Life in Phana

Visit Phana

VISIT PHANA was the theme of the community-based tourism that was on the agenda of the Amnat Charoen Provincial authorities earlier this year. Nothing much seems to have come of it so far, at least as far as the Provincial initiative goes. That may in part be due to the change in government. Not because a change in government necessarily results in the abandonment of all previous policies, but because budget allocations inevitably have to be looked at again in order to reassess priorities.

But in Phana itself some progress was made towards planning for community-based tourism. Perhaps it has taken a new direction, or at least a somehwat unexpected one, in that Don Chao Poo and the resident monkeys have become the focus; and the focus has been narrowed down further to the educational possibilities that they offer.

Another step towards community-based tourism in Phana has been the production of several leaflets, in English initially, but to be translated into Thai and possibly into Japanese.

Here is the content of the first leaflet.

VISIT PHANA 

THE TOWN OF FIELDS IN THE FOREST

Visit Phana and uncover the secrets of this little-known but historic and surprising town in the heart of Isan.

Phana just may be the best place you have never heard of!

Phana is famous for Phra Lao Thepnimit, the beautiful image in a 300-year-old temple: come and pay your respects.

 

Phana is famous, too, for the large tribe of long-tailed macaque monkeys in Don Chao Poo forest – come and feed them, or just sit and watch them.

 

But visit Phana and you can discover much more

Visit during one of the festivals – there is one every month, but the most lively is the Wat Phra Lao festival in February. Join the festivities at the temple. Take part in the bicycle rally around the town …

Come for the rocket festival in May. You can see the young women of Phana competing in traditional dancing as well as watch the firing of huge rockets.

Or Boun Pravet in March when the story of Buddha’s penultimate life is paraded on a banner and read in 13 chapters in a temple.

Or celebrate Loy Kratong at the big pond in Don Kwan village in November.

Visit on market days – Wednesday and Saturday mornings – but you must be up early as most of the action is between 6.30 and 8.00 a.m. The market meets again on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from about 4 – 6 p.m.

Come to Phana and eat gai yaang with som tam and sticky rice, or duck noodle soup, Korean BBQ perhaps.

Or a local speciality: Jao Hawn.

 

Visit the Traditional Medicine Centre for a massage or a sauna – or spoil yourself and have both!

Ask to see how traditional herbal  medicines are produced — and then buy some to ensure your health and comfort.

 

Hire a bicycle to visit the nearby villages. Watch weavers at work at their looms or dying thread; take a tuk-tuk to Ban Soi in Tambon  Chan Lan and see the complete process of silk production from mulberry leaf and silkworm raising to the finished cloth.

Take a picnic to Fai Rong Hin (the Model Agricultural Centre) in Tambon Phra Lao. Enjoy the quiet serenity and take a look at the livestock and find out how farmers are advised to adopt a more self-sufficient and sustainable style of farming.

 

Don’t forget to take a look at those fields in the forest.

 

 

Phana Garden Resort is waiting to welcome you.

Get to Phana by bus from Amnat Charoen or Ubon Ratchathani. Or take the a/c coach service from Bangkok to Khong Jiam.

But don't forget your destination:

Phana

Come on!

Surprise yourself

with an unforgettable visit.

Portraits from Phana

When I am in Phana I like taking portraits of people and I think I am getting better at it and the subjects seem to be getting more relaxed. Here are nine of my favourites. All the photos were shot in Phana, but two of the people had come from outside.

 

 

 

 
  

 

 

 

 
 

More than one way to make merit

There is more than one way to make merit, but in Thailand the most common way is to donate to a temple. Putting some money into a donation box is easy. Putting some money into an envelope and handing it to a monk is easy, too. Many people do one and/or the other frequently. But there are other ways to make merit by donating. In my last post, I wrote about people in the village of Ban Noen That donating land and money for the good of the community. And on our visit to Kalasin earlier this year, we came across a common form of donation: donating one's skill and labour.

We had called at Ban Sema village on our way to the provincial capital of Kalasin Province. Ban Sema is part of an ancient settlement known as Muang Fadaet Songyang, and the village gets its name from the large number of sandstone boundary markers (sema) found in Wat Pho Chai Semaram. The women in the picture above were weaving mats. The women on the right were doing the 'finishing' and were also in charge of sales.

 

 

 The materials seen here were almost certainly provided by people who purchased them for donation, but perhaps did not have the time or skill to make the mats. The materials are sourced locally and the skill is one which local people will have practised for a very long time. It's not a skill that is found uniquely here, of course, but often a village would supply mats or whatever within a limited area, perhaps exchanging their product for something produced in another nearby village. It is this tradition that OTOP (One Tambon One Product) is based on, although the success of OTOP relies on making products available to a wider market.

