I say, ”You mean the omens for the 21st century are not good?”
A shrug: ”No, but what can you do? Life goes on.”
On the other hand, when Theravada Buddhism came to dominance here in the 13th century, it had to accommodate Hinduism and native animism. Detachment is all well and good, but spirits must be appeased, the dead cannot be left to roam aimlessly — and something must be done to feed that ravenous sea god who expressed his rage by eating 5,300 people.
”How do Thai people like you feel about it now, two weeks later?” I ask Pui, who works behind a bar in downtown Bangkok and has frequently been to Phuket on business.
”The ghosts are a problem,” she replies without hesitation. ”Thai people hate ghosts and now Phuket is full of them. I won’t go down there again.”
Other girls at the bar corroborate. The grapevine is alive with ghost stories: the fisherman on Phi Phi Island who heard a large group of Westerners calling for help, but when he looked saw nobody; the tuk-tuk driver on Phuket who stopped for five tourists hailing his motorized rickshaw, then, when he looked behind him into the tuk-tuk, found no passengers.

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