Spirit House: A Story for Halloween

Spirit House

A Story for Halloween

🎃 👻 🌕

I love a good ghost story, and Thailand is an excellent place to hear them.

***

"Three sticks of incense is for the gods," Bow told us, as she struck a match and lit a stick of incense at the base of a holy bodhi tree, "but we light one stick of incense to feed the hungry ghosts. The incense smoke is like sending a message. It can pass from our world to theirs."

Last October, on a gloomy and drizzly night, I joined a small group of like-minded adventurers on an after-dark walking tour of Bangkok focusing on ghosts and the spooky stories from Thai mythology that haunt the City of Angels. Bow, a friend of mine and our guide for the evening, started off the tour at the historic Ghost Gate with an introduction to Thai ghost stories and an invocation for us to open our minds to the experience.

The tour took us past some of Old Town's most famously haunted spots: the Grand Palace, the City Pillar Shrine, Thammasat University, and the Golden Mount.

At the end of the night, before turning us out into the dark streets of the Old Town, Bow left us with a warning.

"Go home, take a shower to wash away any ghosts or spirits which have followed you, and light some incense to pray for those who have died."

I returned home just before midnight, and was surprised and a little bit spooked to see one of the plastic dancers from my fiancee's grandmother's spirit house sitting in front of the house.

Was it protecting us from ghosts? According to Thai traditions, the residents of the spirit house must protect the homeowners and residents.

Every home in Thailand has a Spirit House, you see. It's a sort of home for the spirits of the land and air which, in traditional Thai culture, protect the house and land. The spirit houses are little wooden structures that are home to figurines of an old man and woman (grandmother and grandfather of the land), animals, and dancers, and people often leave offerings of flowers, incense, and candles at their spirit houses. They are a big part of Thai culture, and you see them everywhere in the country.

I thought it was odd, but thought nothing of it. I replaced the dancing figure, and went about my day.

Months later, my fiancee joined the same haunted Bangkok history tour, this time on a Friday the 13th. I never told her this, but on the evening that she attended the tour, I came home once again to see the little dancer, this time laying in the street in front of the house (outside of the home's fence and gate). I can't explain how it got there. 

A little spooky, right?

Do I believe that it was anything more than a coincidence?

If I were to say "no", where would be the fun in that? It is Halloween, after all!

🎃 More Halloween Fun 🎃

Mae Nak Phra Khanong: A Thai Ghost Story for Halloween (2014)

Trick or Treating (2014)

Carving a Jack-o-Melon (2016)

The Legend of Pumpkin Mike (2016)

Pumpkin Mike Rides Again! (2017)

A Halloween Comic (2017)

Jack-o-melon 2! (2018)

Haunted Bangkok Ghost Tour (2019)

Mummy Monks and Hungry Ghosts (2019)

Halloween Okinawa Food Party (2019)

Sattahip Beach Picnic

Last weekend, a few of my fiancee's coworkers invited us on a short one-day road trip along Thailand's eastern gulf coast.

We left the city early in the morning, and, like any good Thai-style road trip, took plenty of stops along the way. We visited a temple, the Khao Keao Open Zoo, and the Pattaya Floating Market. 

Our destination, though, was a Royal Navy base in Sattahip District, where people are welcome to picnic on the beach and play in the sea. It's open to the public, and a very popular spot for locals and Bangkokian day-trippers alike.

My fiancee's friends are from Issan, the northeastern region of Thailand. They had prepared and packed delicious food from their cuisine, like traditional Issan-style fried chicken and papaya salad. It was quite spicy (as Issan food tends to be!) but I loved it! And, once we were at the beach, we ordered a pla pao, or grilled salt fish, from a local vendor to round out the meal.

We were technically still in Chonburi Province, but were quite close to the border with Rayong Province, home to a very popular Thai tale about a prince, a mermaid, and an ogre.

As we watched the sun set over the waves (it was beautiful - not quite as spectacular as the sunset that we saw in Railay, but still lovely), we took a walk along the beach. 

