February 16, 1999, the last day in Thailand before my flight home, was the Chinese New Year. The Thai people celebrate three New Years: the Chinese one; the Western New Year, which begins with the birth of Christ; and the Thai New Year, dating from the time of Buddha and beginning several centuries earlier than ours .

My hosts in Thailand were three sisters, Nui, Tui and Nid. They lived in Sriwittayapaknam, a large, prestigious private school, that had been started by their mother. They remembered the first years, a single room with five students, themselves and two others. It has grown to 1700 students in two six storey buildings, with a staff of 60. Nui is the headmistress. Her gentle leadership of the teachers and concern for the quality of their teaching while maintaining their loyalty and morale is probably the reason for the huge success of the school. Her sisters are the business managers. Tui is the expansive one, with an eye on growth, more buildings and computers no matter what the cost. Nid is the quiet one, keeping track of the details.

Nui drove me out to the first observation of the Chinese New Year, the bringing of food to the monks. The monastery, Wat Asokaram, is a newly built and quite grand temple near the sea, with a large number of monks living in small traditional houses under the trees. A week earlier, we had walked along boardwalks among these houses on stilts. The whole thing is built on a swampy area as is most of Bangkok. It seemed very peaceful. The monks have no electricity, no lights, no TV.

People "make merit" by giving food to the monks who walk out barefoot in the early morning with their black alms bowls. On special occasions, their birthdays, weekly holy days, or the New Years celibrations, they make special merit by bringing food to the monasteries. To make the most special merit, a wealthy person might build a new temple. There are many of them; one monastery could have a half dozen temples. The city and country are dotted with these splendid colorful buildings, their high characteristically shaped roofs brightly tiled in red, green and ochre. There is less of a preservation mentality than in the US. When the old temples rot as they do quickly in the hot humid climate of Thailand, a new one is built right next to it. This keeps many skilled craftsmen busy.

On this day we arrived before 8 o'clock with Nui's basket of food. Leaving our shoes by the door with dozens of other shoes, we went in. It was a large room supported by many square columns. More than 40 monks were seated cross legged on long raised platforms. The worshippers sat on rows of woven mats on the floor, the men cross-legged and the women with the legs to one side. It is considered very rude to point the soles of the feet at another person. One after another they chose a monk and kneeled in front of him with their offerings. They greeted him with a deep bow, their hands held in a prayerful position to the forehead, The word for this gesture is "wai". They put rice and other food in the alms bowl or placed trays of dishes full of curries, condiments and other foods on the platform in front of the monk. They also brought large saffron colored plastic buckets full of rice, canned food and cleaning supplies. You can see stores in every shopping area that sell these along with huge yellow candles and brass Buddha statues. Nui brought me to visit the "Farang" monk, a German who had been here for five years. In a crowd of monks, I couldn't have singled him out. He was deeply tanned and his hair, if blond or more likely grey, was shaved off. I did my best to kneel on my arthritic knees. She handed me little plastic bags of food which I gave to him, much as if I were a child. I asked him a few questions. Did he plan to stay here the rest of his life? No. He hoped to move to one that was closer to nature; this one had become surrounded by factories. How long did he meditate? Five or six hours a day. I'm doing well if I can manage half an hour occasionally. Is there anything he could teach me? No, we are all responsible for our own enlightenment. That is a lesson for me.

Before long, Nui took me away, concerned for my stiffness. She found me a place on the side and even a chair to sit on. Also, it would be acceptable for me to sketch. The worshippers watched while the monks ate (their only meal of the day) and then the remainder of the food was carried away by the white robed nuns for their meal. Next there was a religious service: chanting by the monks, responsive prayers and a sermon, I think. Nui said it was advice. That is, after all, more or less what a sermon is in our churches. I alternated between sitting with my eyes closed, trying to feel worshipful and then being gripped by the desire to sketch. A young woman crept over to admire my picture. Although I couldn't understand her Thai words, I knew the meaning of her vigorous thumbs-up. Then she gave me an offering, a little plastic bag with three pieces of papaya.

We collected our shoes and walked over to the car. The day was already hot at 9:30 and the air-conditioned car was welcome. Nui said that she should do this more often, it made her feel peaceful. Her sister, Tui, is the religious one in the family, spending frequent weekends as a novice nun in her monastery. On the way home, Nui was a bit cynical, talking about the bad people who sometimes become monks, who took the offerings of food and sold them. Maybe, she said, a man would get out of jail and be unable to find work, so he might join the monastery, which is obliged to take him. Still, I found the monks admirable; I was unable to discern the bad ones among the many good seekers of enlightenment.

