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.

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.

Community-Based Tourism

I am not sure I fully understand what the Thai Tourism Authority understands by Community-Based Tourism. But Amnat Charoen is one of two provinces (the other is in the south of Thailand) that is going to run a CBT pilot project. I need to understand what is meant because I have been co-opted onto the Provincial committee that is to draw up plans for the different amphur in the province. My job is to 'collect data'. I wasn't at the original committee meeting (though Pensri is one of the Phana representatives and she was there) so I can interpret data collection pretty much as I please, I think.

Tourists already come to Phana, almost all of them Thais coming from other parts of the country. They  visit Wat Phra Lao and sometimes Don Chao Poo Forest Park. On average, they spend no more than 30 minutes in Phana before getting back into their big tour bus or private car and heading off to the next stop on their itinerary.

These tourists are in no way based in our community. They donate to the wat, no doubt, and those going to Don Chao Poo purchase some food (not necessarily appropriate food) for the monkeys there. But Phana gains little or nothing from their visit

What I have done so far is produced  a document outlining what Amphur Phana has to offer to tourists so that they might spend more time here and provide some income-generating opportunities for Phana people.

SITES TOURISTS COULD VISIT IN AMPHUR PHANA

• Wat Phra Lao -- 300-year-old temple and famous Buddha image
• Wat Ban I-Keng -- attractive wat in a nearby village 
• Wat Ban Sao-Ree --village wat with school for novices 12 - 18 years old
• Wat Don Kwan --new(ish) wat in Tambon Phana; largest black Buddha image in Isan; 2nd tallest Phra That under construction
• Don Chao Poo Forest Park -- Buddha images, Chao Poo shrine, monkeys
• Weaving groups: Ban Phana, Ban Pathum Kaew; Ban Soi (silk production from mulberry leaves to cloth)
• Traditional Medicine Centre: Traditional Massage (treatment and training); herbal medicine production and sales
•  Model Agricultural Centre, at Fai Rong Hin, Phra Lao Municipality
•  School visit(s)
•  Noodle-shops and restaurants

ACCOMMODATION: at Phana Garden Resort

INCOME-GENERATING OPPORTUNITIES: Phana Garden Resort, Noodle-shops and Restaurants, Taxi and bus services, Hire of bicycles, Purchase of woven products, Purchase of herbal medicines, Purchase of traditional massage services, Invitations to donate for site visits:

REQUIREMENTS BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION:

• “Come to Phana” brochure produced, in Thai and in English

• “Come to Phana” brochure to be made available at TAT offices in Amnat Charoen, Ubon Ratchathani, Yassothon, Si Sa Ket, Bangkok, etc. And on TAT web-site.

• Production of bi-lingual informational guide leaflets to individual sites; to be made available at the sites, and at Phana Garden Resort, Amphur Offices, Tetsaban offices and OPT offices

• Production of map of Phana district showing facilities, routes and distances; to be made available as guide leaflets above

• English-language menus compiled and made available in noodle-shops and restaurants

• Purchase of bicycles for hire; to be made available at a central location where they are easily available and can be checked for repair, etc. (eg Tetsaban Phana IT Centre at the Old Market)

I suspect that 'Home-Stay' might be part of the TAT definition of CBT, but to me there seems little point in  making all the arrangements that would entail until it becomes clear that there is demand for it from tourists. It would be different if there were not already somewhere to stay. But a visit I recently made to a 'Cultural Village' in Kalasin Province suggests that what might be envisaged is putting on some sort of  cultural performance for large groups of tourists who would be put up in village homes. But this means inspecting and certifying the homes, and preparing to entertain groups which might never materialise. That seems to me a recipe for disillusionment and cynicism. To be fair, at the village in Kalasin it did seem to be working to a certain extent, but that is down to the village being entirely populated by an ethnic group that is sufficiently 'different' to create interest, and whose culture is sufficiently well-maintained that there is likely to be little about it that is specially put on for tourists. I am not sure that Amphur Phana is sufficiently different in that respect, but it does have enough to interest someone for a stay of, say, two days. We shall see what, if anything, comes of this initiative.

 

(No photos with this post, but I expect to be posting about the various sites as I go about 'collecting data'.)

Making History in Phana

Phana has just celebrated the third-month festival which is the annual festival for Wat Phra Lao. This year was a bit special because it is three hundred years since villagers began building the wat. The exhibition of words and pictures to mark the 300-year history of Phana (see my previous post) was visited by hundreds of people during the three days of the festival and many of them recorded complimentary comments on the boards we  provided.

