Who stands up for the trees?

A sacred tree with a spirit house outside my condo

Many pretty trees dot a vacant plot of land next to my condo.

A developer bought the land from a bank recently and is now clearing it for sale. He has hired a gang of Esan (northeastern) labourers to prepare the land.

In recent months they have removed slum houses which made incursions on the property while it was still owned by the bank.

They are now putting up a wall along the property, and I notice have chopped down at least one tree.

Residents have erected spirit houses on the property, sprinkled amid 20 large trees.

‘They won’t dare remove the biggest trees until they have asked for the spirits’ blessing,’ one slum resident told me.

‘They will have to invite monks, and perform a proper ceremony.’

Once the ceremony is performed, the owner will be free to cut down the trees, unless residents protest.

Mr P, a security guard who works at the condo and hails from Esan, says Thais believe spirits inhabit the trees, and that ill-fate will fall on anyone who does them harm.

We counted 18 largish trees on the property. They include banyan and bodhi trees, among the most revered for Thais.

Residents have put up spirit houses among the trees, or wrapped cloth around the base of the trunks to signify their importance.

I have befriended the Esan family of three labourers hired to prepare the land for sale.

Mother, father and teenage son have been working on the site for the past couple of months, and tell me they have another few months to go before their duties here are done.

They have built tin shacks for themselves at the far end of the property, which are connected to electricity, even if they lack proper showers or washing facilities.

Occasionally they are joined by workers from outside, who dump soil, and bring in diggers to clear obstacles away.

‘Where have you been? We haven’t seen you for a few days,’ the mother asked me.

'I have been tied up with work,' I said.

They were filling cement foundations for a wall, which they will build alongside an existing one to keep out the slum.

I did not mention the fate of the trees, as I don't want to add to the family's burdens. They are already on the outer with slum residents after they attempted to erect a wall blocking access to the slum along a road which runs alongside the rear of my condo.

The residents in the picture below have erected a table to sell food at the entrance to the slum where the wall used to sit.

Young people from the slum took down the wall in the dead of night, barely hours after it went up.

Slum residents protested about the wall to the local body office, which says it will oppose any further attempts by the owner to erect barriers there.

The road is supposed to serve as an accessway for emergency vehicles in the event of a slum fire. If it is blocked, they cannot get in.

The family of labourers is returning to their home in Kalasin province for a few days next month for the Songkran  festival. Otherwise, their lives as itinerant workers in Bangkok are quiet.

‘If our pay comes out, we might visit the department store for a walk, or buy food in the local market. However, we hardly ever leave the site, and know nobody here,’ the mother said.

Being generous Thais, they invited me to join them on their trip back home to Kalasin to celebrate Songkran.

I declined, as I am busy with work.

PS: A week ago I said I would try writing daily posts. Seven posts later, I need a rest. I will now go back to posting once every few days.

We don't do dried food, mister

Chef Maiyuu knows the way to his boyfriend’s heart is through his...dog.

We have adopted a dog which has taken up residence outside our condo building.

Jao Khao, like many stray Thai dogs, is shy, subservient, and takes fright at the slightest noise. She also knows her food.

Last week, I suggested Maiyuu might like to buy some dog pellets for Jao Khao on his next visit to the supermarket.

Normally I buy Jao Khao and another stray dog around here fried sausages, which I obtain from a woman in the slum.

On the days when she is closed, however, Jao Khao has to go without. He must rely on other residents in the condo to feed him snacks, or go hungry.

Maiyuu, however, knows what Thai dogs like.

‘He’s a stray...they only eat human food,’ he said.

Here is a dish which Maiyuu prepared for Jao Khao the other day...a mixture of boiled rice, Esan sausage, and fish.

When I took it outside, Jao Khao was her usual bashful self. She will not eat if she thinks I am looking, as it is impolite.

But when I turned my head to give him some privacy, she tucked in to the meal, and had polished it off in half a minute.

