Ninjas, World’s Tallest Stupa, and my Fortune Told…

I did a lot of motorcycle driving when I was at my post in Ratchaburi, but every so often I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of staying out of the way of the lumbering ten-wheel trucks, or deal with the ever-present white-capped ninjas that lined the highway. Invariable one of them would jump out of a thicket and demand to see your license and then proceed to tell you that for driving in the right-hand lane of the highway he would have to write you a ticket for the sum of about 400 Baht. That was 10 percent of my income at the time, so I couldn’t afford the tickets. To make a long story short, because these conversations could last for up to half an hour, it was generally agreed that paying the fine at the side of the road would save everybody a lot of headaches and time, the ninja because he wouldn’t have to go back to the station to file a formal report which would take a few hours to write, and for me to go to the respective station to do the paperwork there and get my license back.

So to do away with these obstructions, I would hop on one of those orange crush buses for an 18 Baht ride to the nearest big town, Nakorn Pathom. I was getting pretty good at hopping on the bus by this time, and some of the drivers knew me well enough that they only slowed down to about 20 kilometers an hour or so, certain that I’d make the leap onto the running board at just the right velocity and timing.

An Ancient Stupa, the World’s Tallest

Nakorn Pathom is an interesting town. The market there is colourful and lively, and situated right across from Phra Pathom Jedi (Stupa), the tallest Stupa in the world, at 120.5 metres, and one with a very interesting legend attached to it. The original stupa is believed to date back to around 193 B.C. constructed within the grounds of the temple that had been established here around 325 B.C. It is believed that the stupa was one of the principal stupas of ancient Nakhon Pathom, the largest settlement of Dvaravati culture. As the legend has it, the original stupa was built by a local king to atone for his act of fratricide. Several hundred years later, a khme-style stupa was constructed over the original stupa, and the present stupa was built over top of the khmer style stupa.

A great part about the ride from Ratburi to Nakorn Pathom and on to Bangkok was the trishaw trip from the drop-off point of the orange crush bus to the air conditioned bus station.  The trip is about two kilometres, and takes you through the fresh fruit and vegetable markets and some of the back alleys of the town. The smells and colours were amazing, and one of the pleasures of visiting small-town Thailand. I haven’t been on that trip for more than a decade now, and don’t think it’s possible to do so anymore. Economic development has taken the town by storm, and there is very little of the old town left, although the area around the pagoda is still a great place to visit, particularly on any major festive occasion.

The air con bus from Nakorn Pathom to Bangkok was always a comfortable ride, at least the seats were large enough to squeeze into, and the speed with which it plied its way along the route was a very pleasant 90 – 100 kilometers per hour (although on a more recent trip I had a moment of deja vu when I thought I had returned to Venezuela, as I once again ended up on the floor in the back of the bus, this time in sweltering heat). The first 40 kilometers would take about half an hour, then you spent the next hour traversing the 16 kilometers from the outskirts of Bangkok to the bus station.

There was a trick to speeding up the trip a bit; a trick I learned on the third or fourth trip I took in this manner. I had noticed people getting off the bus about a kilometre before the bus made a u-turn to get to the station. I hadn’t realized that it was a convenient point to catch a city bus until I decided that I needed to figure out why all these people were leaving the bus at that particular point. An hour and a half later of walking along the road toward the city I realized that the route went straight to a bridge across the Chao Phraya river and into the Sam Sen area where I needed to go. The next time around, when the bus stopped, I jumped out with the rest of the crowd.

A Fortune in One’s Palm…

My feet hard barely touched the pavement when an enterprising taxi driver grabbed me by the arm and told me he could take me to my destination for the low sum of 60 Baht. That was a bargain, I figured. I didn’t realize that he wasn’t an official taxi driver, but a ‘black plated’ taxi, or an illegal taxi trying to make some extra money. Just as well I didn’t know, because there had been news of people being robbed and stabbed and all other kinds of mayhem by these ‘black’ taxi drivers. Even so, it was one of the most interesting taxi rides I’ve had in this country, other than the ones in which I discussed politics with the driver, but these days that topic falls under the question of personal longevity, so better not to be entered into.

Settling into the front seat we struck up a conversation.

“So where you from?”

Okay, here we go, the twenty questions.

Ratburi.

“You not Thai! So where you from?

Oh, I see, uhm, Canada.

“Oh, that’s part of the US, right?”

Uh, NO!

“Oh, so it’s in Europe?”

No, it’s in NORTH AMERICA.

“But you guys always have snow and cold weather there, right?”

Yes, we have snow and cold weather, but we also have ……..

And so the conversation went about the geography of Canada.

Then suddenly the conversation changed.

“I can see that you have a very good ‘gnow heng’” (good fortune as told by the Chinese from the features on one’s face).

Thank you. Now what’s all this about, I’m thinking.

“Let me see your hand.”

My hand, what for?

“I can tell you all about your future.”

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides being interested in ‘Sanook’ (fun), hardly anything gets done in Thailand without the assistance of some kind of fortune teller or good luck charm.

So I passed over the palm of my right hand as the driver was furiously swerving around traffic on the road into town.

“So you’re going to be very rich when you get to be in your forties, but now you are already fairly rich!” said with a smirk.

Hm, wonder where this is going.

“I am not very rich, that’s why I have to drive a taxi like this, to make money for my kids’ education and to look after my sick grandmother.”

I see. Well, driving a taxi like this you must make enough money.

“But I have a lot of expenses, I have to buy medicine for my grandmother, and my children need clothing for school, and my wife, she can’t work anymore because she was hurt in an accident.”

Right, I know where this is going. Are we close to my destination yet?

“But you’re already quite wealthy, and you will make lots more money.”

Right, well, you can drop me off right here, because I forgot, but I have to do something around here first.

“Well, I can wait for you.”

No, that’s alright, it’ll take a few hours, so you better try to get other passengers, or else you won’t make enough money today. Thanks! And I got out of the taxi, paying him an extra 10 Baht for only half the trip.

Two hours later, I dragged myself into the guesthouse, having walked the rest of the way, trying to figure out whether I really looked like the sucker he took me for.