September: Thailand

September,
Manchester Airport


After a summer of anticipation and a lot of rain, I'm about to leave for Bangkok. My house and everything is sorted. Molly The Cat is being looked after by Ruth and Michaela. I’m going to miss Molly snuggling up to my ankles when I get in from work, sitting on my lap while I watch Coronation Street and purring comfortingly into my ear as I fall asleep. I wonder if they have cats in Thailand? Bound to. Of course they’ll have cats, Benedict. Everywhere’s got cats.

I was a bit worried about leaving the house empty but, as soon as he heard I was going away, Captain Archie next door offered to keep an eye on it. He’ll love it. A retired army officer with a mission. He’ll probably look after it better than me and he’s already worked out a strict regime of curtain-drawing, light switching, post retrieval and plant watering. He nearly bored me to tears with the detail of it all but I am grateful to him.

The young couple on the other side probably won’t even notice I’m gone. They’ll be too busy shagging as usual.

At work they were fine about me taking time off. I work on the river boats ferrying visitors up and down the main vein of our great, historic city. I’m the deputy manager. It was no great shakes me leaving at this time of the year. Most of the tourists have left York by now and there’s enough crew to look after things until the season is finally over. I’ll miss all this when I’m away. I love stealing a late afternoon ride up and down the River Ouse, especially on a sunny day, gliding softly under the arches of the old bridges, past all the Medieval buildings and slowly out of the city towards the Archbishop’s Palace.

I’ll miss the river and I’ll miss Joe.

Joe’s a Viking. Well, he’s not really; he just looks like one. Six foot seven of thirty-five year-old, blond haired beef-cake with a shorn head and stubbly beard. He’s worked all his life on the river, lives on it in fact, in his house-boat two miles downstream, and he holds the proud record of being the only boat skipper in the country to have been prosecuted for speeding. The speed limit on a Yorkshire river is five knots, which is barely faster than walking, but the Viking in Joe simply wanted to rampage a bit too often and a police officer on a push bike booked him.

There’s not a lot Joe doesn’t know about the river although he doesn’t let on. He keeps it all hidden under his beard. It took a while to get to know him, or even to like him, but it was worth it. I don’t think he spoke to me for the first two weeks, just made fun of the rope knots I was trying to tie.

“You’ll need to use a clove hitch,” he said, expressionless, as I was tying the rope round a cleat.

“A cleavage,” I repeated, like a lamb to the slaughter. I was on my two week induction, getting a feel for handling the boats.

“Aye, that’s it. You’ll need to use a cleavage.” And he kept the joke going at my expense for over a month until finally one of the other crew put me out of my misery. I tied off hundreds of tourists with my cleavage during that month.

I fell in the river at the end of my induction. Not a good thing. I jumped from our enormous hundred and seventy passenger-carrying cruiser as it was coming in, lost my footing on the wet landing stage and slipped backwards into the water between the quay and the incoming boat. Joe, thank god, was waiting on the quayside and quickly grabbed me as I began to struggle, petrified of being trapped by the metal hull of the unstoppable, massive boat. In a second he’d pulled me up and out of the way, saving my life as the boat came crashing into the fragile landing stage, obliterating the place where I had been and freaking out hundreds of tourists looking on. All Joe said as he held me, wet and shaking, was,

“You daft bugger.”

Saving my life kind of broke the ice between Joe and me and he’s been my friend ever since.

“Me dad taught me to spot a kingfisher’s tunnel,” he confided in me once explaining why he’d often stop the boat mid-cruise because he’d spotted a kingfisher on the riverbank.

The passengers never had a clue what was going on when Joe’s boat came to an unannounced halt mid-river and were more interested in seeing a view of York Minster than chasing a small, brilliant bird up and down the sandy banks. But, despite many disgruntled customers, it was always worth seeing the kingfisher. Always special. A stolen moment given to us by Joe.

I’ll miss the daft bugger while I’m away.

