To say that Thai people are superstitious is an understatement. Couple this with a desire to win the national lottery then you will get some very odd behaviour. People will do anything to find the latest lottery number. They will even rub the bark of a lucky tree to see if they can work out any numbers. At our local Erawan Museum, someone apparently won a million baht after wishing for good luck. Since the news broke thousands of people go there to pray now.

People also look for anything auspicious or strange. I have written before a couple of times about these unusual ways of looking for lottery numbers. One was the footprints of a Naga snake on top of a car. People were looking for numbers in the patterns. Another was a pig which had two faces. Today comes another story from the Thai Rath newspaper. A man from Udornthanee bought a betel nut palm to decorate his restaurant. After a short while, he noticed that the leaves of the plant were growing into the shape of the King of the Nagas, a highly respected serpent snake. As soon as the locals heard about this they came flocking to his restaurant to pay respect and also to beg for the winning lottery numbers!