In the weeks I had been here, I had seen numerous temples. All were brilliantly colorful on the outside, decorated with intricate gold leaf designs and bright blue, red or green mosaics of mirrored glass.The insides were dark and cool, covered in intricate patterns, or murals depicting the lives of the Buddha, his many reincarnations. The main focus was the statue, a gold leaf Buddha sitting cross legged. The features are strictly determined by tradition, so they all look alike, a peaceful face with eyes half closed in meditation, the head topped by a flame of enlightenment, large ears with extermely long ear lobes. There are a half dozen poses depicting aspects of enlightenment: hands folded in the lap, or one hand raised in benediction, the other toward the earth. Occasionally the Buddha is reclining. Always there is a faint suggestion of the robe, a swath of cloth draped across the chest and over one shoulder. There is often real cloth, finely woven fabric of the same saffron yellow color as is worn by the monks. There is competition among the temples for more or bigger statues. The biggest I saw was at Wat Panan Choeng. Sixty feet tall, it had a spiral staircase at the back enabling the faithful to climb up and place the enormous cloth robe It had been newly replaced and the old one, a hundred feet long having been up there for only a few weeks, was spread out on one side. It was carefully and reverently folded to be sent to lesser temples.

Later that day, I ventured out into the town by myself, a triumph. That first day here, more than two weeks ago, I got lost. Confused and blithered by the heat, I made a wrong turn. I had gotten lost before because Nui and Ram had driven me out and dropped me off to walk back. I hadn't studied the way out. I had scrutinized the street sign of their block and among the incomprehensible letters of the Thai alphabet, had noted two of the same letters next to each other. I'll look for that, said I. Unfortunately those two letters were in the word "street". Every sign had the same word. So I made a wrong turn.I stopped to ask directions at a school. The advice from one schoolboy was to turn left and from another to turn right. I found my way back at last by showing the name of the school, written by Nui in my sketchbook, to a samlor driver. But I refused to let him ride me back. I'm too heavy to be pulled by that skinny little man on his three wheel bicycle pulled mini chariot. From then on, my hosts wouldn't let me out without one of them to shepherd me about.

But on this last day in Thailand, I insisted. I set off with my water bottle, sketchbook, camera and big straw hat. This hat was of uncertain value. All of the shops along the streets are covered by awnings. The Thais are always mindful of the need to get out of the blazing sun. My hat made me hot in the shade. It was on again, off again the whole way. This six block expedition felt like a huge adventure. I took careful note of landmarks. It had taken me a whole month to get used to looking to the right for the cars that drive on the "wrong" side of the street here. There are very few traffic lights and hardly ever a break between the never-ending cars, motorcycles, samlaws (three wheel bicycles), the little pickup truck/buses called songtaews with their two rows of seats in the back. And the drivers are mean! They won't stop for anybody. I took to standing beside a savvy looking Thai and dashing across when they did. New York drivers are much more civilized.

I spotted a crowd of people around a small building that was different from the usual style of Buddhist temple. It was a Chinese Buddhist temple and on this Chinese New Year, there was a festival going on. It was an exuberantly decorated, rather small room with large Chinese characters on walls and columns. There were flower garlands everywhere, golden chains of marigolds. In the center was a wide altar with hundreds of incense sticks stuck in trays of sand and dozens of thick three foot tall candles burning. To one side stood a large sink where worshippers washed tangerines and various fruits which were placed in bowls on the altar. A troupe of dancers in brilliantly colored Chinese style costumes led by a drummer and flute players came through.Others came in with large handfuls of incense sticks which they lit from the candles. They paraded around the altar once with the smoking incense and stuck the them in the sand. Intricate paper cutout decorations and complex multi fold origami-like wreaths were placed on the altar briefly and then carried outside to a large furnace and tossed into the fire. All that time spent making the flowers and decorative pieces, only to burn them. Gifts to God. The only impermanent art in Christian churches is the music.

In the court of the Chinese temple was an old woman who sat with two buckets of turtles. They are to be bought and set free, a merit-making gesture. Perhaps one of them is your great-grandmother. I decided to buy one. The vendor shook her head, no. Several others came by to help her explain, but nobody spoke English. I persisted, holding out a 100 baht note as sign language asking what the price was. Her eyes lit up. That price was too good to pass up. So what if I was going to eat the turtle or keep it as a pet. The turtle was put into a bag for me. I bunched it up to put into my pocketbook, but she stopped my hand. The turtle needed air. Later when I told Nui, she laughed and said, "The farang price!"