Right now I'm feeling anxious and frightened at the thought of being alone and lonely. Last night I cried so much I nearly threw up. It’s not really like me. I cried too as my friends Michaela, Ruth, Stella, Angie and Becca waved goodbye to me on the platform at York station and I sobbed quietly into my plastic cup of Fresh Leaf Tea on the train. I played California Dreaming by the Mamas and Papas to cheer me up.

I’m OK now as I write this, sitting alone in the Departure Lounge with my flash new Sony notebook, waiting for my flight to be called.

Thoughts of Mum have paid a visit over the last few days. Standing at her hospital bedside when I was seven, no one told me what was going on. I didn't know what cancer was but I knew it took her away from me.

Thoughts of Dad visited too. Five years ago he died in a car crash and I remember how Michaela recently mentioned therapy to me, that she thought it might do me good to talk. I told her to “F… off” and she kindly has never mentioned it again. People die. It’s nothing new, nothing I can’t handle. It’s just what happens.

And I’ve been thinking of you Antony, my brother. You went back-packing to Thailand a year after Dad died. You never came back Antony and I have never forgiven you. Tomorrow you will be meeting me at Ubon airport, an hour's internal flight from Bangkok. I know I will want to hit you.

There's so much to think about when you're planning a trip and I’m planning to be away for at least two or three months. Inoculations, clothing, how to be contacted in an emergency, do I have to pay council tax? The biggest headache was sorting out the bank. Someone needed my power of attorney in case for some reason I need more money or bills need paying. It's not half as simple as I thought it was going to be. In the end I gave my power of attorney to my attorney. He said he wanted to help, Michael Hollingsworth, son of Arthur, friend of Erno.

For the trip I bought some new sandals and I’m still wearing them in. They’re rubbing a bit while I’m sitting here and my bare ankles are cold as the evening air is beginning to nip. I had my hair cropped shorter than usual so I probably won’t need it cutting too often while I’m away and I’ve put on jeans and a fleece to travel in. I thought that they’d keep me warm enough for Manchester but I’d not be too hot for Bangkok. In the end I wish I’d brought an extra layer. Manchester’s never that warm, especially in September.

I’m sure that everyone can see my nerves, waiting here for my ten past ten flight, sitting on the bag I’d brought which contains the wooden box I picked up from Mr Hollingsworth’s office. The wooden box, cleared by Customs, that contains Uncle Erno’s ashes.

They are heavier than I’d imagined, and he’d been such a frail man.

I know I’ll see my friends again in a couple of months but I still can’t believe that this is actually happening, that I’m actually about to leave for Bangkok. I like York, I like my life and I’m not sure I’m ready to fly half-way round the world to god knows where, to find god knows what. Logic tells me to treat it like a long holiday, enjoy it and not to worry because everything will be OK.

Logic doesn’t account for a strange knowing voice that tells me my world as I know it is about to fall apart.

*****


September
Krung Thep Hotel, Bangkok


I'm here. Lying on my hotel bed in Bangkok. Eight-thirty in the evening Thailand time, one-thirty in the afternoon UK. It's hot and sticky and I'm in a bit of a daze. The flight was fine and I’d had an intriguing chat with a scrawny little man sat next to me who travels the world promoting British education. He told me he crossed about three major time zones each trip and said he never had a clue what the time was, just set his watch to wherever he was going and slept when his body told him to.

Speaking of which, it strikes me as odd that we can be so choosy about who we share our beds with at home but think nothing about sleeping the whole night through, arm to arm with a complete stranger just because we are on an aeroplane. There'd be more space between us in my double bed.

I'd listened to the in-flight radio for a while. It was crap. There’s only so much Kenny G you take. I managed to sleep for five hours in between watching two Wallace and Gromit films and it meant I arrived alert and fresh making finding the hotel all the more easy. I felt good. Not scared like I imagined I would, just wary about not talking to any of the touts and to keep my belongings with me.

Bangkok Airport had felt smaller than Manchester. The walls were nearer, the colours were darker and the terminal was lit by dull, dismal orange bulbs that lit the way partially to the next dull, dismal orange bulb. The noise was different too and it took me a while before I realised that it was the sound of a different language being spoken. A soft, singing language spoken by smiling people. I noticed too that it was now night time as I dragged my rucksack along the floor to try and scuff it up a bit and make it not look so new.

