5. - 8. März
A few days ago, I found out by chance that Monday is a Buddhist holiday. Makha Bucha Day (also known as Magha Puja) always falls on the full moon day of the third lunar month in the traditional Thai calendar (end of February or early March), so it occurs on a different date every year. This year it falls on March 6th. The day commemorates a spontaneous gathering of 1,250 disciples of the Buddha who came together to listen to his preaching.
On this day, it seems to be a public holiday – at least many shops were closed. Traditionally, there are a few rules to follow on this religious holiday. I think there were a total of five rules, but I can't remember all of them.
You are not supposed to speak badly about others and not spread lies.
You are not supposed to harm others, including animals, so being vegetarian is on the menu.
You are not supposed to consume alcohol and other drugs.
The rules don't seem to be very strict – there was meat available everywhere, even at the festival right next to the temple. Except for the alcohol ban, which is strictly enforced. Fun fact: since Makha Bucha always falls on a full moon night, it inevitably collides with all the full moon parties on the islands. The Thais have come up with a simple solution to this problem: the Full Moon parties are simply moved one day later.
In any case, we wanted to experience this Buddhist holiday, even though we couldn't really find out exactly what happens on that day. We found out that it is celebrated in the temples, so we decided to drive over to Nakhon Si Thammarat, because there is a particularly large temple with many reviews on Google Maps. And so we did. The hostel owner even helped us with the ride. His employee drove us for free to the bus station 30 minutes away and at the station itself, he even organized the bus ticket.
In NST, we rented two beds in a nice hostel and were looking forward to getting to know some cool backpackers. The last few weeks, Karli and I had mostly stayed in bungalows and simple hotels. While you can also meet people there, it's rather rare. Other backpackers who have left Europe behind for several months are even rarer. So we were looking forward to our first real hostel and had high expectations. When we arrived at the hostel, we looked a bit stupid, as the whole hostel was empty. But then we found out that some of the "normal" rooms were still occupied by Thais.
I have long thought that there are hotels that cater more to Europeans as their target audience, and then others with lower standards for Thais. This has not been proven true so far. We have two indications of this:
On Koh Mook, there was a resort next to our accommodation with many bamboo huts, all in a state of disrepair. I asked our hostess about it and wondered if it happened because of COVID. She confirmed this and said that the bamboo huts are only used by foreigners, as Thai tourists do not like them.
In Kantang, we coincidentally met a restaurant owner from Koh Mook, Sugar. She told us that she is in Kantang to improve her English and mentioned the hotel she was staying at. In fact, we had also considered staying there, but ultimately decided on another place.
We usually pay around 550-800 baht (15-22€) per night for both of us. That is always at the lower end of the spectrum. In tourist areas, there is still plenty of room for higher prices. You can spend 40€, 60€, and upwards for really nice bungalows, some right on the beach. In the cheaper accommodations, you may sacrifice some comfort in certain areas (further away from the beach, shared bathrooms, only a fan, no air conditioning, no kettle, no fridge). But other than that, we have always had really nice accommodations.
I digress.
Makha Bucha Day
On the holiday, we got up early and went to the temple so as not to miss anything. Many people were walking in a circle around the temple. Most of them were wearing something white. In their hands, they held a flower and incense sticks, along with an orange cloth. Often the cloth was very long and many people held on to one piece of cloth. Sometimes people even had whole bolts of cloth in their arms! And they all walked around the temple. Karli suggested just joining in. It didn't take long before we were asked to join one of the cloth caravans and hold on. Done. So it happened that we were adopted at short notice: for the next half hour, there was always a protest whenever we wanted to leave our caravan and we were asked to hold on again. Our adoptive parents were two middle-aged women. After the four of us had circled the temple once, we went inside the temple. The pieces of cloth were now wrapped around the stupas (see pictures). Our temporary adoptive parents had to confer for a moment to decide which stupa was the most beautiful for our cloth. One of the stupas is so large that there is a whole building underneath. This seemed an appropriate place for our wonderful hostesses. So we went in and hung up our piece of cloth there. Then we knelt down and prayed. One of the women, after praying for herself, turned to us and prayed for us again.
What a great experience! We stayed at the temple all day until evening and observed the activities. In between, there was a big street parade. Throughout the day, we were approached and asked if we would be willing to take a photo together. As foreigners, we are a small attraction (outside the tourist areas). And there were really few other foreigners around here. Out of around 5,000 locals, there were 7 foreigners. We counted the foreigners, not the Thais 🤣
I really enjoyed the three days in Nakhon Si Thammarat. Especially because I didn't have to wonder what was for tourists and what was "typically" Thai.
By the way, speaking of Buddhism, the time calculation is different here. Thailand is 543 years ahead of us. Currently, Karli and I are in the year 2566 B.E. The B.E. stands for Buddhist Era and is counted from the enlightenment of the first Buddha. That was 544 BC. I had never thought before that it makes no sense for other cultures to align their time with the death of Jesus.
📷 You can find many more great pictures in the photo album.
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