Several people had also suggested that Phana could hold a bicycle rally (the first ever in Phana, although the Tour de Thailand came through a couple of years ago) and the idea was taken up enthusiastically by the director of Phana Hospital, Dr Pathompong Prupong and by the District Officer (Nai Amphur -- นายอำเภอ). A committee was formed that included them both together with people from Tetsaban Phana and Tetsaban Phra Lao plus Pensri, who was to combine the rally with the celebration of the 300th anniversary. The result was a rally that informed people of the story behind several sites in Phana and involved the collection of little snippets of information, some fun activities, some cultural activities -- and some traditional hospitality.

The rally was well advertised, by word of mouth to begin with, but posters appeared shortly before the big day.

Hundreds of people turned up and everyone had to register and be issued with a T-shirt, a 'passport' / question-sheet, an official entrance number to pin on the T-shirt and a leaflet outlining the aims of the rally and so on.

Who said Thais can't form an orderly queue?

I was a little startled to find this professional-looking competitor, but beneath it all was Acharn Kanok, retired teacher. Did he think fancy dress was required?

There was no fancy dress category, in fact, but there was a lot to compete for, including some impressive-looking trophies and cash prizes of Baht 2,500, 2,000 and 1,500.

These students from Phanasuksa School gave us some historical information (in Thai and English) relating to Don Chao Poo, where the rally was gathering and preparing to start.

 

People were getting a little impatient to get going, but naturally there were also some official opening speeches to hear first.

But finally the rally began, with small groups setting off at about 10-minute intervals.

Some people had an easier ride than others:

The monkeys of Don Chao Poo had been given a fruit and nuts banquet before the rally began, probably as compensation for so many people invading their territory so early in the morning. There were  lots of security men to make sure none of us got run over by  bigger vehicles. The organisers had also  provided helpful signs like this one to make sure nobody got lost or missed a checkpoint. I love the rally logo.

At several points along the route people had set up refreshment stops such as this one, offering much-needed liquid and some food, too. I saw several people trying to pay, but this was offered freely.

 

When riders reached a check-point they had to present their passport for stamping ...

 

and here at Wat Don Khual they had to take part in this activity and have their score recorded. Who would cheat under such watchful eyes? I was told that I would have to 'play hula hoop' here so I was pretty relieved to find I only had to throw a rubber ring. At two wats we got a stamp for going to 'wai phra' and at Wat Phra Lao everyone visited the exhibition.

 

 At Wat Burapha these young guides from Samaraki School told us about the history of this wat, the second oldest in Phana.

 

On leaving this wat, we were issued with a plastic bag containing a bottle of water and a straw, and three banana-leaf packages containing sticky rice, a chicken leg and some beef, and some chilli sauce. This was provided free by the organisers, Changwat, Amphur or Tetsaban funds, I'm not sure which.

 

Then it was out onto the open road again. The route took us behind the village along this track used to get to some of the rice fields. The gentleman you see here was the oldest rider, 76 years old, I am told.

 

The Phana Thai Traditional Medicine Centre was the last stop before we doubled back to the Amphur Office (ที่ว่าการอำเภอ) for the finish. The Mediicine Centre doesn't usually provide live music but a specially-composed mor lam about the rally was sung and played, and riders with any energy left were invited to dance ...
 

... or to watch these men at work on traditional crafts ...

 

... or invited to drink some of the herbal tea produced here.

 

Finally, after what was a fairly short ride but a very long day (what with the passport checking, finding clues, taking part in activities, taking refreshments and so on) I made it through the finishing arch with my team.

 

But it was this young man who claimed first prize in the individual event for youngsters, and his obvious pride in his achievement will make sure he remembers the day that he and Phana made history together in the first ever Phana Bicycle Rally.

 

My thanks go to Tetsaban Phana and their photographer on the day, Mr Tong, for allowing me to use their pictures.

Preparing for the third month festival

Here in Isan we celebrate each of the twelve-month festivals. The third-month festival runs from 16 to 18 February and it is the festival reserved in Phana for Wat Phra Lao. This year Phana is also celebrating 300 years of the founding of the wat. Pensri has arranged an exhibition illustrating the history and we have spent several weeks putting together the words and pictures with the help of two young friends. Today we set it up in the old sala, which is generally only used now as a store-room. There is a bit more to do tomorrow, such as installing two TV sets to show the video of the Phana 300 Years which was celebrated three years ago.

There are twelve of these panels. Panel 10 seen here is concerned with education, started in Phana by the famous monk Chao Khun Ubali, who founded the first primary schools in Ubon (1897) and Phana (1898). His photo is at the top of the panel. Panel 11 relates the story of the development of Don Chao Poo Forest Park.