As I was dragging my bag to the taxi rank, I noticed a dark-haired American-sounding woman as we made our way through the arrivals lounge. She was with a group of travellers, excited and chatting to each other. Her gaze lingered a little bit too long and was followed by a mutual smile that told me that though I may be miles away from home in a strange land, I still belonged.

I made it to the Krung Threp Hotel without any drama and crashed out straight away only to wake in the middle of the night thinking I’d missed my flight to Ubon which didn’t actually leave until the next evening.

Bangkok was very busy. It’s a loud, built -up, smoggy mass of streets, endless fly-overs, shanty type houses that look as if they'd collapse in a stiff breeze and incredible, hulking, futuristic sky-scrapers. The place is almost permanently clogged with frantic, screeching traffic but about every half-mile or so there’s an enormous and incongruous, beautiful golden temple thrown in for good measure. The heat is only manageable because from the airport to the hotel, via a taxi, I'd had nothing but air-conditioning. The temperature hits like a brick wall the moment you leave the building.

Once we'd landed in Bangkok and were queuing at customs, something occurred to me. Security was very tight and this was Thailand, the country where you get thrown into prison for thirty years for even smelling of drugs and where the authorities are renowned for their harsh treatment of suspects, let alone convicts. And here was I about to try and enter their country with a whole boxful of unidentified powder. What on earth did I think I was playing at? I hadn't even bothered to check if I was breaking any law. I didn't even know if I was allowed to bring this stuff into another country and if I was stopped, which by then I was convinced I would be, how long would it take to explain that the suspicious powder was actually my Great Uncle Erno?

I saw a dirty cell looming, me peeing in a bucket in the corner and definitely no air-conditioning.

The customs officer in his tight-fitting, slender-hipped, navy blue uniform, glanced up sternly from my passport and ushered me through with a flick of his head. I've had a similar feeling every time I've walked through customs. Knowledge of my own innocence but an unshakable certainty that I looked as guilty as hell, even if all I was taking through was a cheap bottle of Ouzo. Unlike at Athens International or Gatwick, at Bangkok Airport slight uneasiness quickly turns to utter fear.

Having said all that, when it came to it, the customs officer looked like he couldn't have given a toss. I was through.

So here it is. Thailand. The Land of the Smile, as the posters say. I’ve arrived. I fly tomorrow to Ubon. I'm relieved that the heat, the jet-lag, the shock of the new and my excitement has kept me from feeling scared or lonely.

And anyway, I'm too bloody knackered to care.


*****

Wat Pah Chatanan,
N.E. Thailand


My life has been invaded by insects.

What a contrast to smelly old Bangkok. To my utter relief, Antony was waiting for me at Ubon airport. It’s a minuscule place all grey tiles and polished floors and I could see him as I came through the Exit Gate and down the escalator, a distant figure looking up at me through the gathering crowd as relatives waited to greet their nearest and dearest. I surprised myself by crying as the steps carried me down. So much locked in emotion. I’d been waiting for this moment for four years. I’d wanted it for four years and now it was finally here. Tears I suppose were wholly appropriate.

There had been no other westerners on the flight from Bangkok to Ubon and I was acutely aware that nearly every eye in the airport had followed me from the plane and was now watching my brother and I in intrigued silence. Ubon is a fairly remote town in the rural region of North East Thailand known as The Isaan. The region nestles alongside the mighty Mekong river which forms the border with neighbouring Laos and its mysterious, lost plains.

As I went up to hug Antony, a natural gesture after years of not seeing someone you love, he prevented me by stepping back and I was left in an empty space with my arms outstretched. He remained where he was and bowed at me as rejection thumped me in the heart making my legs weaken. I swallowed hard and coughed, knowing that we were being watched. I felt part of myself crumble inside as my pride evaporated into a void. I hated Antony at that moment and, as predicted, almost slapped him.

My brother is a Buddhist monk. He wears a browny-orange robe, shaves his head, shaves his eyebrows and lives on food given to him each day by the local people. He has no money, is celibate and is not allowed to touch women, not even his sister, the only living member of his family who has also travelled half-way round the world to be there and who has not seen him for four years.

