Roadside spirit houses

Roadside spirit houses

They are a common view in Thailand. Along many roads in Thailand, at some point of your trip, you may see a cluster of spirit houses in various sizes along the side of the road.

This is a perfect sample, on the ring road between Chaweng and Lamai here on Koh Samui. At one of the view points, there's also a small stretch of spirit houses. It's a strange phenomena if you stop at one of them, since the Thais will honk for the spirits, for good luck, so it's really noisy if you stand next to the road, trying to make a picture for instance.

Here's a closer look at one of them, they're put there because it was a dangerous spot on the road and people got most likely killed there. The spirit house give the wandering ghosts a place to stay and to find a home. They're filled with all kinds of small items, like statues in honour of Grand Pa and Grand Ma.

The spirit houses are also covered in the so called "Puang Ma Lay's", as this picture shows. See my blog entry about the school party in Plai Laem about the "Puang Ma Las's". Again, all for good luck! Trees may be wrapped in colour full clothing as well, a lot of trees are considered to be "holy", although, on Samui, the coconut trees must fall out of this category, looking at how much construction is currently going on and how many coconut trees are felled on a daily base.

This picture shows some of the bigger spirit houses on the road between Chaweng and Lamai.

People bring all kind of things to the spirit houses and the trees next to the spirit houses. Here's a good example with some plastic airplane (the Bangkok Airway pilots?).

This is the backside of the spirit houses, where the broken artifacts are gathering. It seems that in good old Thai style, one can sleep everywhere.

The insides of the spirit houses and immediate surroundings are filled with all kind of artifacts, ranging from plastic planes, car, caterpillars, dolls and clothes. Here's a picture of a small army of sitting people.

Here some older people (older people are in general very well respected in Thailand) in the foreground and a bunch of female dancers in the back.

Around Samui there are various spots where a cluster of these spirit houses can be found, but this is the easiest one to find in Samui.
As mentioned before, they can be found all over Thailand and they're really noisy if you happen to stand next to them!

Hope you enjoyed the pix,

Camille