He was hosting a visit by the director of the Department of Environmental Quality Promotion (DEQP) and invited me to go to dinner and share my recent experiences in the park.
The very fact that the DEQP director was in Silalaeng for the water spirit ritual, and not in Ban Toey for the rice spirit festival just the day before, represents the greater recognition that the Tai Lue have received for their claimed connections between culture and the environment, their 'indigenous knowledge', and their capacity for conservation.