 

The mats are made for sale and the proceeds are ear-marked to pay for this structure where meditation practice will take place. Around the perimeter you can see sema in place. These are of plain sandstone. There are other larger ones with bas relief but those are kept in a covered space. Apparently people walk around where these plain ones are, practicing walking meditation I think, and the path gets very muddy in the rainy season. And so the concrete will make it easier to walk here at any time of year. 

 

This man is one of several who have also donated their labour and skill to building the structure. A monk invited me to donate a can of krating daeng to keep this man going. In the meantime, Pensri was demonstrating her bargaining skills. The mats were offered to her at 300 Baht each, so she took six for 2,000 Baht.

As I said, there is more than one way to make merit.

 

I think that sweeping leaves must be a major way to make merit for monks. If you visit almost any monastery in Isan there will be at least one monk sweeping the leaves. Morning or afternoon. I sometimes wonder whether the task is allocated as a penance. It is certainly an excellent reminder of the impermanence of any state.

 
 You can read more about Wat Po Chai Semaram HERE  on my other site, Isan Traveller.

 

 

Changing Isan Village

I am always fascinated to get insights into the way that villages in Isan work; what makes them tick and how they tick. Last year I posted HERE about the headman of Ban Noen That, and his part in helping to provide a house for someone in need of one. Following that post I discovered that a few houses had been provided or repaired in much the same way in Phana itself with the help of the tetsaban. One commenter on my post expressed the hope that no sign had been erected naming people who had made  donations. No such signs were erected either in Ban Noen That or in Phana. Everything was done very discreetly and without fuss. Just as it should be.

Earlier this year, a donation of land was made in Ban Noen That for the benefit of the community as a whole. In the picture on the left you can see the that  that gives the village its name. Inside are interred some of the ashes of Phana's most famous monk, Yakru (Phrakru in Thai) Boonma. Born in Phana in 1808, he ordained at 20 and went to study in Bangkok, the first person from Phana to do so. He studied at Wat Borwonives with the future Rama IV, King Mongkut. When Mongkut became King, he sent Boonma back to Isan to spread the practice of the new sect, Thammayut. Yakru Boonma died in 1871, aged 63.

 The that  you see above is a fairly recent building. Inside it is the original, which you can see below.

 

 

In this picture you can see the small sala where people of the village gather on certain ceremonial, festive or ritual occasions. Until recently, there was a house and its grounds on the space in the foreground.  The woman who owned this land has donated it to the village, the house has been dismantled, the ground cleared, filled and levelled.

A closer look at the sign makes clearer how this particular donation will work, although it doesn't explain everything. (CLICK on the image to get a bigger picture.) I will give you an approximate translation.

The top line invites people to join a public or communal pa ba, a donation ceremony.

The second line says that you join the pa ba by buying the land that has been offered to Luang Boo Tuat (Respected Great-Grandfather -- Yakru Boonma).

The third line suggests that you can be part of this merit-making donation by helping offering towards the purchase of the 555sq m land at 199 Baht per sq m.

Finally we are told where (in the sala) and when (12 April) the donation ceremony was to take place.

Now it may sound as if the woman who owned the land has not actually donated it; but she has, as far as the people of Ban Noen That are concerned. She has given up her house, that's for sure. The money raised by the donations (110,445 Baht if all are taken up) is to be spent on providing the woman with a new house on her farm some way outside the village, making use as far as possible of the material from her original house. 

So the village is changing. A new public space has appeared, and will no doubt be used for lots of dancing and the like. But the village is changing in another way, too, and this might sooner or later alter the nature of the community too. More and more people are moving out of the village and building houses on their farm land. Of course this is something we are familiar with in the west, but in Isan it has been the practice to cluster together in small villages and to walk  out to the farm when necessary. It is easier to get to the farms nowadays, by bicycle, motorbike, tak-tak, or pick-up. But it is also easier to get electricity and water supply to the farm, there is no danger from large wild animals, there is generally little likelihood of attack by bandits. And so on.  But it does mean fewer close neighbours (and more distant karaoke) and that must eventually lead to a diminished sense of community and an increased sense of individuality.

Politics is banned in Isan

 Here in Isan one man has banned politics. At least, he has forbidden all talk of politics on his farm.

  

You can see the large writing in red on the notice on the left of the picture above. It declares his farm a "Politics Free Zone". Underneath, in black, it warns that political talk is forbidden here. And thanks you for your consideration.

The owner of this farm visits it most mornings on his motorbike. I suppose he does a bit of farming before he goes off to school, because  he is a teacher at one of the primary schools in an outlying village. Pensri and I often see him when we are on our early-morning bike ride. He is a distant relative of Pensri and urged us to visit his farm sometime when we cycle past.