There were statues of the characters from the tale, including a large statue of the ogre standing out at sea and looking longingly at her prince.

It was a beautiful day, and a relaxing trip out of the big city. 

It's nice to get away every month or so, and the nice thing about Bangkok is that we are near the coast. The beach is never more than just a few hours away.

Festival Day (Tesagan Gin Je)

Nine Emperor Gods Festival

I had really wanted to visit Phuket Island this year for the Je Festival, the nine-day Taoist festival in which the Chinese-Thai honor the Nine Emperor Gods by abstaining from meat and alcohol, and consuming vegan dishes and making merit in Chinese rituals. Thailand's most famous island province is the place where this festival is most widely celebrated, but I wasn't able to make it this year (and some of the festivities had been cancelled anyway due to COVID-19).

https://michaeldesrosiers.blogspot.com/2014/09/vegetarian-festival.html

https://michaeldesrosiers.blogspot.com/2018/10/je-vegetarian-festival.html

Bangkok celebrates this festival too! This week, tons of yellow flags have gone up, marking food as "je". I kind of overlooked the festival this year, until my fiancee and I just happened to be in Chinatown and noticed a huge gathering at Wat Mangkon Temple (the city's central Chinese temple).

We had never seen the festival in Chinatown before, and it was huge! Of course, it's a Taoist festival, and while it has made its way into Thai culture, it's mostly celebrated amongst the Chinese-Thai population.

A sort of market had been set up in front of the temple, with vendors giving away (for an optional donation) vegetarian dishes, soy milk, and other je-appropriate Chinese snacks.

There were also some extra areas of the temple which we had never seen opened up before! I guess there are rooms, shrines, and chapels which the temple only opens to visitors for festival days. I think it might be interesting to start visiting Wat Mangkon on the other popular Chinese festivals.

We immediately noticed that nearly everyone was wearing all white for the festival. There was a special chapel open for a festival blessing, but you could only go inside if you were dressed in white. Since we didn't know that there was going to be anything special going on that day, we weren't prepared. Still, we got to walk around and explore the rest of the temple grounds.

Inside the temple, things were going on as normal. People were lighting incense and making offerings of ghost paper, fruit, and other gifts. 

Outside, however, there was an exciting festival atmosphere. We were really intrigued, and decided to join in one of the cultural blessings to learn more about it.

We made a 100 baht donation, and received a  red sheet of thin paper printed in Chinese characters and with the face of the Buddha. We also got a little yellow prayer pendant, also made of thin paper. We wrote the names of our family on both papers, along with wishes for health and wealth.

The red sheet was folded up and tied onto the skirt of a large statue of a Chinese deity. 

The yellow pendant was stuck into a large krathong along with dozens of others. 

https://michaeldesrosiers.blogspot.com/2019/11/loi-krathong-at-survarnabhumi-airport.html

I am not sure of the exact ritual, but I guess that the krathongs may be used in the upcoming Loy Krathong Festival, and floated down the river along with our wishes.

The city's Chinese-Thai families had come to Yaowarat and the temple in order to leave elaborate donations and offerings for the festival. We didn't do that, but I was impressed by the ornateness of some of the offerings that had been left.

The most exciting part, though (in my opinion), was the je food festival which was set up on the road surrounding the temple. It is the city's largest vegetarian food festival, and there are so many dishes that you can only find during this period!

We bought a bag of steamed green vegetables, a bag of dried mushroom jerky (super good!), and two clay pots filled with steamed rice, ginko, shredded carrots, mushrooms, and other great veggies.

They were also selling all sorts of spring rolls, fried tofu, and other delicious snacks/

It was hard not to try a little bit of everything!

I don't generally join in the nine-day vegetarian festival, but it is always fun for me to try je dishes during this time. I think a lot of people imagine Thai food to be mostly vegetarian, but that's just not true at all. Most Thai dishes tend to be fairly meat-heavy. We've even had vegetarian teachers who have come to Bangkok, and realized that it was just too hard to keep to their diet for the year. 

