Walking to Nowhere, in Thailand

A 5.30am circuit around a temple, searching for the nothing - exactly where I need to be

It is 5.30am and it’s already 28 degrees. The air is thick with humidity as grey clouds assemble like battleships around the horizon, bruising the hills in the distance.

It’s hard to sleep in this torpid air and so I tend to bury a whiskey or two at dinner time, purely for the medicinal aim of getting a decent sleep. It usually fails, but I have to keep trying…

The lack of sleep means I am lying spread eagled across my bed at 5am most mornings, willing sleep. It’s doomed of course and so I get up, have a shower and head out to push through the curtains of early day’s heat.

Near my hotel is a Wat, or temple. In its grounds is a plaque on a stand that says King Mengrai built a dwelling here for himself and his court in 1295 CE which became Chiang Mai, the capital of his Lanna Kingdom. The little sign is planted at the bottom of a chedi, a form of South-East Asian stupa, surrounded by 16 concrete elephants, the twittering of birds and susurrating trees like the sound of rain.

The chedi ascends to a needle point, all golden and catching the light on its surfaces, holding the morning for its brief visit each day.

I try and walk here every morning as early as I can, but it sometimes doesn’t open until 8am. The main building, which is a large prayer hall, houses a large gold Buddha and various paraphernalia, gold and jade, things that tinkle and scatter light, and occasionally the atonal hum of electric fans that oscillate, massaging the musty interior

Wats in Thailand are as ubiquitous as 7/11s. Every neighbourhood has one, which often means a wat on every block in some large built up areas like Bangkok. They mostly follow a similar architectural pattern of a central ceremonial or assembly hall and a chedi, as well as an array of other buildings around the compound perimeter, like monks’ living quarters or display pavilions or other prayer halls.

Many of the central hall structures are designed for walking around in a rough circuit, a practice known as cankama or walking meditation, with the idea being to slow down, align breath with the steps you are taking, so as to contemplate the place, the moment.

A more formal practice of walking is also done over a set number of laps at certain times of the year as a deeper meditation.

In this climate, mornings are golden, when the air is freshest and coolest, the birds and squirrels are active, and the mind is open and expansive, readying for the day ahead and calibrating what narratives it will carry into it.

And so I walk. There are two paths around the central building, an inner and an outer ring, and I usually take one, then the other, walking clockwise, which , I have since discovered, is the recommended direction.

I walk slowly, trying to feel my sandalled feet planting on the ground, evenly, soles flattening and lifting. The details of the structures and nature I walk past announce themselves as they will, with shimmering light from the window displays, a wink of gold flaring from a wall feature, a flutter of a leaf as a bird alights, the large Buddha on the western side, shadowed under the eaves, but with a form and presence that is felt before it’s seen.

The giant frangipani tree, flowerless now but with an aura of sweet scent, throws a deep, cooling shade as I round the front side of the main prayer hall for a new lap. I allow my hands to drag along its bark, as a kind of good morning gesture, an exchange of DNA.

Occasionally, if I am very early, and the Wat grounds are still closed, I will walk the streets where I might see barefoot monks procuring their bowls to residents who have waited in the street to feed them. It’s a quiet, humble moment, which I am dismayed tends to attract snap-happy tourists, who rather encroach on its intimacy, although I appreciate the desire to record and hold such a thing of delicate beauty.

In her 2001 book, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit lifts the seemingly banal act of walking to something which has a deep core meaning which has been practiced for millenia. In line with Theravada Buddhist thinking, she links the metronomic beat of walking with the breathing tempo of meditation, noting that the act unlocks our minds and easily, without effort, connects the inside thoughts with the outside world.

There is an intrinsic value in it, she argues, which develops a balance between the two worlds that allow us to course our way through them both. In a society which is always needing to do something, walking can seem like a nothing act. But, says Solnit, it is perhaps one of the more conscious and connected things we can do.

I walk everywhere. It offers an opportunity to go at nomad’s pace, to drop back into our ancient rhythms, to inhale and exhale into movement and to observe in a way that allows thoughts space so they can, themselves, move and observe, to not stay trapped in the prison of stasis.

But, this temple walk is special and rare. It is to feel at one with something existing beyond my reach, outside the day and my small life, and to be defined by what is absent not by what is received.

On leaving the wat compound, I often say good morning to the tuk-tuk and taxi drivers parked around the gates. One morning, one asked me if I lived here, as he had seen me here often. I said no, I did not, but I added I will always return even when I’m not here. He bowed his head a little and put his palms together, fingers to the heavens, before his smiling face, and I did the same.

*All pics © JJ Rose