Most people think about how the future might look like. Nobody knows exactly, but there are many people taking guesses. Going to Thailand feels a bit like the past at times, with all these hawkers and small stands on the street. Nevertheless the people here are living in the future. What I am referring to is the buddhist calender that is widely used in Thailand and also other buddhist countries.

In the buddhist calender, the years are not counted from the birth of christ, which is the common system in the western world. The buddhist calender begins with the Buddha attaining parinibbāna. I am not very well informed with the correct terminology of Buddhism, but in my understanding this means that the Buddha left this world and arrived in the Nirvana. This happened more than 500 years before the birth of Christ.

This results in our present year 2013, being counted as year 2556 in the buddhist calender. The days and months however seem to be the same.

Movie Poster with buddhist year on it

Today this is present at many different places in the Thai life, as both systems, the christian and the buddhist, are widely used. The release date of movies is partly advertised in christian and in buddhist years. As well as newspaper dates, repair dates for electronics and about everything else you can imagine. At first you don’t even realize you are looking at a date when you see these numbers, but once you find out, you can find it everywhere.

Oh, and to answer your question: The future is pretty cool but really really hot!

Yours

Crazy Ivory

Follow my photos, travel route and stories on the Asia Adventure Page.

Thailand is a country of buddhists. Around 95% of the thai people are buddhist. And this of course also reflects in the all day life of the people, on the streets and in the houses. When people are building houses, they give a new house to the spirit that used to live there. The size of the spirit house depends on the size of the land that the building was build on. The bigger the land is, the bigger the house shall be.

But it doesnt stop with the house. Its the duty to feed the spirit daily or give presents in order to please him. This may be anything from fruits or vegetables, drinks or flowers. And in many cases: Red Fanta.
Seeing the shrines on the streets, with Red Fanta and a straw in front of it was really unexpected for me. But after looking out for it, I saw more and more shrines decorated with red lemonade.

After doing a bit of research, the reason for this seems to be unclear. However, one guess could be that Red is the color of blood, and it is supposed to give vitality to the spirit. The obvious question what the spirits drank before Coca-Cola invented Red Fanta remains unanswered. 

Still, a fascinating sight in a fascinating country.

Yours

Crazy Ivory

BTW: The best way to follow my photos, travel route and stories is the Asia Adventure Page.