 

 

 

The dragon fruit cacti are the only crop he cultivates, but he has created much more than an orchard here. He clearly likes to spend leisure time in this peaceful spot just off the Phana by-pass.

 

He can entertain his friends sheltered from sun and rain. There are books here, a television set, refrigerator, cooking facilities, and so on. And outside the shelter there is more seating and picnic tables. I like the way that he has made use of a variety of furniture that has seen better days and probably been thrown out by his wife.

 

 

 

You can tell a lot about his character, I think, from this little oasis. It is rumoured that he won a fairly large sum on the lottery and spent it here. No Benz for him, but a place where he can relax with his friends, eating and drinking, and NOT talking about politics.

 

 

 

And if he wants to spend the night here, this little room looks very comfortable, and reminiscent of a monk's kuti.

 

Perhaps he is planning to add a door on this little building sometime. In the meantime, I suppose if a queue forms outside they can be distracted by the picture on the wall.

 

I am indebted to Wikipedia for unknowingly supplying me with the following picture and information about dragon fruit (Pitaya); in Thai แก้วมังกร, kaew mang korn.

 

Particularly red-skinned pitayas are a good source of Vitamin C.

Pitayas are rich in fiber and minerals, notably phosphorus and calcium. Red pitayas seem to be richer in the former, yellow ones in the latter.

The seeds are rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, and in particular Red Pitayas contain very little saturated fat.

Pitayas also contain significant quantities of phytoalbumin antioxidants, which prevent the formation of cancer-causing free radicals.

In Taiwan, diabetics use the fruit as a food substitute for rice and as a source of dietary fibre.

Pitaya supposedly increases excretion of heavy metal toxins and lowers cholesterol and blood pressure. Eaten regularly, it is credited with alleviating chronic respiratory tract ailments.

Who are you calling an ape?

Apes? Who gives a monkey's? Well, I do, for one.

The Tetsaban Phana website www.phanacity.com has this artist's impression of the planned study centre to be built in Don Chao Poo.  It looks good to me, but I am much less keen on an alternative design that features a large disney-like structure. We are hoping that the centre will be an educational resource as well as a fun place to visit. There is no reason to think that education and fun are mutually exclusive (though years spent in school might suggest that they are).

 

What worries me a little is that the series of pictures and drawings begin with the title "APE MUSEUM". Our monkeys are NOT apes. Apes have no tails. Ours have LONG tails. They are long-tailed macaques. I think everyone is agreed that the centre will contain exhibitions relating to monkeys other than macaques, and that will include apes. But while all apes are monkeys, not all monkeys are apes. 

Just before we left Thailand last month, Pensri and I visited Thailand's leading expert on primates, Professor Dr Suchinda Malaivijitnond, director of the Primate Research Centre at Chulalongkorn University. She had lots of good advice for us, and has agreed to take further part in the project to set up the centre. We mentioned to her that the Governor of Amnat Charoen felt that 'Primate' was not a word widely understood (hence the need for a study centre, in part) so he has suggested 'Ape' instead. Dr Suchinda agreed, but said that the best alternative to 'primate' would be 'monkey'. There is no problem with the Thai title, because as you can see above, it would translate as 'Monkey Museum'. So PLEASE, TETSABAN PHANA:  use the English word 'monkey' for the sake of accuracy.

Another academic, the first we got on board, is Dr Panee Wannitikul of Suranaree University of Technology, Korat. She suggested the name 'Centre for Monkey and Environment Studies'. She pointed out that in a conserved forest there will be plenty of other species (bird, amphibian, insect, plant, fish ...) that make this name appropriate and hopefully of interest to students of schools and universities.

Next week we have an appointment to see Dr Stephen Lea, Professor of Psychology at Exeter University. He specialises in animal behavior / animal social behaviour. His students study monkeys at a local zoo. We're hoping he can point us in the direction of useful audio-visual resources for exhibition. And we are hoping we can point him in the direction of some non-zoo monkeys in Phana. 

 

Political News from Phana

Thai politics and the election campaign came to Phana today in the form of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva. We learned this because we have one of Pensri's relatives staying with us in England at the moment. Her name is Prem, but not THAT Prem, of course. Prem telephoned her mother in Phana this morning. Her mother is rather deaf so she actually spoke to her brother and he said that their mother had not only met the Prime Minister at Wat Phra Lao this morning, but she had kissed him! This seems a very unusual step to take, perhaps especially for a 79-year-old woman, but politics is a strange game and anyone can play.

It seems that Khun Abhisit went to pay his respects at Wat Pra Lao and stayed to join others in offering lunch to the monks and eating with people of Phana in the sala garn parien. About a thousand people turned up to meet him apparently, although his visit was only announced by word of mouth more or less at the last minute for security reasons. But there was not a red shirt in sight, we were told.

