Fun Fridays just keep getting better and better. I thought that it would be tough to top rock climbing, spelunking, ziplining and rapelling through a cave, but the next Friday we were taken to the most perfect waterfall. This past Friday was even more stellar. We hiked up the mountain Doi Soithep, stopping at a forest monastery on the way and finally arrived at one of the most important temples in northern Thailand, Wat Doi Soithep. The hike was steep and incredibly exhausting. It was incredibly humid, raining on and off, and the altitude made it more difficult to breathe and many of us felt lightheaded. At one point I realized that we were hiking through a cloud. Once at the top we were able to explore the beautiful wat. The challenging hike was well worth it.
The wat had a long set of stairs that let up to it. The perimeter of the main temple had stalls were Buddhist nuns , maechi, sold lotus flowers and other things to offer at the temple. Buddhist nuns are rare in Thailand and are, unfortunately, not very well respected. As a religion major, it was quite a treat to see the nuns in their white robes with shaved heads. The temple had many golden Buddhas, an emerald Buddha statue, and a giant golden structure in the center in which a relic from the Buddha has supposedly been placed. The Thai people that were visiting the Temple clasped lotus flowers between their hands and walked around the golden structure with their heads bowed. There were lots of pharang (white/western people) at the temple and I felt embarrassed for many of them were not dressed riproy.
The concept of riproy is very important to Thai culture. It essentially means to be polite and proper. Unlike in the U.S. the clothes that Thai people wear are (usually) not a reflection of personal style, but rather a way of showing respect to the people around you.
At the temple women must cover their shoulders and shouldn’t wear shorts or short skirts. Those are the most basic clothing guidelines, but in general, you should look respectable. At Wat Doi Soithep I saw a man with his shirt half way unbuttoned and chest hair showing and another young traveler with his shirt off climbing up the temple steps. Going shirtless in public is a big no no. I am glad to have received cultural training from ISDSI and my home stay, but seeing all of the non-riproy pharang on Friday made me wonder how many times in the past I’d been blissfully unaware of cultural rules and had been inadvertently offensive.
While at the wat I had a neat multicultural experience when I eavesdropped on a tour of the temple being given in French.
Just outside the main temple, were the nuns were selling flowers, there was a look out and on a clear day you can see all of Chiang Mai. On Friday you could see nothing but white. As a friend of mine said, “It feels like we’re on a castle in a cloud.” Indeed sometimes I’d see parts of clouds coming down from above, slide over the roof of the wat, and feel the chill as the mist swept by me.
At the base of the temple stairs there were lots of vendors with colorful trinkets to sell. The vendors are accustomed to seeing lots of foreigners, so the prices were on the whole, a bit higher. With what little Thai we had, my friends and I were able to haggle and get the vendors to sell us things for more reasonable prices. However, my friend Erin and I had an experience that can be used as a good example for how pharang are viewed and treated by vendors:
The group was about to leave the hike had left up hungry. We went to a woman who was selling sticky rice that had been stuffed in bamboo and roasted. I’ve had these treats before and they are quite good. We repeatedly asked the woman how much they cost, but she kept ignoring us, so pressed for time, we got fed up and left. A few steps down another vendor laughed and told us in Thai that she was blind and hard of hearing. We asked how much they cost and he told us 10 baht. We returned to the woman, spoke more loudly and just as we were about to finish the transaction, another vendor a few steps us yelled, “Yee-sip Baht. Pharang!” The old woman stopped the transaction and demanded 40 baht. We were astonished.
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