Sleepless in Phana

Loud music is a staple of life in Phana. In the still, traffic-free evenings, nights and even early mornings, sound travels across the open rice-fields unobstructed. Someone, somewhere is having a party of some sort most weekends. That is Fridays and Saturdays and into Sunday mornings. There are merit-making ceremonies of several kinds which entail relatives returning to Phana from all over Thailand. Because so many young and youngish Phana people live far away, in Bangkok and other urban centres, a party is called for whenever they return. Or they return whenever a party is going to be thrown.  I have got used to it and generally feel good that people are enjoying themselves. Sometimes I am there with them, though I tend to come home soon after the karaoke-type singing begins. I have never quite got used to the idea that so many people can get so much pleasure out of singing so badly, and that so many other people get so much non-judgemental pleasure out of listening to them doing so.

 

All that was until yesterday. Just up the road from us a family has been organizing this year's kathin at Wat Phra Lao. We had offered a donation early yesterday morning, but last night we made a much greater sacrifice. This truck parked in the road a little way up from our house:

 

 

Next to our gate (that's our gate, the green one bottom right) a large structure was being built:

 

And back down the road, next to our neighbour's house, the police had been busy too:

 

As dusk started to come on, the structure looked like this:

 

 

And from our side:

 

 

Needless to say, either side of the screen were two enormous banks of speakers. The guys putting all this together told me the films would start at 8 pm and finish at 3 am. They didn't say that they would have finished their building work by 6 pm and we would then be entertained by the loudest music in the world until the films began. But that is what happened.

We don't have glass in most of the windows of our house although there is some ornamental glass above the doors along the front. Sometimes the amplified bass from music a couple of kilometres away has caused the glass to reverberate. Coming from just 20 metres away, I am surprised it didn't shake out all the glass we have. It certainly resonated in my rib cage. I thought that things would get better once the first film started but the soundtrack of one of them (a horror story, I think) consisted mostly of piercing screams and loud bass grinding noises that I guess were spooky or something if you were in the right place -- about 20 kms away, perhaps.

Amazingly, at some point I did get to sleep. I was woken up at 2.45 am by the sudden silence! It was all over. Well, almost. The construction crew then worked for another few hours de-constructing it all and packing everything back into the truck.

The music of the kathin procession did not start until about 7.30 am by which time I was able to wave them off on their way to the wat, as is the custom. I have just learned that more than a hundred people sat on mats out in the road enjoying the films. Good for them. I guess it was an experience they will remember. I will too. Sorry I don't have photos of them enjoying themselves. Somehow I just wasn't in the mood by then.

  

 

Comments

[Mike]

Lawrence- there I was thinking I had a problem with my neighbour starting construction work at 5.30am!

Still not all bad news since the roof he constructed now deposites rain water into my garden......grrr!

[Lawrence]

Hi Mike
Well, you won't have to worry about the rain water for much longer. Early morning is the time for getting things done, isn't it. Hence I don't get much done!