My brother was accompanied by another monk, also a white westerner, who I later found out was called Amaro. He was a tall, solid, vibrant young man with a kind, sun-tanned face and bold temples where you could see the strong flow of blood pumping away. He wore his robe proudly, the large folds of it hugging his neck and he had an air about him that almost said, "Hey, look what I'm wearing!”

Amaro smiled at me as I glanced over, a warm, I-know-how-you-must-be-feeling kind of a smile and I immediately felt a tiny bit better for being welcomed by a stranger.

"How was the flight?" my brother asked.

After a deliberate stern silence I told him coldly that it had been fine.

He looked fairly well my brother, as far as I can tell for someone without hair or eyebrows. But he was very thin which I put down to the very basic lifestyle he led. We talked about I-can't-remember-what as a minibus took us to the monastery. A mini-bus we shared with eight strangers. Antony and I were nervous with each other and all I could see of him as we trundled through the darkness on a rough, rocky road, was his monk’s robe. A browny-orange dress. I felt very uncomfortable, not sure what I’d do next that might offend when what I really wanted was just to be alone with Antony and get my brother back, even if that did mean me shouting at him for a week. I wanted everything to go away, especially that monk's robe which he seemed to be hiding behind, keeping him from me, but my jet-lagged haze kept me mute and all I could do was absorb. I had no reaction available. I was losing the energy to even feel like hitting him, let alone actually do it.

We arrived at Wat Pah Chatanan, the forest monastery, in the dark. It was surrounded by trees which I could hear rustling in the light breeze and the nearly full moon was high up above, it’s magical silver light filtering through the canopy. Antony and Amaro carried my bags to my 'kuti', my cute kuti, the small wooden hut that was to be my home for the first few days. After that, they told me, I’d be moving into the Guest Villa.

My kuti was very welcoming but far removed from my terraced house in York and from the neat air-conditioned hotel room I’d slept in the previous night. Someone though had clearly spent time making this dark wooden hut special. There were soft candles already burning in the corner underneath a low, shuttered window, and there were fresh lotus flowers and orchids in a glass standing on small, highly polished teak stool. Someone had also made up a mattress on the floor for me and found some checked blankets and a neat, newly-ironed pillow case for a small, lovingly placed pillow. I knew from the letters Antony had sent over the last couple of years that a mattress and a pillow were a rare comfort in the forest. Whoever had made the room up had also created a make-shift shrine in the corner with a small bronze Buddha standing guard over the kuti, looking out for its guest. It was all very different from home, but it was my room, someone had created it for me and I liked it already.

I was exhausted from jet-lag by this time and knew I needed to sleep. I wanted to take time to digest my new surroundings but my eyes wouldn’t stay open and as soon as the boys put my bags down, I knew I was about ready to collapse.

“I hope you find it comfortable,” Antony said, and we looked at each other awkwardly. This was such a strange feeling. I was here, in the jungle in Thailand, with my brother who I hadn’t seen for ages, my closest living relative, and I didn’t know what to do. I so desperately wanted to hug him and be hugged. I wanted to know that he still cared, I needed him to show it in some way but these Buddhist rules seemed to be keeping him from me. Come on Antony! I thought to myself. I’ve been travelling alone for two days, I’m in a strange place the other side of the world and I need some sort of comfort.

I dropped my eyes to the floor and stared mutely at my feet as I realised it wasn’t going to be my big brother who provided that comfort tonight.

Amaro, who was still chaperoning us, saw what was going on and quietly told Antony to give me a hug.

"Go on,” he coaxed in playful conspiracy and I was surprised at hearing a sing-song Australian accent. I’d arrogantly expected him to be English. Waving Antony forward, he added, in reassurance, "No one's looking."

Having been given permission, Antony nervously and apologetically at first, stepped closer and finally, we shared a hug. It was only then, as I held this virtual stranger with a shiny, shaved head and felt his bony body shaking, that I realised he needed to be hugged far more than me.

