Finally: Food fit for a Prince of the Ancient Line (belatedly living up to our responsibilities).
The Golden Triangle is an ancient crossroads or possibly, more accurately, given the triangular nature of the region, what Devonians would call a three-way-cross or the Thais a สามแยก, armies have boated up and down the river and alighted at Chiang Saen to begin their campaigns against the interior. When it was Yonok the khmers came up here and had to be fought, King Mengrai started the pre-Thai Lanna kingdom here, the Burmese launched attacks on Chiang Mai from here and eventually turned Lanna into a vassal state before the Siamese Kings drove them out, had Chiang Saen abandoned and then re-populated a hundred years later.
For those of us with a good imagination it is not too hard to conceive that with every King or General posted in Yonok, Ngeon Yang, Souvanhakhomkham or Chiang Saen (whatever they were calling the plots of land on both sides of the river that made up the city in those days) there was a Prince sent to guard the place where the Ruak and the Mekong meet - it is not too hard to see this as a place where history has been made, where every step we take is in the footsteps of old soldiers, monks, soothsayers and court fools, every hillock can become, in the fantasy of a slowly aging elephant boy, a defensive wall or an elephant gate.
When we first came to this valley in 2003 it had obviously been cleared and cultivated in the recent past but it was, to all intents and purposes, empty of all but some nasty mimosa thorn bushes which bade us wear boots and long trousers and a swamp in which I bogged a traction-less tractor in my impatience to see building started and my love of driving tractors.
When the team of local contractors arrived to build the houses they, as is always done, poured some whisky on the ground and built a small, make shift, spirit house (before pouring quite a lot more whisky down our throats at three thirty every afternoon when I went to check the progress).
Six months later the valley became a permanent dwelling to four elephants from Lampang and six mahouts from villages spread about the middle North, a more solid spirit house was required and installed by Lung Nan, mahout to Lawan, in the beginning all guests were called to worship there before embarking on a three day course, but that ritual fell by the wayside and no-one seemed to mind.
Times changed and life moved on, we moved from being a conceptual tourist camp to a thinking rescue charity - using our brains and scientific theories and thoughts to look after elephants that have trouble looking after themselves, bringing mahouts as well as elephants off the streets, renting rather than buying to ensure our actions don't put other elephants in danger - we started working within the Suay community based close to Surin, right up against the Khmer border.
As baby ex-street walking elephants arrived and their mahouts and families needed housing the old spirit house was moved, with permission gained in kam meuang - the Northern Thai language - to a new area at the entrance to the camp, overlooking the buffalo valley. The T.E.C.C. elephants went back to a nice life in the forests of Lampang taking their mahouts with them.
Aside from our few Galieng boys to look after the Chiang Mai ex-loggers, on this side of the hill, we became a predominantly Suay village, the ancient elephant catchers and carers with their unwritten language took over - we looked to them for guidance in matters spiritual and elephant and our celebrations and dedications became elephant based, ancient and in a language from far from here.
Fast forward a year or two and here we are in the middle of a dry wet season and a blue funk (whatever that may be), morale is raised, it seems, to be struck back down, we work on projects but progress is slow, the places we look for luck appear to have run out...
...and then, sometime last week, one of the last elephant catchers, the few left alive who went out on expeditions into Cambodia and elsewhere to bring in the wild elephants, a mahout monk in Surin is visited in a dream.
An ancient Prince, speaking slowly in a foreign tongue, describes our camp in detail, describes our setbacks and our problems. The Prince explains that he is Chao Wiangkum of the Chiang Rai dynasty whose encampment was in this very valley, that he lives in the spirit house and was happy it was moved, but that he is displeased with the way that he has been worshipped recently, he needs to eat food as befits his station and for someone to come and talk to him in kam meuang, the local Northern language.
Chao Wiangkum, in an effort to save us further displeasure, hands down a specific menu of his favourite foods, mien kam (a dish of Thai favourites self wrapped in betel leaves), khao chae (a formal dish of jasmine scented, iced rice and lovingly prepared condiments traditionally eaten in the hottest season), luckily these ancient high-society dishes are prepared either as specials or regularly by our hotel kitchen so they are not stumped. The prince also requires boiled bamboo shoots (the local speciality 'nor mai') eaten with prik nam poo (a slightly smelly black crab and chilli paste beloved of my mother-in-law) a roast chicken and some Burmese style cigarettes.
I take it as a sign that on the day we learned of our mix-up (we had assumed a commoner spirit and had been worshipping with pig's heads and homemade whisky) and took action to order the correct foods in this, the driest wet season we've known, at least 164mm (my rain guage filled up halfway through the night) fell in twelve hours catching up our yearly average.
...Chao Wiangkum's food is lovingly prepared by the Anantara kitchen and laid out...
...he had specifically asked for attention from Northern people (khun meuang) and so K. Egg and K. Rat were on hand, Nong Oum and Nong Pleum are not meuang, but who could object?..
