We walk down the dusty road, pothole marred and lined with vegetation beaten down by the dry season. The village is small, rural and dominated by the monastery and minions of Buddha placed throughout the hills. The bulk of the population seems to be either canine or monk. Near the temple a tree stands by itself, providing shade for the temple guardian, a small monkey who watches over the grounds and fends off evil spirits. In the tree a monkey-house has been constructed to provide sanctuary from either blazing heat or pouring rain. The monkey has the most important job in the village.
We are going to a soccer match. Not to watch, but to start it up. We had acquired a ball during the trip from Bangkok, something to keep ourselves busy and active during various stops along the way for food or toilet breaks. It was now the most shiny, new and fun-creating item in the village. We kicked it along the road as we moved towards the school, attracting stares and interest. Soon the village knew where we were going and word spread like wildfire.
The school is the center of activity and the villagers have gone to great lengths to maintain a quarter sized soccer field out front. Upon arrival we had to jockey for dominance with the local cow herd which had meandered onto the field to help “mow.” Unfortunately they had also left behind steaming bovine paddies which were scattered across the field like land mines. After clearing the mowers we began to kick the ball around and weave between the dangers with tender attention. Many of our players went barefoot, and many a player got a squishy surprise between their toes or slide tackled into a smear of excrement.
The game slowly starts, first only us foreigners (know as Ferangs) were stupid enough to brave the late afternoon heat, but soon the eyes which had tracked us down the road began to materialize into able and excited bodies, ready to get involved in the game. Before long we have a full on soccer match raging, our smallest player coming in at 4 years old and the oldest one probably being myself at 27. People zipping by on scooters or bikerx stop and before long the whole village knows of the crazy Ferangs playing soccer in the heat and cow shit.
The game battles on and we all end sweaty and laughing at our predicaments. I come away bloody from sliding into a gravel patch, my buddy comes away covered in yellow, green cow excrement highlighted by half digested grass fibers and everyone leaves happy.
Erawan National Park is an amazing place, just outside of Kanchanaburi, Thailand it includes a number of impressive cave systems and an incredible multi tiered water fall. We spent a few days basking in sheer Thailand bliss. Food cooked fresh and bursting with flavor and spice good times with the generosity and conditionless compassion of the locals. We bushwhacked through the jungle to the top of a mountain, dodged giant bat-eating cave snakes, fended off mosquitoes and scorpions and helped out our friends with crops and landscaping. We guarded our vitals against marauding thieving monkeys who tried to steal our lunches, mucked through murky swamps that smelt of carcass and re-discovered the elusive “Joe Banky Shit Cave” of IVS lore. Nowhere inundates you more quickly into Thailand than this part of the country. We would be traveling far and wide, into some regions far from comfortable, but as a microcosm, Erawan is the Thai’s Thailand. Village life is largely simple, healthy life. It is an amazing pace of life.
