“Today you’re going to meet the wizard”, says Rachel’s friend Roula, as the three of us try to harmonise our arms, shoulders and legs in a jam-packed bus in 40-degree heat. I have a day off volunteering and I’m spending the morning observing Rachel and Roula’s healing/massage class. Their teacher is called Pischet, a healer with a reputation reaching across the globe. Small and smiling, he is a chain smoker who dresses in an old pair of shorts and a white t-shirt sporting a logo ‘Thailand Massage Circus’. He talks quietly sitting on the floor in a room that appears to be a temple, massage studio and store room. Acupuncture wall charts hang amicably next to cross legged Buddha statues and a wooden carving of an elk’s head. There’s a grandfather clock in the corner that could’ve belonged to my late grandparents’ living room. As the fans hum and lizards cackle, Pischet lectures in his own brand of English that Rachel smilingly translates: hangover means emotional baggage, in the bok means in the box, or in the coffin. For me his wisdom is hard to decrypt.
I’ve been in Chiang Mai for three weeks and I’ve developed an inquisitive routine. Most weekdays I volunteer as a media boffin at WEAVE. The charity aims to empower refugee women from Burma to earn a living by practising traditional handicrafts. I’ve been busy taking photographs for Oxfam’s online shop as well as updating our own catalogue. In the evenings and weekends I mix with Chiang Mai’s transient foreign community. Many people here are looking for something; there’s a spiritual idealism that is in strong juxtaposition with a sense of disappointment with the Western world. So far I share neither, but as a nosey Parker I’m tirelessly fascinated. The people I talk to vary from a French aid worker disillusioned after seven years in Somalia to a Jewish Canadian researching communication between animals and human beings.


My contemplative mood is interrupted by a fight. Since arriving in this town surrounded by moats, the momentum has been gathering for a three-day battle. The whole city of 1,5 million people partakes so I buy a weapon from a local dealer. I’m safe for all of 30 seconds. Then a car pulls by my side, the window is lowered and I’m royally drenched in water. The Buddhist New Year, Songkran, is here. For the next three days valuables as well as white t shirts are best left home because everyone is a target in the great water fight. Originally a blessing with a gentle trickle, these days water is blasted with garden hose pipes and poured by buckets from open top vans by normally tranquil citizens. I get immersed in the fun with Ben, 7 and Jade, 10, bright and brave expat children based in Bangkok. They are visiting Rachel with their teacher parents Andy and Carrie who have lived overseas for over two decades. “The idea of Songkran is to dodge the water” Jade expertly coaches me as I recover from yet another ice cold bucket load emptied over my head. As I get to know this family I admire their courage to think outside the box and chase their own lifestyle.


Back at Pischet’s, a student sitting next to me feels the tension in my neck and signals with his hands an overwhelmed mind. He is right. I try to make sense of this notorious healer’s wisdom about how we need to learn to listen to our bodies. But I struggle to put together my thoughts. I wonder about life experiences that happen so quickly and seem to bear little relation to each other. How are memories, conversations and moments best treasured? How do we best learn? In this particular journey I’m half way. As I prepare to lift my oh-so-swollen rucksack after a month in Chiang Mai I have no answers. But perhaps it's a good idea to keep trying to get soaked in more than just water.