During this festival, though, vegetarian food is easy to find. It is delicious, too! They have found all sorts of ways to make this special festival food extra tasty.

Don Don Donki: Bangkok's newest Japanese megamart

DonDonDonki, the brand-new branch of Japan's sensory-overload of a megamart, Don Quijote, has opened in Bangkok. There's a full-sized Don Quijote department store in the trendy Thonglor neighborhood, but I haven't been there yet. DonDonDonki is the "smaller" version, which only takes up one floor in a shopping mall.

When you're in Japan and you want to find souvenirs, cheap goods, and just downright bizarre stuff, Don Quijote is the place to go. I was excited to see what it was like in Bangkok!

Immediately, I was greeted by bright lights and the endlessly-looping theme song that the store plays all day long.

The first part of the shop was a grocery store, with tons of cheap fresh produce, imported Japanese meat, and all sorts of fun and exciting Japanese snacks. I had to stop myself from buying a ton of snacks! Some of it was hard to resist, but it's more fun to buy these types of snacks for friends as souvenirs when you are actually in Japan.

In the future, though, if I want to cook some hotpot or shabu or am looking for cheap and high-quality seafood, I might make the trip out to Ratchaprasong neighborhood to visit DonDonDonki. At the very least, it's a fun experience and a cool way to spend half a day browsing. 

It's kind of like a black hole - once you enter the store, you end up spending way more time there than you thought you would. There are a million things to see, and you end up running from aisle to aisle like a kid in a candy shop. 

Khao Ta Mong Lai Forest Park: my first time camping in Thailand!

I love camping! Back when I was in the Boy Scouts, I used to go camping nearly every month. It's one of my favorite things to do. Recently, my fiancee and I had really been wanting to try camping here in Thailand. We decided - quite spontaneously just the day before our trip to Prachuap - that we ought to spend a night in the nearby forest park. That afternoon, we went to the local Big C (a Thai mega mart similar to Walmart) and bought a 299 baht tent ($10), some 199 baht sleeping bags ($6 each), some sleeping pads, inflatable pillows, and a battery-powered lantern. It's the cheapest camping gear that we could find, and we spent about $30 for the whole bunch. Still, we figured that would be enough for one night in the wilderness, and we excitedly packed our bags, ready for adventure!

After visiting some temples in Prachuap town, we hit up the local 7-11 to get water and snacks, then hired a tuk-tuk to take us about 10 minutes out of town to the Khao Ta Mong Lai Forest Park.

***

A forest park is part of Thailand's excellent national park service, but is a smaller park managed by the province instead of the national government. I guess it's something similar to a state park in the US. 

Khao Ta Mong Lai Forest Park

You can rent gear from the rangers for 200 baht per night, but if you bring your own, all you need to pay is the entrance fee (100 baht for foreigners and 50 baht for Thais). The rangers gave us a prime spot just next to the ranger station and the toilets, and ran an extension cord from their office so that we could have power right inside our tent. They were super nice!

our little $10 tent

They were laughing at our little tent, though. 

"Are you sure you don't want to rent ours? It's going to rain tonight."

I was insistent. I had already bought this tent, and had already gotten it all set up. I didn't want to waste my money! Besides, the tent I had bought was supposed to be waterproof.

My fiancee wasn't so sure.

"Maybe we should rent theirs..." she said. "But you're the camper. It's your choice, Michael."

I decided to stick with my Big C tent.

The rangers chuckled. "We're going to clear a spot under the ranger's pavilion for you. Just in case..."

setting up our campsite

The forest park is located just outside of Prachuap Town, at the end of one of the city's three bays. It's a perfect location! At night, you can listen to the sound of the waves lapping gently at the shore and watch the fishermen head out in their boats for a night of squidding in the Gulf of Thailand.

a view of the bay from the campsite

We took a small nature trail along the coast to a viewpoint atop some boulders which looked out over the bay. The air was cool with a nice breeze coming over from the sea, and though we could hear distant thunder rumbling far away, it didn't seem like it was going to rain at the park.

hiking along the coast

Trekking any deeper into the forest park requires hiring one of the rangers as a guide. Though Khao Ta Mong Lai is a tiny park (1.37 km²), it's infamous for hikers getting lost and needing to be rescued. There are all sorts of legends of the park being haunted, and of hikers who break the rules and wander off into the jungle or try to take the closed-off trail up the mountain getting turned around and suddenly realizing that they have lost hours of time. Every years there are stories of people suddenly finding themselves atop the mountain's cliffs and needing to be rescued.