*****
First Night,
Wat Pah Chatanan

Everything here is so strange but I like my kuti. At least it's somewhere of my own, somewhere to lie down and be myself. It's dark now, pitch black and I’m alone apart from the glow of my notebook. There are no lights outside to see my way down the path to the bathroom. The windows contain no glass, they're just mosquito screens made from thin metal mesh and I can feel and hear the breeze outside as it rustles through the trees and into my kuti. It's so quiet. No traffic and no people, but there is noise. Noise of the strange insects which I don't recognise.

Something has just started scratching outside my window, shuffling through the fallen leaves. It's unnerving me. There's no real lock on the door and for all I know it could be someone wandering into the monastery looking for rich foreigners to kidnap. On this first night here, in my tired, jet-lagged state, my reason has all but vanished and I'm so unused to this new environment that I can’t place the source of the scratching and scrunching. My heart is beating louder than the jungle as I’m huddled in the corner of my kuti with Uncle Erno's Swiss army penknife at the ready. I’m really scared.

*****

First Morning,
Wat Pah Chatanan

The rustling I heard last night eventually moved into the distance and I was left alone with the creepie-crawlies that invaded my room and that I’d been convinced would eat me alive by morning or give me some tropical disease which would kill me. I frantically searched for my stick of maximum strength insect-repellant and drew a big fat line with it on the tiles around the edge of my mattress. No bugger was getting across that! I slapped some more onto every inch of my flesh knowing full well that the stuff was so strong that by the time it’d finished eating my skin there’d be nothing left for any insect to be interested in anyway.

I slept surprisingly well, eventually. The rush of fear-induced adrenaline finally subsided and instead began to tire me. I lay down to sleep, slightly reassured by my fortress of insect-repellent. I hugged my blue neckerchief and wept quietly, the tears washing anxiety away. Things weren’t working out like I thought and I was thousands of miles away from home and my nice warm duvet.

At one point, I dared to open my eyes and looked out into the darkened room, only to find a giant spider hanging inches from my face. It survived about three seconds. It was him or me and I had shoes.

By that time I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get to sleep, I was so convinced that sleep would mean my defence was down and the insects would mount a full-scale invasion. I knew I would have to stay awake until my body took over and forced me to sleep, like the guy on the plane had told me. To pass the time I listened to Oasis.

Where were you while we were getting high?

Getting pissed probably.

I cried the final tears of jet lag on that first long night in a strange Buddhist monastery as I fell asleep to the final strings of Champagne Supernova caught beneath a landslide, disappearing into the night.

Despite the insects, which wouldn't have woken me even if they'd worn hob-nailed boots, I slept so well that my alarm clock didn't wake me either and hence, I was late. Antony had told me that he and the other monks get up at three-thirty in the morning and after various duties, have their main meal at eight o'clock in the morning. It was now six forty-five and I'd arranged to meet Antony in the kitchen at seven. I rushed and no doubt looked as if I'd only just woken up as I approached the kitchen through the pathways that led to the heart of the monastery. Antony was sitting waiting in the kitchen, his orange robe standing out vividly against the backdrop of lush, deep green undergrowth.

"Good morning," he smiled. "I would have come to collect you but I'm not allowed into the women's quarters unescorted. Here it's okay though."

I managed a smile.

The kitchen was an area with no walls, only thin wooden pillars holding a polished wooden roof in place. There was a tiled floor, some rush mats and an area sectioned off with a couple of primitive gas stoves and two water taps. It was completely open to the forest and we weren't alone. Over in the corner a small grey-haired women squatted, preparing fruit, and some men watched over the stove, quietly. There were trays of food on the floor behind us and people milled about busily arranging salads, fruit and rice and all the time smiling over at us as they went about their routine.

A middle-aged, thin man with straight black hair, who was wearing half-mast black cotton trousers and a pale blue shirt, came over with his head to the floor and put his hands together in front of his face, knelt down and gently bowed towards my brother. Then he stood and bowed from the waist towards me. He had a wiry, hardened face that looked as if he’d seen unhappy times but had braved them out and I could see a very faint scar on his left cheek as if a knife had once found it.