The fact was, I intended to set it free, but I couldn't find anyone to give me advice on where. Outside, I sat on the steps to draw the turtle and try to remember and sketch the images of the temple. The little creature revived in my hand and obligingly poked out its head and feet, trying to swim in the air. When I finished, I stuck it back in the bag and turned to put away my pencils. Suddenly, I noticed the bag walking across the step. That enterprising turtle almost escaped into the busy market. I grabbed it up and hastened to a nearby canal (klong) where I hoped to free it. There was no place I could find to get down to the water. Houses were built right up to every square inch of the bank. I walked down a road next to the klong and finally found a little scruffy patch of garden where I could get close to the water. I tossed the turtle in. Dismayed, I watched it sink like a stone. But moments later, it bobbed up and swam off. That little soul, maybe my grandmother, was free, happy. I had made merit.

I found the one place along the entire klong where I could sit in the shade and look out over the water, a noodle shop. Only one of the tables was next to the shore. The other spaces along the water were filled with storage, a stove and parked motorcycles. The people don't seem to value a meal with a view.

There was time to sip a Coke and make a leisurely sketch of the canal. Traditional style teak wood houses on stilts and only reachable by boardwalks were intermingled with modern cement houses. It looked like half slum, half expensive real estate. One house had a garden, numerous flowering plants in pots all over the deck. Once in a while a one-manned long boat, piled high with cargo would roar past, breaking up the reflection. I had finally gotten to know the town and found a couple of ways to get down to the water. The shores of the klongs are all the private property of the houses along the water, inaccessible except for that one noodle shop. The Chao Phraya River which runs from Bangkok through Samut Prakan and out to the ocean, is bordered by a smelly broken down, but busy waterfront. Boats of every size and description with cargoes of produce, shrimp and fish pull up every few minutes. There are miles of fish farms across the river. Basket loads of fish and shrimp are cleaned and set out on trays. An extraordinary variety of exotic fruits and vegetables also come in on the boats. Thailand is famous for the bounty of its food. In times of economic hardship, people could live off the land, harvesting snails and fish from the canals. Many of the wild weeds can be eaten. That is, if you are not bothered by the pollution. The fertility of the land is compromised by massive factories and industry. Chimneys belch out smoke and chemical plants spew out poisons into the water with little government regulation. The market is only a few dozen feet from the water. You have to squeeze down the dank corridors through narrow aisles past colorful heaps of food. Puddles on the floor are bridged by rotting boards. I saw a rat scurry among the boxes. The way to the numerous ferries that go across the river is through this market. The poor people working here were startled to see a big blond woman tourist sitting among the filth painting the waterfront. I sketched a row of men and children fishing with poles. They squatted under umbrellas or makeshift cloth shades. Every so often one would pull in a small fish. Do they eat the fish from this extremely polluted water? Is this recreation or serious fishing?

In the afternoon we saw the temple to the Hindu god, Ganesh. It was a huge statue of a three headed elephant, almost 100 feet high and surrounded by scaffolding, still under construction. Inside, a free form spiral staircase swept up to the top, the inside of the head. Every surface was covered with decorative flowers made up of small pieces of decorated china. A crowd of young women were molding the flower petals out of cement. One was creating a border by setting into the cement the round bottoms of little bowls, dozens of them, all but the edges broken off. Outside, we watched workers pounding dry cement with a large mortar and pestle. It was reduced to a fine silky powder which was mixed with silicone, a perfect medium for the delicate decorations.The skill of these humble craftswomen was impressive. Are they artists of laborers? They are probably paid a laborer's wage. This giant elephant tour de force is created by the same man who built Muang Borang, The Ancient City. It was one of my favorite places in Thailand. Spread over many acres, it is a museum of Thai architecture. There are replicas in half- or quarter-scale of all of the styles of historic houses and temples throughout the country. Walking a few hundred feet, I could span the country from north to south, from a thousand years ago to the present.

In a grove of coconut palms, sat two dozen monks, actually wooden statues, remarkably realistic. Several men were carving more of them. I asked how long it took to make one and through sign language found out that it was done in only three days.When I expressed my amazement, they gestured, "Power tools". The figures were blocked out quickly and hand carving created the details and smoothed the surfaces. Still, it is remarkably fast; I remember taking a full summer to do one small wood sculpture.There are two hundred wood carvers employed for the 20 years that these projects have been under construction.