By day, Jao Khao (named after the colour of her coat – in Thai, khao is white) she shepherds people around the inside of the condo precinct.

She also circles cars when they enter, to give them a quick once-over before they proceed to the security guard’s kiosk.

Our condo, which faces a well-to-do part of town on one side, and a slum on the other, is home to many stray dogs.

They have divided up the territory between themselves and for the most part get along well.

Jao Khao arrived a few months ago. She wears a collar, and is comfortable around people, which makes me suspect that she once had an owner.

Jao Khao is a huge hit with the residents, perhaps because of her winsome crooked smile (she has protruding teeth).

She also has an appealing furrowed brow, and lopsided ears.

‘She is a real softy,’ a middle-aged farang told me the other day, when he saw the two of us at play.

‘She never stops smiling.’

A foreigner in his 20s, the son of a European ambassador, has also taken a shine to the dog.

‘She is really in touch with her feelings,’ he remarked.

She sleeps out of sight in the shrubs along the side of the building. When it is cold or wet, she shivers, but I dare not arrange a permanent sleeping space for her, for fear of upsetting the people who run this place.

We have more than enough stray dogs hanging around as it is.

Jao Khao likes to be useful.

She escorts her favourite patrons to the carpark building at the far end, or wherever else they happen to be heading...as long as it does not intrude in the territory marked out by other dogs.

One day, she strayed too far into a zone occupied by three or four dogs from the same family which used to live in a specially built doghouse on a vacant lot.

The land, which runs along one side of the condo complex, was once owned by a bank.

It has now changed hands. The developer owner, who wants to turn it into housing, has hired a family from Esan to start clearing it.

Recently they dismantled the dog house, built by a man who lives in this condo complex.

It had its own fence, palm trees, even an electricity supply, and in its heyday was home to more than half a dozen stray dogs which he collected from the vacant lot.

Now that the dog house is no more, some of the dogs who once lived there have taken to sitting outside the owner’s condo building, growling at passers-by.

The day when Jao Khao strayed into their turf, she was escorting me to the carpark.

Three of the dog-house mutts chased her, cornered her down a narrow pathway, and looked set to attack.

Jao Khao, who is a submissive type, quickly gave up the fight. She rolled on to her back, in the hope they would show some mercy.

I didn’t wait to see what happened next. I shouted at the dogs, and kicked the nastiest of the mutts so hard it almost went into orbit.

They haven’t tangled with Jao Khao again – but nor is she silly enough, any more, to leave her own patch.

Jao Khao is safe with us, and with us, our dog shall stay.

Teeth? Who needs 'em?

Do dentists actually like teeth?

The Thais I know rarely think twice about getting a tooth pulled, if alternative ways to treat a problem are more expensive.

If an extraction is cheaper than a filling (never mind more complicated work, such as a crown, or bridge),Thais will opt to have the tooth come out every time.

Once, I thought dentists were fighting a rearguard action against such trends, trying to persuade Thais to keep their teeth in, rather than pull them out, as teeth are intrinsically a good thing to have. They look good in the mouth, and help us eat.

No longer. At the dentist’s the other day, where I underwent a 90-minute operation to have pulled a wisdom tooth on my bottom right side, the dentist proposed that I might like to get its opposite number, on the top row, pulled as well.

‘If you don’t, the partner of the tooth you pull today will come down looking for its mate. It needs to have something to grind against when you eat. Once you take out the bottom one, the top one will start getting restless. In the end you will have trouble eating,’ the dentist explained.

The dentist who performed the surgery, a jovial man in his 30s who likes to sing while he works, is a specialist. My regular dentist asked me to come to him instead as the tooth looked too difficult for him to extract alone.

The job took much longer than expected. When we started, as he started sticking his implements in my mouth, he quoted me B500 for the job.

Five minutes later, when he caught a glimpse of the challenge which lay ahead - but still before the full horror was revealed in an x-ray - that price had doubled to B1,000.

