What Type of Wat is this? Wat did you say?

I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that we had just stumbled onto the set of a horror movie. Making our way through the skeletal remains of a palm field, its haggard appearance giving us a foreshadowing of danger, we emerged onto the grounds of a dilapidated wat (Buddist temple).

Being aware of the customs and proper wat etiquette, I was apprehensive to enter in my shoulder bearing tank top and shorts. But, then again, what could one expect if the wat was nestled into the side of a limestone cliff in the Thai rain forest? Dress pants and silk shirts? Hardly.

Erik and I carefully tiptoed along the worn grass path. In the distance a monk crossed and we froze like rabbits in the hunt as the orange robed man disappeared behind another building. Well, it’s definitely occupied, we decided. The rest of his family slowly made their way to us as we scanned the grounds. I was feeling like Leonardo Dicapprio in The Beach where he finds himself in a field of Marijuana and quickly learns that he shouldn’t be there as bullets whiz by his head and he has to make a mad dash to safety. Why was it so quiet here?

The sound of water behind us grabbed our attention and from inside a small wooden shack began the drizzle of a shower. Outside, draped on the banister, hung a bright orange robe. A monk was showering. How rude would it be if he opened the door and saw five Farang (foreigners) staring back at him? I can’t even imagine how many monk rules of behavior that would break- to see a naked monk! We quickened our step, coming between two buildings. I grabbed at Erik’s shirt as he moved ahead and hoarsely whispered, “A sarcophagus.” My eyes spread wide in surprise. I had never seen a casket just sitting out at a monastery. The decorative details glimmered in the sunlight as a large bronze Buddha figure sat in the corner looking on. What kind of wat is this?

Erik’s Father directed our attention to the building on our right as the others snapped pictures and gawked at the beauty of the statue. Four dogs lay lazily on the steps leading up to the poorly painted building’s inside platform revealing itself as a crematorium, its smokestack rising out of the top. Is this some sort of jungle temple? Like, monks gone mad? Are they crazy cannibal monks that the rain forest had somehow twisted and turned from Buddha? Are we just some stupid tourists stumbling into a death trap? My feet were toed- up to split at any minute.

Curiosity won us over and we continued to slink onward toward the mouth of a cave in the distance. Still cautious, I hid behind the corner of a building, peeking out as if I was a secret agent marking my target. Erik and his uncle walked down the path leading to the cave and as I watched them the inside of the cave became clearer. What was inside? What the hell is that???? A giant, red-faced Sesame Street puppet gone very, very bad sat upright encaged in a chain link fence. To its right was a large- was it papier-mâché?- jaguar in prowl mode. A few Buddha images in various positions and mediums were scattered around and alms jars lined the left side of the puppet. What had we stumbled upon? Oh, no, this was it. We had stumbled upon some sort of evil place. Maybe they had already eaten all the monks! What is that red-faced statue? Is it Satan? This can not be good. Where were all the monks? My mind raced with images of us captured and tethered together. A gigantic cauldron sat atop flames heating water to a boil as we are lead up a small coconut tree ladder to be stewed. All the while strayed monks and wild natives danced around in scraps of orange robes waving sticks and chanting incantations to the red-faced evil demon.

I snapped out of my daymare as a monkey scurried past my feet. The monkeys had followed us in and now a family of about thirty grey monkeys wrestled, chattered and played around us like some sort of watchdog to the keepers of the red-faced demon puppet. I shooed them with my hands and noticed Erik motioning for me to join from the mouth of the cave. Taking another peek around the corner, I scuttled to the cave keeping low and monkey like. Entering the cave, I felt as though I was trespassing and discovering a hidden treasure all at the same time. The call of monkeys echoed as I stood facing a large two-paned chalkboard inside the cave. Written in cursive English was the story of a giant woman who had lived in the cave many years before. It went on to tell of how the woman bore a son who, upon learning that his Mother was a giant, disowned and denounced her. Heart broken, the woman died. But, before she passed she left a pool of tears (holy water) for her son. The son learned this and was ashamed.

The red-faced puppet was, in fact, a statue of the female giant. Feeling a little relieved I wandered around the other Buddha images, wai-ing in respect. A stout monk emerged from the side of the cave and began to re-tell us the story that we had just read. His English was well defined, with only a few pronunciation problems, but a great sense of humor, “Where you frum?”

“America…East coast…Vermont.”

“Ah, America. I go to Denvah’, Cololado. You know? Many, many year ago.”