 
The wat committee lent us the banner recounting the story of Pravet, which we have draped around the inside of the old sala, partly because it looks so good but also to disguise some of the dustier corners of the building. Here are a couple of scenes from the story:

Wat Phra Lao itself, especially the area around the ubosot, is also being prepared for the festival, which will begin on Wednesday evening with a somphot ceremony during which lay men and women who have taken the eight precepts and are dressed in white will alternate in chanting throughout the night. They chant 108 repetitions of the 'Reflection on the Triple Gem' which itself contains 108 words, 38 referring to the Buddha, 14 to the Dhamma and 56 to the sangha. The chanting is arranged so that each group chants 12 repetitions with 9 intervals. Throughout this, a series of four specially-trained monks who have been ordained for more than 5 years, will chant something else inside the ubosot while a very senior monk will meditate throughout the entire proceedings.

Here are some of the images waiting to be 'sacrilized' by the ceremony:

and some of the decoration:

but the window decoration is my favourite:

This year, for the first time, there will be a bicycle rally on the morning of 16th. It will be a 'tour' of nine significant places in Phana, starting at Don Chao Poo (where the monkeys will also be given a ceremonial breakfast) and ending at the Amphur Office.  Participants will be expected to answer some questions on the history of Phana as well as performing some 'activities' (singing and dancing?) at some of the check-points. Personally, I am not convinced as to the sanuk-ness of this last bit. But I am looking forward to the three days of festivities, possibly even including one or more of these, currently being advertised in the wat compound:

 I hope to bring you more pictures of the festival when it is all over.

The Abbot Surprised Us

When we went to our nearest temple, Wat Phra Lao, to invite the abbot to the family tam boun which is coming up on Saturday, he surprised us considerably. He ordained when he was 20 years old and has been a monk for 39 years now. The first time I met him as far as I can recall was in 1994. He was very friendly and was keen to talk with me about football, particularly the World Cup which had just been played. His hero, if monk's can have a hero, was Roberto Baggio. At the time I thought that just a little odd since I hadn't expected monks to be following the World Cup and also Baggio's missed penalty had meant that Brazil beat Italy in the final.. Later I learned that Baggio was normally an outstanding goal-scorer and also a Buddhist.

Now this monk, a local man with many relatives in Phana, has spent all his time as a monk at Wat Phra Lao. He has been acting-abbot on two occasions, the first lasting many years while the abbot was incapacitated by long-term illness. Most people assumed that he would become abbot when the time came to appoint a new one, but he did not. And that experience looked like being repeated last year. It seems that the Sangha hierarchy felt that a famous temple as Wat Phra Lao is should have as abbot someone 'learned' and with 'vision'. 'Vision' is usually a synonym for development in the form of new buildings but this monk was known to not wish to change the character of the wat.  A monk favoured by the hierarchy visited in anticipation of becoming the abbot but local people rebelled. I have heard that some said they would refuse to feed him. So a victory for local power, I think.

So when we got to Wat Phra Lao to formally deliver our invitation, we were surprised to find this abbot, not known for his learning, sitting outside his kuti (the one he has occupied for many years, not the official abbot's kuti) doing some writing on small strips of green bamboo. He was writing in the ancient aksorn khom,  a Khmer script that is considered to have sacred and magical properties.

 

 

 

Here are the implements he had on his work table:

and the preparations he had made earlier:

The finished product looked like these:

These strips of bamboo will one day be regarded as having magical properties of some sort, probably only after they have been 'sacrilized' through a somphot ceremony. Writing such as this is often found on small pieces of metal and is highly prized if it is either very old or associated with a famous monk. Wat Phra Lao will be holding such a ceremony on the eve of the annual temple festival in February as they have done for the last few years. You can read something about last year's ceremony HERE .

The abbot also did some writing on his white board, to show the difference and some similarity between the aksorn khom and the Thai script.

It seems that the abbot has taught himself to read and write the script, and also aksorn tham, the script used for religious purposes in Lanna and Laos in years gone by. This script is thought of here as being of more religious significance because it was what was used in the temples, and what the monks learned. But the Khmer script is thought to have more magical potency. Here is a photo of a few pages of the aksorn tham that are in a palm-leaf book that Pensri inherited from her father:

Thai Ladies who Lunch

Everyday, in small towns and villages throughout Thailand, there are people (almost all of them women) who take food to the monks in their local wat. Often the monk is a relative, but not always. I knew a woman who took lunch to her brother every day he was 'at home' in the wat for more than 60 years. She never married and you could say she dedicated her life to her brother and his calling to the monkhood. He died last year, aged well over 80, and his sister survived him for less than 6 months. That is what you would call true dedication.