Our friend Add offered Khun Abhisit a copy of Pensri's 'History of Phana', but he said he had already read it. Add should have known this because he was present when Pensri gave a copy for him to our local MP Suthat Ngernmuen last year, as you can read about HERE. But Add said that the PM had clearly "done his homework" as far as Phana and its history were concerned.

Parading the abbot

 Parades are an essential ingredient of many celebrations in Thailand and parading a monk when celebrating his promotion is no exception. When the lay people of Phana were celebrating the abbot of Wat Burapha's promotion to the rank of Phra Kru recently, a parade through the streets was the order of one of the days.

 

Dancing girls are an important ingredient. Here they are all wearing skirts woven in Phana to a traditional pattern.

The dancers are accompanied by this group of musicians:

 

Lay people follow the band, all smartly dressed and in exhuberant spirits. The umbrellas are to keep off the sun rather than the rain.

 

b 

The organisers were keen to involve the tetsaban officers and were insistent that they wore their white uniforms. Many social occasions in Phana are organised either by the wat committees or by the tetsaban; and as in this case, often both are involved together.

Here we have the mayor and his deputy seemingly glad to see me; or glad to see me taking their photograph, perhaps.

The small children amongst the onlookers got very excited when the mayor threw small coins wrapped in silver and gold paper into the crowd and there were wild scrambles to pick up the coins. 

Taking part in the parade or standing by and watching it go past -- both are seen as auspicious events, and the people of Phana make sure that they take advantage of as many occasions like this one as possible.

 

Promotion for our abbot

When a monk is promoted it is always a cause (or an excuse, possibly) for celebration in small rural communities in Thailand. This is especially so if the monk is an abbot. The date for the celebration is fixed well in advance to give everyone the chance to make all the necessary arrangements and preparations.

Promotion comes in several different forms. Most frequent, but not always especially celebrated, is when a monk passes a new level of Pali studies. Passing level three, for example, entitles a monk to be addressed with Phra Maha before his name. This is often as far as a monk will go in his Pali studies, and many do not get this far.

Being appointed an abbot is more of a cause for celebration. It is not necessary to be a Phra Maha to be an abbot, but a monk must have been ordained for at least five phansa (five rainy season retreats) before becoming an abbot. Abbots are often promoted to the rank of Phra Kru on the basis of their contribution to the development of their wat.

In the last few years Phana has celebrated several such promotions that I have been lucky enough to attend. The biggest occasion was when Phra Maha Samlee of the Wat in Sao Reek village was made Chao Kana Amphur, the senior monk of the amphur in admin terms. The abbot of Wat Don Kwan was promoted to Phra Kru and Phra Dit became abbot of Wat Phra Lao. And just a few weeks ago, Phra Maha Jantee of Wat Burapha was promoted to the rank of Phra Kru. At the same time, he was given a new name, but I think for a long time to come I will only remember the one I have known him by for the last few years.

The two days of celebration at Wat Burapha were advertised widely. This banner was at the end of the road leading to the wat.

 

In the wat compound marquees were set up, vehicles decorated, and the donations book prrepared:

A traditional Isan suk kwan had been arranged...

 

... and the car that the abbot would be paraded in was got ready:

 

A special shrine table was set up to commemorate the three abbots who preceded Phra Maha Jantee:

 Phra Maha Jantee was supervising the preparations although the abbots of Wat Phra Lao and Wat Don Kwan, both very senior in terms of the phansa they have spent in the robes, were in overall charge and did a fine job on behalf of their fellow abbot.

 

These pictures were taken the day before the celebratory procession which I will post pictures of in my next post.

 

A Possibly Revealing Anecdote

Life in Phana sometimes seems like an empty bucket; but interesting, all the same. I mentioned in my previous post that Pensri’s friend and childhood carer, Yai Air, was waiting for her step-son to come home with a bucketful of … cashew nuts. He didn’t.

When asked why not, he replied that when he got to the field he saw a neighbour harvesting some of the cashew nuts. (That’s STEALING, by the way.)

Yai Air asked whether he confronted her, or chased her away.

No, he didn’t. He didn’t want to embarrass her.

I think this tells us a lot about village attitudes to property, but even more about the importance of maintaining friendly, neighbourly relations.

(Having said that, our stay in Phana this time has also revealed some fairly unfriendly neighbourly behaviour. But given the importance I mentioned above, I will say no more about that, for the time being, anyway. But it seems only fair to acknowledge that not everything in the garden is lovely.)

(It has also occurred to me that he did not want to call out, "Get your hands off my step-mother's ... cashew nuts!" -- see my previous post, if you have not yet read it. NB there is no distinction between singular and plural noun forms in Thai or Lao.)