After nearly a month in the marina on Phuket Island, however, we did learn about a number of Thai customs and traditions, including the “wai”; the Thai greeting, consisting of a slight bow, with the palms pressed together in a prayer-like fashion. With no clue on what was appropriate in using this gesture or in responding to it, research revealed that, once again, we indeed have it all wrong initially; we were waiing indiscriminately, I’m sure to the amusement of those caught off guard, but were kind enough to return our gestures, nonetheless.
Having its origins in Buddhism and in the Indian Añjali Mudrā, like the Indian “namaste” in Hinduism and the Burmese “mingalaba”, the higher the hands are held in relation to the face and the lower the bow, the more respect or reverence the giver of the “wai” is showing.
“Waiing” is an extremely important part of social behavior amongst Thais and there are “rules” around this salutation. For instance, it’s performed on entering and leaving a home, it is commonly used as a way to express gratitude or apology and, for foreign tourists and other visitors, who are unaccustomed to the intricacies of the Thai language and culture, should not “wai” someone younger than themselves. However, one should always return a “wai” that is offered as a sign of respect, even if doing so is difficult for some or other reason; for instance, if you happened to be carrying groceries, one should still show the respect by making a physical effort to return the greeting somehow.
The word often spoken with the “wai”, as a greeting or a farewell, is "sawat di" and is usually followed by "kha" when spoken by a female and by "khrap" when spoken by a male.
With this newfound knowledge, at least, we redeemed ourselves before our departure.
After a brief stop at Koh Rang Yai and Koh Rang Noi, to survey the conditions, we decided to return to Koh Nakha Yai instead and, by mid-morning, we were securely anchored in the company of a few other yachts. Lunch and dinner in the cockpit were our treats, but receiving videos of the twins graduating from pre-school was the cherry on the top. It was hard to believe they were off to kindergarten after the summer and William would be going to “big school”. While Carter won an award for his creative doodling and indicated that he wanted to be a fire fighter when he grew up, Brayden won the award for the individual most likely to star in a movie. It was, however, his answer to what his favourite food was, that had us all in dismay: “broccoli”, although he didn’t get his nickname from Grandpa of “Mr Beans”, for nothing, while Carter earned his, “Mr Carrots”, too. We’ve never seen two toddlers munch their way through a heap of vegetables like they did and, apparently, that hasn’t changed.
This morning we were up early to enjoy our first dinghy exploration since October 2019 in Belitung, Indonesia, and what we found was somewhat saddening; a beautiful closed up clamping resort and a number of closed up restaurants and beach bars. In pre-pandemic days, these places would have been abuzz with tourists or day trippers and the washed up garbage fringing the high water mark would most certainly have been cleaned up; the latter a common denominator we’ve seen all over SE Asia.
A lazy Sunday in the cool breeze of the cockpit, under sunny skies, was, however, the perfect way to spend the rest of our day!
Roy did muster up a bit of energy, though, when he decided to cook up a storm in the galley, trying his hand at a Pad Thai; delicious!
