Just Laugh at Life!

Last Monday was Buddha's Birthday, but the celebration began Sunday night. In Chiang Mai, thousands of people make a religious pilgrimage up the mountain in the middle of the night under the full moon. Some friends and I joined in the nine-kilometer hike to Doi Suthep. This event was a lot of fun, and it was also one of the most chaotic nights of my life.

Hiking up the trail.

First of all, the monsoon rains came in and fell very hard. We were almost sopping wet by the time we had put on our long, hooded ponchos that made us look something like Frodo from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. We crammed ourselves in a rot daeng (red vans used for public transportation). It was crazy how much it was raining. Fortunately, the rain stopped by the time we arrived at the bottom of the mountain and began hiking. There were so many people, and they would laugh at my friends and I because we were these random white people that they didn't expect to see there. Ladies were handing out free water and people were stopping along the way to pay obeisances to revered monks. After hours of hiking in the middle of the night, we finally made it to the base of the temple area. We were dead tired.

At the base of the Doi Suthep temple grounds, there is a really long, wide staircase leading up the mountain to the temple itself. Framing each side of the staircase is a long dragon sculpture going all the way up.  We had planned to climb the stairs, but there was no way that was going to happen. There were SO MANY people that the entire staircase was literally stuffed with them and they were barely moving at all. It was a sea of black hair. I had never seen so many people in one place in my life. There were thousands of them. It was kind of like a mosh pit, except everyone was calm because this was a sacred, religious event.


We said, "forget this, this is taking too long." So we decided to climb up the other side of the dragon railing, on the outside of the stairs. Luckily there was a paved area to climb there. Many people were already doing this, so we joined and we were going five times as fast as the people on the staircase. We were making progress, but we noticed that it was getting steeper and steeper. We were slipping! I couldn't help but laugh at myself and how ridiculous I was. It was a long, steep way down and if someone fell, it would have been like dominoes! Some Thai people even jumped off of the paved part and climbed through the jungle to get up to the top. It was complete chaos.


Finally, we hoisted ourselves up. It was crazy how steep it was. When we finally arrived at the temple, we heard a monk chanting a mantra over a loudspeaker. People were everywhere. Lots of people were sleeping under the roofed areas, and others were wandering, lighting candles and performing religious ceremonies. We removed our shoes and joined the crowd and circled around the main tower of the wat that points to the sky. We were about to go see the view of Chiang Mai at night, but suddenly a big, strong soldier showed up and yelled very loudly in Thai, "don't go!!" Cops were all over, regulating the scene. I was trying to figure out what was going on, and then I realized that they were clearing a path in the crowd so that the mayor could enter. After that, the hustle and bustle resumed as normal.

Despite the chaos, the atmosphere was very spiritual.

People trying to go down the stairs.

We decided it was time to leave, so we were about to go down the big stairs. The situation hadn't changed and the crowd was getting really tight, so we decided to climb down the side again for time's and claustrophobia's sake. We were just as ridiculous going down as going up. A Thai guy said "come!" to me, probably because I wasn't going fast enough. After awhile, my friend Meredith and I decided to just Rambo our way down through the jungle. The trees were not very stable--they were the kind of trees that flop around when you lean on them. On top of that, it was muddy and slippery. The whole time, I was thinking, "I am absolutely crazy."

We made it down in one piece, but I realized that my insulin pump was acting up again. (for those of you who don't know, I'm diabetic, and it's this little device that keeps me from having to take shots every time I eat.) Earlier that evening, it had been making strange beeping noises and telling me the battery was dead, when I had in fact put a new battery in. This was about the third or fourth time this was happening, and I decided to just give up and take it off. Amidst all this other crazy stuff that was going on, it was just pawdee (perfect) that my insulin pump wasn't working. Mai pen rai.

Something even more pawdee that night was all the Thai massage ladies lined up down at the temple base area near the stairs. They were giving foot and leg massages for about three or four dollars. Hello! Genius. So we took this opportunity and got foot massages on the mountain at two a.m. I was falling asleep.

We hiked down further to find a rot daeng to catch a ride down the mountain on. Needless to say, they were all totally stuffed with people. We tried to jump onto one as it was starting to pull away, but there wasn't enough room for all of us. People were climbing on top of them, on the sides, on the back, everywhere! The cops said, "don't get on top!" But the moment the cops left, people climbed on top of them. When I found a rot daeng that had just barely enough room, I hurried and jumped in. More people climbed in until there was literally no room inside. I was very lucky to get a seat. My friends were standing on the back and holding on for dear life as the vehicle turned left and right down the curving mountain trail, trying not to hit people who were hiking up. Across from me, I saw a girl talking to someone behind her. I looked through the window behind her and saw someone's legs. I realized that people were holding onto the side! I started to laugh. That is not an easy feat, especially on a winding road heading downhill.

It was about three a.m. It was Buddha's Birthday. I was in Thailand. I was crammed in a vehicle going down a mountain next to total strangers with people on the floor, on the outside, and my friends on the back of it, holding on for dear life. Out the window, I saw ambulance after ambulance going down the street, with their sirens going off. I didn't understand the language being spoken around me. I had very itchy mosquito bites all over my legs. My insulin pump wasn't working. And I was leaning my head against the inside of the rot daeng, falling asleep. I think I win.

After being in Thailand for awhile, random things don't phase me anymore. Once I was at the market and a lady was breast feeding her son while she was selling stuff to me. Just yesterday I saw a naked guy walking around (which is not normal for Thailand--he was mentally disabled) and I just looked away as if nothing had happened. I love Thailand for that reason. It's turning me into a person who can fall asleep in the back of a rot daeng amidst utter chaos. I just laugh at everything now. If there's one thing I've been learning, it's that we Americans need to calm down and just laugh at the little surprises in life! Life doesn't have to be so stressful! If you accept that you have no control over things and stop expecting things to work out a certain way, it's very liberating and life becomes more of an adventure. If you're late somewhere and caught in a traffic jam, just sit back and enjoy the scenery around you because there's nothing you can do about it. If you didn't do well on a test and there's nothing you can do to change your score, then why worry about it? You tried your best. If your insulin pump stops working, just Skype your parents in the middle of the night while you figure out how to take shots for the next three months. (Fortunately, things worked out just fine and my pump is working normally now.) Always remember mai pen rai and you'll be just fine.

I have many more stories to tell in my next post. Until then, choog dee khaa!