"Hello, Miss," he said. "You Thanavaro's sister, yes? He very happy you come to Wat Pah Chatanan. He talk about you, make room with flowers.”

And I nodded at him in acknowledgment.

“I am Christopher,” he continued in a strangely formal English. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. I tell your brother I look after you, cook Thai noodles in afternoon. Anything you need, Miss, Christopher do."

I barely had time to thank him before he had bowed again and had dashed away to find his sandals before disappearing through the trees. My brother was still smiling.

"Christopher's Malaysian," he told me. "He used to be a soldier but decided to join us last year. He's been very excited about you coming."

I smiled back. What about you? I wondered. Have you been excited too?

Then Antony added, self-consciously, "I know this must all be very strange for you."

Too right, mate.

In the morning light, I now had a chance to look at my brother properly. Antony, my good looking, handsome, big brother. Have you ever imagined what someone you're close to looks like not just without hair but without eyebrows too? Why would you? It's quite a shock, believe me. While the person is talking to you, your eyes keep wandering to the baldness and the tiny bits of stubble that have begun to edge their way through the skin. The person takes on a slightly alien, odd-bod quality, that made me think this was really a wind-up. A shaved head is difficult enough to adjust to for one used to seeing a thick head of familial brown curls, but it's the lack of eyebrows that really threw me. Without eyebrows, a face loses its frame, it's reference point, and it becomes really difficult to recognise someone. Features become featureless without eyebrows. To tell you the truth, it also looked painful, like it hurt when the razor was scraped over the brow, violently removing what really ought not to be removed, scraping away an identity.

And it wasn’t just the eyebrows that I struggled with. There was the dress too. Sorry, I mean robe. It’s a robe, Benedict. Your big biker brother is not wearing a dress. He’s wearing a robe which is far more macho, not that there’s a problem either way and to tell you the truth it’s quite a nice colour but even so, it is still an adjustment seeing your brother in a dress for the first time. Wearing a robe seems to be a bit of an art and Antony has it off to a tee. It is one long piece of cloth, wrapped round his body, over one shoulder and than swung round in a tight twist which is left hanging down his back, falling to his elbow and which he keeps adjusting. I also noticed that his feet were bare and I realised for the first time that I was the only one in the kitchen wearing shoes. Buddhists take their shoes off when they enter a room.

"Don't worry about it," reassured Antony. "You'll soon get used to all the rules. The hard bit is remembering where you left them. Always leave a room by the same door that you came in and you won‘t lose track of your shoes."

Antony had a mole on the right hand side of his face, just above the cheek bone. When he smiled or got excited, it moved upwards and when he got nervous, the muscles in the side of his face would twitch slightly making the mole pulsate. It had always been a soft, endearing feature on a kind, supple face and it sat well against his soft, thick, brown hair. Now, post ordination, it was a dot on a blank canvas reminding me of the Antony I used to know, in there somewhere, saved from the savage strokes of the Buddhist razor.

The mole was still now. Antony wasn’t smiling and I knew that he wasn’t nervous either. He was calm and at home in this strange, alien place.

There was a lot of activity going on around us by this time. Industrious women in sarongs fetched and carried trays of food and industrious men in sarongs, helped out in the distance. Through the trees, other monks began to emerge silently from the forest one by one, orange robes moving silently through the green leaves, making their way to a building I could just make out through the leaves and vines ahead of us.

"That's the main Sala through there," Antony pointed out, glancing over to his right. "It's where we eat and meditate when the whole community gets together. At eight o'clock we'll go through there to have the meal. That's what they're all preparing now."

The formerly quiet monastery was now coming to life and Antony began to get up and rearrange his robes. I was to go through to the Sala with him and one of the laypeople would show me what to do and where to go. Once the meal was over and Antony had finished his duties, he'd meet me back here and we could chat and maybe go for a walk. He'd have to bring another monk to escort him but that would be okay wouldn't it?

Antony left and I watched as he turned his back on me, tugging his robe in place, walking barefoot up the path and disappearing into the Sala up ahead. After a few minutes, I made my own way up the same path.