By the time the last of my tooth was extracted, in a procedure best likened to a builder trying to prise a rusted nail out of an old plank of wood, the cost was B3,000.

That’s three times what my regular dentist quoted for a 'difficult' wisdom tooth extraction – but then no one, it seems, foresaw just how challenging it would be.

And here they were, asking me to take out the top tooth as well.

The specialist dentist looked exhausted when the last of my tooth – a small fragment, but curved up at the end, which made it almost impossible to dislodge - finally agreed to come out.

He took off his mask, wiped his brow, and leant on a table for support.

Earlier, as he poked around in my mouth, with two assistants applying suction and handing him tools, he asked why I didn’t have the tooth treated earlier.

‘If it was me, I would have pulled it out at the first opportunity,’ he said.

A dental nurse was just as keen on my having the top one out.

‘You might have six months, or a year, before you have to do something about the partner tooth,’ she told me.

She’s had her wisdom teeth, along with their partner teeth, extracted, as she doesn’t want her teeth doing peculiar things. She also wears braces, to close gaps between her teeth.

‘I extracted them at the same time – you can get the pain over and done with on the same day,’ she added.

I declined. ‘I like teeth, and don’t like having them pulled unless it’s absolutely necessary,’ I told her.

The singing specialist wants to see me again to check his handywork. He has given me three bags of pills to take, including painkillers and antibiotics.

Even with his singing to relieve my (or his own?) stress, and many injections to numb the pain, I felt awful.

The whole business was so painful and unpleasant, the top one can just wait.

Pretty guy pops up at rat tent

My slum friend Pong was making a noisy spectacle of herself.

Farang T and I dropped in to the rat tent for a quick beer after work.

Pong was seated at a rickety table with colleagues from her own workplace, an oil storage depot down the road.

She was the only woman in a group of five or six people, but made more noise than anyone else.

‘She likes being the centre of attention,’ I told farang T.

When we arrived, Pong promptly left her table and took a seat in front of me. She stretched out her hand, and asked me why I missed her birthday the day before.

‘I am sorry...I mixed up the days,’ I said, which was true.

Why the outstretched hand? Pong wanted a birthday present.

‘I didn’t buy you one, as I thought your birthday was next week,’ I said.

Pong and I have only recently met. She has no right to expect a birthday present, still less that I would shout her to a sushi meal at a restaurant - her other bright idea for celebrating her birthday, which she put to me the week before.

‘We have only known each other two weeks, and I have a partner. I can’t take you anywhere,’ I told her bluntly.

On the night we visited, Bangkok was gripped by unseasonably cold weather, so at least we had something to talk about.

Pong was sitting next to a pretty young man, who smiled at me, and offered comments about the weather.

'Is it this cold in your home country?' he asked.

He must have felt sorry for me, as I sat shivering, with my arms wrapped around my chest.

Pong introduced us, but I can’t remember the young man's name. I doubt he was gay, but he was great to watch anyway.

As I left, I rubbed his bare leg, and asked why he wasn't in bed. He was munching on a stick of corn, some of which attached itself to his mouth.

I wiped my own face, so he would get the message to clean his mouth. He laughed shyly, as if he knew I was showing more interest in him that a stranger really ought.

Back at home, I toyed with the idea of sending Pong a text message asking about her young friend.

I decided against. She could turn my text message into a gossipy conversation piece, which would give her friends at the table a good laugh.

I wouldn’t mind that, but she might also resent the fact I am showing more interest in the young man than I am in her.

One of her older friends, a grizzly guy in his 40s, knew immediately what I was about. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ he asked, moments after setting eyes on me.

I am not sure if Pong has figured it out yet. Or maybe, as she presents her male work friends for my inspection, she is just waiting for me to ask.

Sleepy visit back to the market

A long-tailed boat speeding down the canal

Life in the Thon Buri market where Maiyuu and I lived until 18 months ago is a sleepy affair.

I travelled there by bus the other day, my second visit in a week to see the dentist. 

