After about half an hour the music stopped and the chief of the village started to parade the flower arrangement, so carefully prepared by the older ladies during the morning, around the house in a clockwise direction. He was followed by almost all the guests (more accurately the ones who were sober) and several of them were carrying gifts of things like bedding, floor mats and cooking utensils(probably bought with my money come to think about it).
I stood taking photographs because I was in the dark about what was going on and what I should be doing, but Khamma grabbed hold of me and I joined the parade. After three laps of the house we stopped at the front door and a rather important looking man in his sixties started to speak and another man about the same age and stature appeared to be wanting to enter the house. He was acting as a traveller and after a while the rather important man invited him into the house. After he crossed the threshold everybody else followed and we all went upstairs into the lounge by the windows. The floral display was central to proceedings and Khamma and I together with Clare, Pell, Yo, Khamma's mama and Khamma's uncle sat around it, on the floor, in a circle with the rather important man.
Whilst this was going on the traveller man made a bed on the floor and tucked himself up, much to the amusement of everyone and the perplexity of me and Clare. He was only kidding (?) and then he joined the circle.
Several requests were made that I should cross my legs in the Lotus position similar to Buddha himself. But I denied these for the simple reason that my legs will not bend and stay in that position! Thereafter we started the proceedings. Firstly a reel of white string was unravelled and passed around the circle with each person holding it in their hands which were in the prayer position. The rather important man started speaking but it was all in Thai of course and I didn't understand a single word, but I did understand that my knees started to cramp and hurt like mad. I was slowly getting hotter due to the cramp and because sixty odd people were sharing the same one hundred litres of oxygen available at that moment in Thamuang. More laughs as Khamma mopped my brow!
The rather important man started some chants in honour of the house and finished by dipping a large flower in the water from the floral display and anointing the honoured people in circle. It was all very informal and the two rather important men turned out to be retired monks. I suppose they hire themselves out when the real monks cannot make it.
The string was then wound back onto the reel which in turn was passed around the assembled congregation who snapped off lengths long enough to tie around a wrist. So, very soon Khamma, me, Clare, Pell and Yo had several white strings tied around our wrists and many of them had money tied into them. I counted forty five strings around my wrists and collectively we had 7,000 baht (just over £100). It felt like we were making money hand over fist!
It was actually very genuine and I was very touched by the generosity of our guests. Money is not easy to come by in this part of the world and it says a lot about the people of Thamuang that they readily give to the farang and his partner and their children.
When the string was tied most people went back outside, but, it was declared that the beer had run out. Guess where most of the 7k went! Past caring by this point we started a jam session with the pin guitar and three or four drums. I was well into this now and we started to rock again, with lots of laughing, hand shakes and looks of disbelieve from my daughter who by now was seriously questioning her father's sanity.
Our guests started to leave and the party gradually ended. What a lovely day it had been, and even though I didn't know what was in store from one minute to the next I would not have wanted it any other way. Khamma's family have made me very welcome, the people of Thamuang have opened their lives and allowed me in, and I feel very privileged to be a part of this fascinating village.
After a post party discussion we eventually went to bed, but everybody had to sleep upstairs because the spirits were still active downstairs and it would be bad luck to share a good night's sleep with them.
We woke up at dawn and watched the sunrise over the fields. Som buun (Perfect).
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