How my life has changed in the space of a few brief days. I hadn’t known what to expect when I left England. I knew it would be different but even the few letters I’d received from Antony hadn’t got anywhere near conveying what this place was like. I felt lost. Like I ought to know how to behave but no one was really telling me. Someone should have given me lessons, a crash course in Buddhist forest monastery etiquette.

The Sala was a large, peaceful, high-ceilinged room with shutters down one side and open to the forest on the other. There was a hushed atmosphere here. Whispered words but no conversation. It had a beautiful, polished, deep brown wooden floor and the room radiated an unavoidable sense of peace. To one end there was a shrine, adorned with stunning displays of colourful flowers and an array of greenery. In the centre was the Buddha. He sat serenely, watching the world unfold beneath him without ever moving his eyes but I knew he could see it all. He was calm, he was profoundly beautiful and he exuded an inner wisdom and strength for which I could only yearn. Made of polished bronze, I was utterly captivated by the all-seeing eyes of this inanimate statue as it looked at me, searching my inner core and touching a place in me that I’d not yet dared to visit. It was as if those eyes were watching over me.

I slowly made my way over to where the other laypeople were kneeling. They were silent, both men and women, young and old, in colourful sarongs and shirts, others in plainer clothes or with a white shawl wrapped round their shoulders. They were all barefooted and I was struck by the suppleness of their limbs as a sixty year old woman squatted effortlessly on the floor like a two year old child. A few of them used a round cushion to prop themselves on as they knelt on the floor but most seemed happy to sit unaided for hours.

The monks were all sat on one side of the Sala on a raised ledge. Each sat in lotus position with a large bowl set out in front of them, a glass, a jug of water and, intriguingly, a roll of kitchen paper. Some had their eyes closed, some were talking quietly to their neighbour and some were settling into position. They were a mixture of westerners and a few Thai monks. It was still very strange to see all these bald, featureless heads. They were almost indistinguishable from each other and I had to get used to recognising individual monks using different references than those I was used to.

Antony was there. I recognised his posture first, the slightly stoopy way he leant forward as he sat and the way he shuffled around to get comfortable. He fidgeted with his robe a lot and the way he did it was Antony all over but there was no denying that he looked more at home in the orange dress than in anything else I’d ever seen him in.

The other monks looked relaxed as they shuffled and settled. Some of the western monks were still very white, their skin not yet exposed to the sun and they looked strange in their robes. Seeing the white skin of some of the monks made me look at my own pale complexion. God, I looked unhealthy. I’d chosen to wear a dark blue T-shirt which Antony had suggested, covering my shoulders, and I had on a pair of thin jeans, which I was quickly discovering got very dusty from kneeling on the floor. Skimpy clothes were out as they weren’t seen as suitable and short of wearing one of the traditional, plain dark sarongs and white shirts or shawls that the laypeople were wearing, I’d opted for what I had on.

Not only did I feel pale and unhealthy, but I also felt very big. A big fat white foreigner amongst all these petite, slim, agile Thais. I’m not fat at home, I’m pretty slim in fact, but here in Wat Pah Chatanan, I was beginning to feel enormous.

The white-haired lady from the kitchen rustled over to me as I stood wondering what to do next. I wasn’t sure where to go and she whispered something to me in Thai. She was beaming at me and we both know that neither of us understood a word but still she chatted away and waved me through the kneeling people towards the back of the room. She took my arm and we knelt down together. Then she, like everyone who entered the Sala, bowed three times towards the Buddha, respectfully, sincerely and with such agility that I knew I would struggle to emulate her and I was at least half her age. Her bow was graceful, completely to the floor and once she’d finished, she turned slightly and bowed three times to the Abbot who was sat at the head of the row of monks, close to Buddha.

She leant over to me, again holding my arm gently and said something, pointing to the monks as she did. I looked over. She was pointing at Antony and then at me and repeating whatever it was she was saying. Pointing again at him, then to me and repeating it again.

"Yes," I nodded. "My brother," putting my hand to my chest in a gesture of ownership. "My brother," I repeated, nodded and smiled back as wide as she smiled at me.