Amp is also khun meuang and, being the most senior, presided and apologised on our behalf, K. Lord apologised in Suay - it was, after all, an honest mistake.
...after Chao Wiangkum had finished and his cigarettes were lit everyone is allowed to tuck-in particularly the children.
It is good to know that our guardian spirit is a man of station and that our camp is his old fort and we are glad - now that we know what they are - of the responsibilities this brings.
For those of us with a good imagination it is not too hard to conceive that with every King or General posted in Yonok, Ngeon Yang, Souvanhakhomkham or Chiang Saen (whatever they were calling the plots of land on both sides of the river that made up the city in those days) there was a Prince sent to guard the place where the Ruak and the Mekong meet - it is not too hard to see this as a place where history has been made, where every step we take is in the footsteps of old soldiers, monks, soothsayers and court fools, every hillock can become, in the fantasy of a slowly aging elephant boy, a defensive wall or an elephant gate.
When we first came to this valley in 2003 it had obviously been cleared and cultivated in the recent past but it was, to all intents and purposes, empty of all but some nasty mimosa thorn bushes which bade us wear boots and long trousers and a swamp in which I bogged a traction-less tractor in my impatience to see building started and my love of driving tractors.
When the team of local contractors arrived to build the houses they, as is always done, poured some whisky on the ground and built a small, make shift, spirit house (before pouring quite a lot more whisky down our throats at three thirty every afternoon when I went to check the progress).
Six months later the valley became a permanent dwelling to four elephants from Lampang and six mahouts from villages spread about the middle North, a more solid spirit house was required and installed by Lung Nan, mahout to Lawan, in the beginning all guests were called to worship there before embarking on a three day course, but that ritual fell by the wayside and no-one seemed to mind.
Times changed and life moved on, we moved from being a conceptual tourist camp to a thinking rescue charity - using our brains and scientific theories and thoughts to look after elephants that have trouble looking after themselves, bringing mahouts as well as elephants off the streets, renting rather than buying to ensure our actions don't put other elephants in danger - we started working within the Suay community based close to Surin, right up against the Khmer border.
As baby ex-street walking elephants arrived and their mahouts and families needed housing the old spirit house was moved, with permission gained in kam meuang - the Northern Thai language - to a new area at the entrance to the camp, overlooking the buffalo valley. The T.E.C.C. elephants went back to a nice life in the forests of Lampang taking their mahouts with them.
Aside from our few Galieng boys to look after the Chiang Mai ex-loggers, on this side of the hill, we became a predominantly Suay village, the ancient elephant catchers and carers with their unwritten language took over - we looked to them for guidance in matters spiritual and elephant and our celebrations and dedications became elephant based, ancient and in a language from far from here.
Fast forward a year or two and here we are in the middle of a dry wet season and a blue funk (whatever that may be), morale is raised, it seems, to be struck back down, we work on projects but progress is slow, the places we look for luck appear to have run out...
...and then, sometime last week, one of the last elephant catchers, the few left alive who went out on expeditions into Cambodia and elsewhere to bring in the wild elephants, a mahout monk in Surin is visited in a dream.
An ancient Prince, speaking slowly in a foreign tongue, describes our camp in detail, describes our setbacks and our problems. The Prince explains that he is Chao Wiangkum of the Chiang Rai dynasty whose encampment was in this very valley, that he lives in the spirit house and was happy it was moved, but that he is displeased with the way that he has been worshipped recently, he needs to eat food as befits his station and for someone to come and talk to him in kam meuang, the local Northern language.
Chao Wiangkum, in an effort to save us further displeasure, hands down a specific menu of his favourite foods, mien kam (a dish of Thai favourites self wrapped in betel leaves), khao chae (a formal dish of jasmine scented, iced rice and lovingly prepared condiments traditionally eaten in the hottest season), luckily these ancient high-society dishes are prepared either as specials or regularly by our hotel kitchen so they are not stumped. The prince also requires boiled bamboo shoots (the local speciality 'nor mai') eaten with prik nam poo (a slightly smelly black crab and chilli paste beloved of my mother-in-law) a roast chicken and some Burmese style cigarettes.
I take it as a sign that on the day we learned of our mix-up (we had assumed a commoner spirit and had been worshipping with pig's heads and homemade whisky) and took action to order the correct foods in this, the driest wet season we've known, at least 164mm (my rain guage filled up halfway through the night) fell in twelve hours catching up our yearly average.
...Chao Wiangkum's food is lovingly prepared by the Anantara kitchen and laid out...
...he had specifically asked for attention from Northern people (khun meuang) and so K. Egg and K. Rat were on hand, Nong Oum and Nong Pleum are not meuang, but who could object?..
Amp is also khun meuang and, being the most senior, presided and apologised on our behalf, K. Lord apologised in Suay - it was, after all, an honest mistake.
...after Chao Wiangkum had finished and his cigarettes were lit everyone is allowed to tuck-in particularly the children.
It is good to know that our guardian spirit is a man of station and that our camp is his old fort and we are glad - now that we know what they are - of the responsibilities this brings.
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