A canal passes through the town, known as Talad Phlu. It is one of the oldest residential areas in the city, going back more than 230 years.

Once, it was home to a thriving goods and fresh market run by Chinese traders.

Every day, hundreds of trading boats passed this way, or docked at tiny wharves dotting the rim of the canal.

Today, the pace of life has slowed. Villagers in straw hats, hawking anything from home-made goods to cold beers paddle lazily across the canal on small square boats with a raised front.

They look like midget versions of the boats found at floating markets. The villagers are waiting for tourists in long-tailed boats - probably the biggest remaining source of commerce on the canal - to pass by on sight-seeing trips from the city.

Most long-tailed boats slow down to let the traders come alongside.The traders paddle across from the river banks and meet the long-tailed boats in the middle of the canal. They offer tourists drinks and snacks. When their transaction is complete, the traders push themselves away from the bigger boats, and the tourists carry on with their journey.

Trader selling food from his boat

Once, when we lived at this market, I took myself down to the canal daily to look at its sights.

While some long-tailed boats take their time, letting the tourists who hire them soak up the sights, others roar past.

I watched as youngsters playing about in the brown water perched themselves on a cement pole in middle of the canal. When the speedier tourist boats swept past, throwing up plumes of water in their wake, they gave their farang occupants the thumbs up.

Nearby, old men slept by the canal edge on green wooden seats.

Shortly before we left, workers from the local body office landscaped the canal area, and put up signs, in English and Thai, explaining the market’s origins.

Talad Phlu pier

The Chinese traders who carried out their business in those olden times settled locally, on the banks of the Bangkok Yai, or Bang Luang, canal.

When the capital city moved from Thon Buri across the Chao Phraya River to Bangkok in 1782, many of the Chinese re-settled to the Sampeng and Yaowarat areas.

Muslims took their place, and grew and farmed betel trees.

Today no betel trees remain. Nor do many traders visit, but for those villagers on small boats selling goods to tourists.

One exception is an ice-cream seller, a man in his 60s with a brown, leathery face who I remember from the days we lived here.

His boat has a small outboard motor. He sits under a large umbrella, with large aluminium tubs of home-made ice-cream by his side.

The man putt-putts about, criss-crossing the canal as he rings a bell to attract the attention of canalside folk in need of an ice-cream to cool them down. If you live by the canal, he will pull right up by your home while he fills you a cone.

The betel traders may have gone, though the market's Muslim influence remains, and the market can still pull visitors from town.

Left, above: Scenes from a Muslim food festival

Today, it is famous mainly for its traditional Thai desserts. Maiyuu used to send me on errands to these old sweet shops when he wanted a taste of their famous pumpkin custard, or perhaps their foi thong (sweet shredded egg yolk).

Right, above: Thai-style desserts

Some of the traders have been here for years. Few, however, can boast the staying power of local restaurant Mee Krob Jeen Lee, which dates from the time of King Rama V, more than 120 years ago.

One of the better known dessert shops, on the right

Moo Krob Jeen Lee restaurant

It is popular with middle-class women of Chinese descent, who travel down the river from Bangkok for a leisurely lunch.

As I watched, 15 or so women finished up their meal at the restaurant, and tottered back to their waiting ferry.

Before I saw the dentist, I also dropped in to a shophouse where I used to buy my alcohol supply.

The middle-aged woman who runs it was absent, but I spoke to her children, who remembered me.

Her daughter, aged 20, was a student at a local school last time I saw her, but now travels into town to attend university. She and her younger brother were minding shop.

'I have an aunt in the US. I would like to apply for a visa and visit her,' she said.

The shop sits alongside a railway line, which in turn runs alongside the condo where Maiyuu and I lived for more than eight years.

So many times, I longed for the railway to close, as it was a constant source of irritation and noise.

The railway, however, is as much a part of this place as the canal and even the market itself. In the end, it outlasted me.

Talad Phlu railway station