"Tan Thanavaro," she said, pointing. "Tan Thanavaro."

"Thanavaro," I repeated, still grinning for England.

For all I knew she could have been trying to tell me that she thought Antony was the worst monk she'd ever clapped eyes on, but somehow I doubted it. She had too much joy in a face which possessed far too many smile lines. While we knelt, she pointed at my feet. I looked down, trying to understand what she meant and then, she pointed at her feet and the feet of her friends around her. I still couldn’t understand what she meant, so she kept on pointing at my feet, her feet, her friends feet. Then she pointed at the Buddha and again at my feet. She started shaking her head and frowning.

I nearly fell into the void of anxious embarrassment again at knowing I was doing something wrong but not being at all clear what it was. I'd taken my shoes off so it couldn't be that.

I looked over for help at Antony, who had been watching the whole thing and who was gently laughing with his neighbour, a young Thai monk. He gestured for me to come over.

“They’re facing the wrong way,” he told me, smiling affectionately. “Your feet. They mustn’t point at the Buddha,” explained Antony. “But don’t worry Benedict, it’s no big deal.”

The white-haired lady smiled at me as I returned to my spot and she gave a little chuckle as I sat down and tucked my feet away. I was sure I’d offend someone big time soon.

She stayed by my side, holding my arm throughout the chanting that followed and only let go to put her two, small hands together and bow again with the rest of the sixty or so laypeople who were attending the morning meal. I was touched by the display of respect and puzzled by the strange rituals that unfolded before me. Most bizarre of all, was seeing people repeatedly go up to my brother to say something, and, like Christopher had done, bow down in front of him. My brother being bowed at! I vowed that I would never do it. Ever.

Food had been brought from the kitchen and was being placed onto what looked like skateboards and wheeled gently down the line from monk to monk. The monk helped himself to a portion of whatever the bowls contained, a twenty minute, slow process which ended when all the trays have been passed down the line and lowered to the floor by a waiting lay person. The skateboards were then wheeled down another line of people, kneeling on the floor. These were mainly westerners, who seemed to be novices and who clearly hadn't yet made it to the dizzy heights of the elevated ledge where the monks sat. Only orange robes seemed to be allowed to eat up there. There was some more chanting and then all the lay people left the Sala while the monks tucked into their meal.

Antony looked up and caught my eye at that point and smiled. A wide, happy smile that told me he was glad I was there.

Bon Appetito, Brother. My odd bod, bald Brother.

I'd wandered into my first morning in the forest monastery lost and wary. By the same afternoon, the kindness and warmth of the laypeople who had befriended me so readily, had left me feeling safe and loved in a world so removed from my life in York that I could easily forget it ever existed and forget why I'd actually come to Thailand at all.

And still those Buddha eyes watched over me.

*****

September, 1943
Chungkai Camp

The heat is almost unbearable. I lie secretly writing this journal on scraps of stolen paper, dripping with sweat, with a thirst I know shall not be quenched and with an ache in my soul I know shall not be relieved.

I received a letter from Muriel today. My beloved Muriel, who knows not whether I live or die. It was written in the spring of last year, believing our regiment to be in Singapore still. I wept when I read it. The pain of reading her words, of hearing the hope in her voice edged with unspoken fear, wrenches at my being. Far easier not to be reminded of her, to learn to adapt to my fate and not dare to hope for redemption.

Muriel talks of home, of visiting the Rialto to see pictures of our ship's departure, of going to church, of taking the ferry over to see her sister, of things so mundane that I can barely begin to imagine a life like that again. I yearn for the mundane, for a jar of stout, for listening to Tommy Handley on the radio. I cannot begin to describe how important these small events are nor the essential part they play in a gloriously mundane life before Singapore.

Reading Muriel's letter saps my strength. Far better not to be reminded. To hear from Blighty is such sweet sorrow. A confusion of joy at reading the words of my loved one, knowing her hand has touched this paper and that her sweet breath has lingered on it, and a deep wound as sharp as a hot knife in my belly as I am forced back to my reality, her image wrenched from me and emptiness left in its place.

How will we survive this place? This beautiful, treacherous place.