A third, and thoroughly delightful, project of the Ancient City people is the wood palace in Pattaya. Standing next to the seashore, it is a huge temple built completely of wood. It has the typical multiple complicated roof lines, but unlike ordinary Buddhist temples, it is covered with hundreds of statues. Voluptuous gods and goddesses of the Hindu pantheon cavorting all over the roofs, bunched on the capitals of all the columns and they are wreathed around every door, they are made in the style of the erotic stone carvings of India. Statues were piled in every corner inside and out, waiting to be installed high above. A web of scaffolding covered the building

The fact that I was allowed to wander through all this construction and sit anywhere to draw is a testimony to the non-litiginous culture here in Thailand. They are amazingly casual about safety. An amazing number of passengers will ride in the back of a pickup truck, holding on for dear life. It is roaring along at 60 miles an hour in heavy traffic. Heaven help the one who falls off.The people have to take care of themselves. There is no welfare system. After a decade of unparalleled prosperity, the economy in Thailand is in disarray. The government is urging people, who can't find work in the cities, to go back to their family farms. The family takes care of its own, even distant relatives can count on help. The few that have no family support live in extreme poverty, but they don't starve. Rice is cheap, the climate is warm. I saw many people living on mats in a corner of the market, ragged and filthy like the homeless in America, but they weren't begging. Perhaps it is forbidden. Certainly it is a military government. The soldiers are everywhere, but there is a sense of respect and affection for the military. This may only be the impression I got from the rather wealthy folks I was staying with, but the newspapers tell the same story.

In the evening, Nui and Tui brought me to see the Chinese opera. In honor of the Chinese New Year, a block nearby had been closed off and a street stage erected. Exuberantly colorful, like the Chinese temple, it was lit by glaring white florescent tubes. These tubes are everywhere, lighting the markets, the parks, even streetlights. I found them visually difficult. They don't seem to illuminate the objects around; they only make it more difficult to see because they destroy our nignt vision. The opera was fascinating, but there was excruciatingly loud, incomprehensible, continuous angry screeching. I found out later that it was a tale of betrayal and revenge. No wonder it sounded so furious. The costumes were wonderful, patterns of bright gold and colors from top to toe There was a peasant quality to the decorations, not as subtle as the costumes for royal performances. One of the most interesting characters had a six foot long feather arcing from her head. I think it indicated that she was a goddess. The audience had brought folding chairs, or stood to watch. It was somewhat like a performance in the park here in America, it reminded me of a Salsa concert we went to in Williamsburg on a hot summer night, the huge speakers that projected the sound for many blocks and the exuberant populist quality of the acting.

Looking back, I realize that the trip to Thailand was very intense. For the first week I was broken apart, frequently weepy. Like an adolescent, I felt massive emotional swings, from tears to jubilation. I had anxiety about being so dependent on my hosts, worried how I could ever reciprocate their kindness and generosity and hospitality. I later read in a tour book that you have to be very careful not to impose on them. You are supposed to refuse their generous offers three times before they will listen. I felt muddled, partly from digestive upset, and adjustment to the heat, which rose to 90 degrees every day.

But more particularly, there was culture shock. I was confused by the daily habits and ways of doing things - how to eat, how to respond to people in the hierarchy-bound society. Do I bow and wai someone first or am I, as the eldest, entitled to their wai. I was like an adolescent, trying to find my place in their world.

The language, even the alphabet was totally alien, made particularly difficult by the inflections that changed the meanings of words that sounded alike. I couldn't hear the differences. Later I found out that they couldn't hear some of the sounds in our language. "L" and "R" are two sounds that they confuse. Khemi once told me about how she and her brother loved to hop on his motorcycle, drive out to Phuket town and lie around all over town. What a puzzle. I envisioned them lounging around of the grass of the sidewalks with the motorcycle parked nearby. I finally found out that she meant "ride around town" not "lie around". Even though many of the Thai people have studied English for years and they are fluent in the written word, they have difficulty speaking. I think it is because certain sounds are simply opaque to them. The teaching of foreign languages is not any better in America, except in the immersion classes.

I have come to relish the memories. I came back with a new appreciation of our own way of life in New York City.

- text and illustrations, copyright 1999, Lucy Sikes.

Places mentioned in the text: Wat Asokaram | City Pillar and Chinese Shrine | Erawan Elephant Museum | Ancient City |