Here are a few photos I took on a couple of visits to the wat nearest to our house, the famous Wat Phra Lao Thepnimit, home to the beautiful image of Phra Lao. These first three pictures were taken of women who had not been told that the monks they had come to offer lunch had all gone out and were being offered food elsewhere. I must say these two women took the news very well. I suppose they ate what they had brought.

They were soon joined by three more women who posed a bit more formally:

 

This latecomer seemed quite pleased to find that her journey (a short one, she lives almost next to the wat) was a wasted one:

 

And this grandmother is able to discharge more than one responsibility at the same time:

 

This last picture was taken on a happier day, when the abbot was at his kuti and able to accept the offerings and then sit and talk with his supporters while they ate their lunch:

 
 

 

 

Isan Dancing in Phana

Last week I posted seven pictures of dancers as my Pic of the Day. Then on Saturday Pensri called our friend Adt in Phana and it turned out that he was at Wat Phra Lao watching the dancing competition that is part of the annual celebration of Boun Bang Fai (the rocket festival) organised by the tetsaban.

 

 

 

 

 The dancer here (in Don Chao Poo) is A. Pensri rang her, too, on Saturday, to find out if her new baby had been born yet. He had. Her second child and second son. So no dancing for her at Boun Bang Fai, but some family celebrations, I hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two dancers had been performing at the Phana 300 Years celebration at Wat Phra Lao.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These next four photos are of dancers at Wat Phra Lao, taking part in the inter-mooban competition as part of the Boun Bang Fai celebrations a few years ago. The tetsaban organises these events and sponsors them by providing funds to each mooban as part of the tetsaban cultural promotion policy.

 

 

 

 

The dancers love all the dressing up and spend a lot of time rehearsing for the big event. My impression is that the young (and not so young) men love watching, and lots of them turn up in the evenings to watch the rehearsals as well as supporting their mooban on the day of the competition.

 

 

 

 

 

As well as dancing in the grounds of Wat Phra Lao, the dancers, accompanied by their bands, dance in a procession around Phana.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this is what we were missing last Saturday. Not to mention the firing of rockets the following day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This photo was taken at another tetsaban-sponsored event.The two volunteers had just danced with girls from Phana Suksa School, but I forget the occasion. It doesn't need much to get the young women of Phana dancing.

 

 

 

And by another coincidence, these two volunteers, Sophie and Callie were back in Phana as visitors (they were last years' volunteers) and watching the dancing with Adt when Pensri phoned.

 

Not all the dancing that people do in Phana is as choreographed and rehearsed as this. Here are two very short videos I shot of much more extemporary dancing. This first one was at Phana Suksa School while some teachers and students were preparing for a Kathin ceremony.

 

And this one was shot at Wat Burapha in Phana, again while people were preparing for a Kathin ceremony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boun Pravet: hearing the great story

The day after the parade from Don Chao Poo is the climax of the Boun Pravet fesival as it is celebrated in Phana. Calling Phra Uppakrut was a necessary precaution and gathering in the forest and walking back to the wat in procession was good fun, but the following day spent in Wat Phra Lao is an important way to make merit.

When the lay people assemble in the viharn early in the morning they listen to a sermon telling of how Phra Malai visited first the different hells and then the heavens. In one of the heavens he is said to have met the future Buddha, Ariya Maitreya, who assured Phra Malai that anyone who heard all thirteen chapters of the great story of Prince Vessandorn in one day would certainly meet the future Buddha.

More sermons follow, read from palm-leaf books. One tells of the Buddha's renunciation of the life of a king and one tells of the tricks that Mara resorted to in trying to prevent the Buddha's enlightenment.

 

 

Then the reading of the great story (Mahachad) begins. It continues throughout the day and is only completed late into the night. A succession of monks takes it in turns to read each of the thirteen chapters. They do this from a sermon chair hidden behind a facade of greenery. Previously, volunteers have prepared special offerings for all the monks who read as well as those who read the preliminary stories. The idea is that they do not know which monk they will be making an offering to, so there will be no favouritism. The offering is made to the monk when he has completed his chapter.

 

 

 

 

The story as illustrated on the long banner carried in the procession the previous day is hung up along three sides of the viharn to remind people of what they are listening to.

Here we see the Prince with his wife and children leaving his father's city because he has brought disaster upon it by giving away his rain-bringing elephant.

 

 

 

And Phra Uppakrut, Phra Malai and the future Buddha, Ariya Maitreya the Boddhisattava, are increasingly portrayed in the form of statues in wats throughout Isan.

 

 
 

 

 

  
 

 

Pic of the Day 8 - 14 March 2010

Here are my Pic of the Day photos for the week 8 - 14 March 2010.

I post a new pic every day. Click on the tab at the top of this page to see today's image.

Click on an image below for an enlarged view.