the air shimmers and booms with shifting harmonies.
Booooooooooooooooooom, booooooooooooooooooooooooooom,
it vibrates all of your body, you feel it in your bones,....
The hot tropic air is cool up here, the Golden Mount, the highest natural point in Bangkok.
Thousands upon thousands of people shuffle up centimeter by centimeter, bodies against bodies, hot, human mass of bodies winding its way up and around in a huge spiral.
I'm at the very top now.
Boooooooooooooooooooooom, boooooooooooooooooooooooom,
something dislodges in me, the deep vibrating sounds loosens something in me. All around is the vast sea of lights of Bangkok. Fireworks going off in the distance.
Boooooooooooooooooooooom, booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom, the air shimmers,
I have no idea where the sounds comes from,
its in me and around me and through me.
Why do I feel like crying ?
Who cares, no one would notice and if they did they'd not think it strange.
People kneel in prayer around the most central stupa, - today and only tonight, it is clothed in read cloth, illuminated by bright lights, it shines like a lighthouse for tense of kilometers.
The smell of cooking, drifts up, the sounds of the fair far off.
Everywhere, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, but up here, it's cool and there is space to walk, on the roof of Bangkok.
I kneel down, take off shoes, pray.
First issue..... oh... I know what to do.... hm... how come I suddenly just knew what to do ? Great.
Second issue.... I get a picture... about the situation, it describes it and I see what the best path would be... its a clear image, for the next 3-to-4 years ahead.
Third issues..... Yes, that will happen. No problem, it's ok.
Relieved I get up. Something happened, no idea how or why, but I feel different.
And then the long way down, it's much faster.
The path to the road takes 30 minutes, shuffle, body to body, touching on 4 or 5 sides, squeezy, slow, smoke from the grills on the side drift over us.
Shuffle shuffle, shuffle.... .
But I don't mind, I knew this was the deal.
I knew I HAD to go to the very top tonight.
And that would be the price, I knew that.
---(O)---
I've visited Thailand since 1978, and today was the first time I'd ever gone up the Golden Mount.
The couple who run the Passport bookshop told me about Loy Kratong there today.
When I saw it shining up there in the distance, I decided to go there, through the crowds and hours of shuffling........
Heiko Rudolph. (c)
Loy Kratong 2011
10Nov11 THursday,
Bangkok, Banglamphuu, Bangkok House.
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