“Ah, yeah, Denver, Colorado. Sure.”

“Like Laws Vegas.” He chuckled to himself at his joke. “Many lights. Big.”
“Cold.” I added. With the rest of the family joining us, we followed the monk into the cave. Hesitantly, I stayed at the back, unfortunately not where the two flashlights were the brightest. He shone his light on a giant toad and a hiding puppy as we wound our way to the “holy water” in the depth of the cave. We came to a large room, its stone walls covered with a black Thai script. I wondered what it said as the monk pointed to a hole in the wall.

“Holy water for healing. You have the sickness, you can take. Many people feel better. Can sa-wim. Maybe one, two minutes. Feel good.” He smiled brightly and I couldn’t help but think what idiots we are to climb into this hole and dunk ourselves in stagnant cave water. Like the Blarney stone in Ireland, it’s probably a local’s joke.

“Do you go in?” I asked as two anxious family members climbed in.

“No, never need to. Don’t need.” He held his smile and I thought, what the heck. I can’t resist the promise of health after my bout with sickness in the past months. I climbed into the hole and descended the few meters down the rickety ladder to dip my fingers into the so-called “holy water”. I rubbed a little on my neck and looked into the pool. The glow of the flashlight only shone enough to see a few meters in front of us; the rest was swallowed in darkness. Then it came to me, this was it. This is when we get sacrificed to the god-knows-what rain forest beast that lives in the depth of the cave. My heart skipped and my vision blurred into the darkness. We were the stupid tourists tromping into the demon’s sacrificial liar. We were like Joe and his volcano, alright. I turned on my heel, my shoes slipping in the clay-like muck and gladly let the others climb down to the water.

I emerged from the cave to an empty room. The monk was gone. Waiting for the others to finish their death-dip, I scanned the walls with its artistic Thai writing. I wish I knew what it said. Surviving the sacrificial trap, we all made it out of the darkened cave and back into sunlight. The monk was waiting for us and chattering with the monkeys as they climbed atop the Buddha images as if to say that this area was their playground and we had better recognize that. Like little humans with tails they bounded across the dusty ground wrestling and nipping at each other.

“The monkey, he show you how they play. He show you cave. You can go up. Monkey can say, ‘No!’ You say, ‘please monkey’ and give him banana. He say mibbe one banana, mibbe two!” He erupted in laughter with his hands on his hips.

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The stairs creaked as we wearily inched upward on their rotted boards. The stairs were built into the side of a limestone cliff with concrete, steel banisters and wooden planks. They were suspended haphazardly above rain forest brush. The monkeys joined us in our climb, chattering and twisting through the hanging overgrowth around us. I gripped the rusted banister with white knuckles as I crossed the suspension bridge, its body swerving like a snake as we crossed. Some boards were green with time and one flipped up as I put my weight on it, the nail completely rotted out. I gripped the banister harder with a slight squeak of surprise. You could see that repairs had been done…at some point, because another board was laid atop the rotted one and nailed into it.

I was Indian Jones, man. Only I didn’t have a snazzy hat and little sidekick kid to annoy me, I had sunscreen and monkeys. I envisioned the banister, old and unkempt, cracking at the point of concrete connection to the face of the cliff. The ladder would gracefully float downward, giving way from under my feet and I would have to cling to rotted board or jungle vines, pleading with the monkeys for help.

Fortunately, the boards were stable enough. Shaky legs made it to the higher platform where we were met by a male monkey, his fur fluffed in intimidation.

“Look, we don’t have any damn bananas.” Erik explained to the monkey.

“Easy, now. Just scurry along Mr. Monkey.” I chimed in. He looked at us with contempt, his eyes scanning our empty hands. Eventually he climbed to a nearby tree limb, its height directly where our heads would pass. Was he going to chomp us as we passed? The last thing we needed was a monkey bite, contracting monkey H.I.V or herpes or rabies, or God knows what else. With no bananas, bribery wasn’t an option. We carefully glided by.

The cave was filled with millions of still black bodies hanging from the ceiling and only after a light whistle did a few of them stir. It smelled dank and wet; earthy. Its darkness wasn’t exactly what I’d call inviting, but invitation or not, we went in. After we scanned the perimeter (the thought of a cave monster still lingering in the background of my thoughts) we braved the dissent of the stairs again.

The sun hung high in the afternoon’s cloudless sky; its heat burning into our skin and causing the dirt to stick to our moistened bodies. We walked out the way we entered, quiet and awestruck at the odd treasure we had unveiled. We had survived.