Thailand, Take 6/Malaysia, Take 2

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Well on March 4th I headed to Thailand for 6th time in the last 4 years. I wanted to taste some more local culture in Bangkok before heading to a meditation retreat down south. So via the lovely couchsurfing network I was offered a bed about 1 hour from the center. Toom was my most gracious host and offered me an experience that you can't buy. Chilling with a local, in an all Thai neighborhood eating things I wouldn't even know how to order. Toom was the pleasant reality behind that famous Thai smile. Hospitable almost to a fault as 12 people rested their travel weary heads at his place on my last night. I was more than willing to show my appreciation, and I helped Toom paint one of his rooms upstairs. Other couchsurfers helped depending on who was there and Toom would bring us Thai iced tea, barbequed pork and sticky rice or some other local cuisine. It was just the experience I had wanted and I stayed the better part of a week.

I took the bus for the 1st time south, having previously used the rail system or flown. It was 12 hours from Bangkok to Surat Thani where I waited another 4 hours for a night boat to Koh Phangan. This was also a new experience in getting to the island famous for full/half/black moon parties. Hell there are even moon set parties these days. I was on a different mission this time though. I was headed to Wat Kow Tahm, a Thai monastery where I would be taking a 10 day Vipassana meditation course. The monastery was perched up on a small mountain overlooking the SW portion of the island. I could even see the beach where my mate McCormick and I recovered from our full moon party experience back in '08. The retreat is conducted in silence from the beginning of the 1st evening. There were nearly 50 retreatants coming predominantly from Europe, but the Americas were represented, along with Australia and even one girl from Kazakhstan. Vipassana, which is often translated as "insight," doesn't refer to just one type of meditation as I had previously thought. It's more like any meditation, formal or informal, that brings insight or clearseeing to the practitioner. We were taught a variety of mental development techniques in the sitting, standing and walking postures. The 1st few days are particulary ardous for anyone who hasn't taken a retreat like this. Here is the strictly followed schedule to give you an idea:
0400-Wake up bell
0445-Sitting (meditation)
0530-Yoga/Mindfulness Excercies
0635-Sitting
0705-Breakfast
0815-Working Meditation (My job was sweeping leaves around the temple and walking meditation paths, happily not cleaning toilets 😊
0900-Walking (meditation)
0930-Meditation talk, then sitting meditation expanding on talk
1015-Sitting/Standing (meditation)
1025-Meditation talk
1030-Walking
1100-Lunch
1300-Walking
1345-Standing, then allowed to sit after tiring
1445-Walking
1530-Sitting
1615-Sitting/Standing
1630-Walking
1515-Light Dinner (fruit, tea and soy drink)
1816-Sitting
1845-Standing/Walking
1915-Dharma Talk

It's a little hard to put into words what happened during those 10 days. The most obvious thing to say is that you feel a quieting of the mind as you learn to just focus on your breath and the other meditations. All I know is that I came out of the course feeling clearer and more mentally strong than I have in years. In all honesty it's not something to try and describe, it's some to experience yourself, should you ever feel compelled.

I stayed 2 more days after the retreat ended and then took the night boat again back to the mainland. The night boat is quite the experience in itself with mattresses crammed in to fit at least 200 people. There were people drinking, playing music and there has probably even been a little hippy/raver child conceived in the dark of the night. I just tried to get a few winks as I knew we were to arrive at the incomprehensible time of 0400. Well to make it worse we were 30 minutes early, and it was pissing rain. It was going to be a long travel day. Sure enough I made all the wrong transporation decisions and wasn't able to make it the farm I was headed that day. My decision to not buy a travel guide book was a challenge and great fun, but it was sometimes sorely missed. So I holed up in a Chinese owned hotel where I am pretty sure I could have been paying hourly rates. I was beat though and even managed to sleep in the next morning before having some good S. Indian food around the corner. Then I walked to the local bus station to catch a bus to the nearest community to the farm, Lenggong. I'd been the only foreigner on any of the 3 buses since arriving in Malaysia, and I was certainly the only foreigner in tiny Lenggong. I practiced my Chinese with the locals while I waited for the Czech farmer whom I'd be volunteering with.

Ladia, the Czech farmer/engineer arrived with long dreads swaying. He started talking to me about 3 different things and then disappeared to organize us a ride up to the farm. We helped some locals unload a truck of coconuts and were soon bouncing up the mountain in their truck. The farm is magnificently situated in a valley with rainforest on three sides. It had been raining heaps and the next morning was no different. My 1st job was to test out my skills on the battered farm motorcycle and go pick up some wild elephant dung on the driveway about a mile down. I was loving this place already. Ladia had some engineering consulting work to do in the capital, Kuala Lumpur the next week, so he showed me a variety of things to keep me busy. It was to be the perfect transition from the intensive meditation course. I drove Ladia down the mountain that night on the beater bike with headlamps as our headlights. The rest of the week was mine as I worked through the list Ladia gave me and made up new garden projects on a whim. All the meals were cooked by his wife, Dana, and she was one hell of a cook. There was fresh bread almost daily and all sorts of hearty central European dishes and some Asian/Euro fusion. Brilliant. Mary and Jane, the two nearly grown pups were my constant companions as I would force the motorcycle up the steep hillside. I felt like I was 7 years old again when I used to race motorcycles. The hillside was forever muddy, and I would fish tail back and forth working up a sweat on the 10 minute ride to the site where I was building the foundation for a pond. The foundation was being formed with garlic sacks packed with the local sticky clay. On the back side of the pond I was already filling in with fruit trees, shrubs and sorghum. The week passed too quickly, and I even extended it a day so I could just have a day to chill on the farm. There were great hornbills that passed over the valley every morning and troupes of monkeys could also be seen nearby daily. Low clouds hung over the valley in the mornings and I was treated to a fantastic rainbow on my last afternoon. The week had really flown by.

The next morning Ladia dropped me off at the bus station in town, and I caught a bus the 4 hours to Kuala Lumpur (K.L.). I received a colorful history lesson from a former Malay fighter pilot on the way. He was Muslim and I told him how impressed I was at the culutural and religious diversity in Malaysia. Even more impressive is how well all these groups get along. He said he felt like it had a lot to do with respect, and I could only wish there was more of that respect around the world. Walking around K.L. the next few days I could see this respect in the architecture with mosques kitty corner to Hindu temples and a Buddhist temple just next door. The cuisine is a delight too, as you find all the ethnic blends coming together on your dinner plate. Malaysia definitely left a much stronger impression on me the 2nd time around.

I'll just leave you with a few notes/quotes from my meditation course:
"It's not the feelings or emotions that arise which are important, it's how we react to them."
"All beings must walk the path to peace within themselves."
"The world is as it is...." and I have since added..."and people are as they are."

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Photos

Wat Kow Tahm
This was near the monks' living quarters.

Head Nun
Mae Chee Ahmon, aged 87, is the founder of the monastery. She is still a ray of light here giving us a thoughtful fair-well speech.