence in memory of the deceased. The picture on the left shows the monuments with the remembrance items. Yong’s daughter has her favorite soda and snack, Miriam’s parents, the two larger monuments on the right, also got individual favorite foods. We were honored to be part of this service with Miriam.

After the service, we stopped briefly to visit with more of Miriam’s relatives before the eight of us, joined by Tim’s daughter to make nine, loaded into two pick-ups (with  only slightly padded bench seats in the cabs) and set out to visit several area sites. Our first stop was the national park where the local hot springs are located. A lot of the rock outcroppings in this picture have hot water bubbling out and forming little creeks. The water is 136 to 149 degrees F in the creeks and pools, so it comes out of the ground much hotter, so hot that it steams. We were also there when the main spring erupted. The park service put in a control/relief system that causes this geyser to erupt regularly to release pressure.

It started raining heavily while we were there, so we went to the pavillion for iced coffee and Thai tea. While we were feeding the fish in the pond, we were joined by a local resident. Remind me not to complain about the size of the grasshoppers at the ranch! This is a common Thai grasshopper. And no, we did not fry him up and eat him. He’s much bigger than the fried frogs we ate the other day.

From the hot springs, we traveled to Thatom, a town on the Burmese border (it’s hard to see with the rain clouds, but the mountains in the distance are in Burma) where Miriam had lived and worked. Yes, I know that Burma is now called Mynmar, but everyone in Thailand still calls it Burma. Miriam’s father patrolled the mountainous border near here as a border police officer for many years. Miriam is familiar with this area and knows people here also. We had lunch at a restaurant on the river where Miriam used to work, delicious noodle soup. The river in these pictures is the Mekong River. Your geography lesson for the day: The Mekong River begins in China and is the 10th longest river in the world. Near this area, it forms the border between Thailand, Burma, and Laos, an area called the Golden Triangle. The river meanders south/southeast thru Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, ending with the Mekong Delta (site of Vietnam War stories and reports) at the ocean. These long, shallow boats are used to transport people and goods on the river. You can hire them for a 4-hour ride downriver to Chiang Rai. We would have seriously considered taking that boat ride, but since it was raining, we’ll save it for our next trip to Thailand.

We went back to Fang to get our luggage and rearrange our transportation, as Yong, his wife and step-daughter stayed in Fang. Miriam and Toy decided to ride in the bed of Lek’s truck rather than try to crowd into the cab. On our way back to Chiang Mai, it started raining again. Mean old David didn’t even have Lek stop so their wives could stay dry! Actually, I think they had worked this out, speaking in Thai, already, as Miriam and Toy pulled out rain ponchos and didn’t ask to come to the cab.

Back in Chiang Mai, Lek and Toy dropped us off at the hotel. We needed to do some walking after having sat for several hours during our travels, so we walked to a different area of the market. We didn’t eat them, although David encouraged Phillip to, but we found the deep-fried bugs – larvae, worms, water bugs, crickets, and grasshoppers.  If we decide to actually eat them, you’ll have a picture!