The Funeral

Unfortunately, the old man in the village who was unwell, had died when we arrived in Ban Lum Puk village. The ‘wake’ or whatever the Thai’s call it was underway. There were small marquees set up ready for the next day. The funeral lasts a couple of days. On the day of his cremation, about 9 monks presided over the ceremony. They ranged in age from the older man about 60ish to a young monk of about 13. There is a picture of the older monk, he was the one who blessed both our car and Ampha and I on two separate occasions. There was a long ceremony, they talked about his life, mentioned a lot of people from the village, there were many jokes and laughter from the crowd. The coffin was next to the crowd all the time and after the ceremony a truck which had been dressed up arrived to take the coffin to the site which had been chosen to burn him on – a field about 100 yards from our wall. We followed the coffin in procession to the field. A pyre had been built below a dressed up frame and on each corner of the frame a banana tree had been tied. His coffin was placed on the pyre and after a few more words was set alight, his mattress and clothes were burnt along with him so that he would have something to wear and sleep on in Buddhist heaven. The ray of light in this whole story was the little baby who was born on the exact same day as the old man died, she was his great granddaughter.