Whether it's true or not, it makes for a great campfire story, and it's all related to the legend of Monglai.

Monglai was a wealthy man who had a beautiful daughter named Yomdoey. The daughter was much sought after in marriage, and Monglai's wife (in secret) pledged the daughter to the governor of Petchaburi. At the same time, a wealthy merchant arrived from China, who took a keen interest in Yomdoey. Monglai arranged marriage between his daughter and the merchant.

It came out that the girl was to be married to two men. In a rage, Monglai killed his daughter, and his wife fled to the north. Monglai, realizing what he had done, drank rice whisky and walked into the sea. Because of his evil act, he was cursed and turned into a mountain, Khao Ta Mong Lai (Mong Lai Mountain).

Another legend from the park tells of visitors sleepwalking out into the bay, waking up when they realize that they are ankle-deep in the sea. Some say that this is the curse of Monglai, who had drowned himself there.

I guess that the tradition of telling spooky stories around a campfire transcends culture.

In any case, we didn't see any ghosts, but it's a fun story just before Halloween.

(We did, however, hear a strange drum beat coming from the sea as we lay in our tent at night...)

along the nature trail

Just to be safe, a small monastery just outside of the forest park maintains a little shrine to Monglai to appease his sad spirit.

the Monglai Shrine

Some people had left candles and incense to him.

I guess they figure that it can't hurt. Better safe than sorry, right?

Monglai

In the evening, we took a walk just outside of the park to where a few resort hotels had been built along the coast. A woman was steaming fresh blue crabs over a charcoal grill, and we bought 2 kilos to take back for dinner. My fiancee is crazy about seafood - blue crab in particular - and she's had to teach me how to crack open and eat crab. I'm actually getting pretty good at it, as we tend to have crab for most special occasions!

Before bed, we had an evening snack of pork floss and chili paste sandwiches (a great camping food!) and an orange.

the view from our tent

It got dark around 6pm. We showered, turned on our little lantern, and settled into our tent. Suddenly, rain began pattering upon the roof.

No problem. The tent is waterproof.

It began raining harder.

And harder.

drip... drip... drip

It was dripping inside the tent.

I touched the walls. My hand was wet.

I noticed a small pool of water at the foot of my sleeping bag.

My fiancee gave me the look.

It meant, "I'm not going to say 'I told you so'".

Sheepishly, I suggested moving the tent up under the pavilion.

"I'm going to blame it on you and your stubbornness so that they only tease you." she told me as she grabbed our bags and ran under the wooden shelter.

I picked up the whole tent - sleeping bags and all - and ran behind her.

The rangers just smiled, bringing us another extension cord and an electric fan to help us air out our tent to dry.

To her credit, my fiancee was a fantastic sport about the whole ordeal. She wasn't annoyed at me (though she does get to tease me about this from now on), and she didn't give up on camping. Instead, we spent a few hours browsing for better camping gear online. Next time, we will be much better prepared!

Our new view wasn't as good as before, but we were comfortable and dry. We had electricity, a cool breeze from the fan, and the sound of the waves and the rain quickly lulled us to sleep.

I woke with dawn to a foggy, muddy morning. We had a breakfast of cereal bars and soy milk (which doesn't need to be refrigerated before opening), then called the tuk-tuk driver to take us back to town.

a foggy morning in southern Thailand

We took a bus back to Bangkok, and got back to the city around 1pm.

It was a fantastic experience, despite the rain. We've ordered all sorts of cool gear, and I'm so excited to try camping again! We are already looking up parks where we should go next! I hope that this can be a fun new hobby for us to enjoy together.