A few days before my mother passed away, she asked me, her eldest child, "When I die, can you hold my funeral at Ban Tha Lo?"
"Of course. You will definitely have it as you wish," I immediately, yet calmly, replied. At the same time, however, inside my brain was like a tense scene in a "war room", each and every one of my brain cells trying to figure out what would be the most appropriate way to realise what turned out to be her final request.
We lived in Nonthaburi and Ban Tha Lo, her home village, is located in Phetchaburi province. It's a two-hour drive away, which actually is not a great distance, but for a person who never cared to learn about religious procedures or other forms of formality, this mission was immensely daunting. In my imaginary "war room", everybody was looking at one another, each wearing a blank look.
Then as luck would have it, on the day of her peaceful departure, my sister discovered something on the internet that came to our rescue, a one-stop service funeral parlour.
Apart from selling "final homes" for the deceased, the parlour also provides a variety of funeral-related services, including transportation of corpses from homes or hospitals to anywhere in the world. Suddenly, bringing the remains of my mother to Phetchaburi was no longer a problem.
I found the fee: 4,000 baht on top of the 13,000-something selected package which included a decorated wooden coffin, embalming, floral decorations, incense sticks, candles and other things, reasonable. As soon as we got the death certificate and other required documents ready, a van with a team of three men from the funeral parlour arrived at our home.
While two of them prepared my mother's body in her bedroom, the other man invited me to follow him outside to the front gate, gave me a lit incense stick and told me we had to inform the guardian spirits of the house about the death and ask for permission to bring the body out. "Oh-oh," I thought. This was not just logistics.
Seeing the I-have-no-idea-what-to-do expression on my face, the man said, "Don't worry. Just repeat after me." As a result, my first time performing the ritual was a breeze.
Before long, the coffin was loaded on the back of the van and we were ready to set off. One of the men lit an incense stick inside the vehicle and handed me a bag of coins.
"I asked your sister to collect all the coins she could find," he told me.
"What for?" I questioned, and was told that every time the van went over a bridge or made a turn, I would have to toss a few coins into a container to make sure the spirit of my mother would not go astray.
"Whatever you say," I thought as I reached out for the bag and placed it on the empty seat next to me.
As soon as the van rolled out, the driver said in a loud voice, "Mother, we are leaving. Please follow the smell of the incense smoke. We have bought you the right of passage to get to your funeral at Wat Tha Lo in Phetchaburi province".
"Toss the coins!" another staff member reminded me.
Two minutes later, "Mother, we are turning left. Please follow the smell of the incense smoke. We have bought you the right of passage to get to your funeral at Wat Tha Lo in Phetchaburi province," the driver said and I dropped more coins into the container.
"Mother, we're going over a flyover..."
"Mother, we're crossing a bridge over a canal..."
"Mother, we're crossing a bridge over a river..."
This was repeated countless times, all the way from Nonthaburi to Phetchaburi and further to the temple. I was surprised by the number of bridges we passed. There were dozens of them, most of which I'm sure the majority of road users just drive past without noticing. By the time we hit Rama II road (Highway 35), I had to toss only one coin at a time, otherwise there would not have been enough left until we reached our destination. What amazed me even more was the driver's tirelessness in repeating all those sentences to constantly keep my mother "informed" of every detail of our journey.
Once we reached the temple, the staff carried the coffin to the funeral venue and helped adorn the place with flowers. My mother's relatives and the monks took care of all the required rituals.
Mum, I've learnt a few things about traditional practices over the past few days. Every step was done correctly and I'm sure you must be happy up there. Besides, I think now I know why you had requested to have your funeral held in your home village.
Pongpet Mekloy is the Bangkok Post travel editor.