Advertisement
Published: March 2nd 2008
Edit Blog Post
Well this week has been a very interesting one. We have immersed ourselves with the monks, so to speak!!!
On Monday we got up at 6am to give food to the monks as they walked past the eco house. This is a tradition that happens every day and in every town accross Thailand. Basically the monks gather food such as rice and vegetables, (my favourite food! ha ha), and take it back to the temple to eat it as their breakfast and lunch but they cannot eat after 12pm as this is considered a way to prevent them from becoming greedy, so they stuff themselves in the morning instead! So anyway, we got up and they didn't appear, we had word that they were on the other side of the river so we crossed the river on the raft (most of us, myself included, were in our pyjamas as we just thought we were giving them the food and then heading back to bed!) so we eventually had one old monk walk towards us and we had to give him the food in a particular way, especially as women are not allowed to give anything to, or touch the monks
directly. We kind of then got blessed by the monk and then we all went on our merry way back to bed. In the afternoon we visited another temple in large grounds where there are many monks, including; as we discovered, 'monk boys' as young as 10 who get sent to be a monk by their family. In thailand it is considered an honour to have someone in the family who is a monk and we hadn't really realised how young they can be immersed in this way of life.
On Tuesday morning we had the local monks (3 of them) come to the eco house for morning chanting which was quite interesting however we had to sat kneeled down and most of us were in agony doing this on the stone floor so were moving a lot to try and get comfortable. We left them to have their lunch and packed up our belongings for an overnight stay in a different temple about an hours drive away with some more monks. We arrived and settled into our rooms...bare rooms with marble floors, lucky we had our sleeping bags! In the evening we did meditation with the monks for
20 minutes which was quite good..except towards the end when Oliver got yet another phone call which brought us out in fits of giggles! We then had question time, or 'monk chat' and asked them questions about their beliefs and what they can and cannot do which was interesting. We all went to bed not looking forward to the marble floors and the many mosquitos flying around the place.
The next morning at 6am we went with the monks (they were bare-footed) to walk around the town and gather their food for the day. It was really nice to be able to see this first hand and obviously how important it is to Thai culture. When we got back to the temple we had to help congregate all the food and sort it into similar piles, there was soooo much food, it was crazy considering there are actually only 5 monks at this temple. The food fed all 22 of us and the monks, the nuns and some of the staff there.
We then had the loveliest task of all getting to plant our own tree in the grounds of the temple for 'world peace' with the monks.
We went and picked out our rubber trees and went to a field at the back of the temple to plant them. It was a really nice thing for them to let us do. Those of you who know me so very well will know that I don't like to get so grubby, so when my tree got its little hole dug and I realised I may have to fill the hole around it with soil with my bare hands, one monk came to my rescue. Now obviously I helped a little as I wanted to play my part but he did the bulk of it to help me. Then we had to give our tree some water...another stumling block for me when I realised the water had to come from dunking a bucket in the nearby river! Luckily one of the lads in our group, Richard, came to my rescue! I know I have to get over some of my fears but I think I want to take things slowly on dirt and grime! We left and went back to the eco house where we all just chilled out for the afternoon, some people slept to catch up from
the night before.
On the Thursday we left for a spa resort in Supanburi, on the way we stopped at a Tesco (yes it is branded exactly the same!) For those of you who are a little squemish, skip to the next paragraph now! Basically, I haven't talked much about mosquitos but there are tons of them, especially at the eco house as we are right next to the river. Everyone is getting bitten, even though, like myself we have mosquito sprays galore and I have a mosquito net over my bed. Mosquito's and I have a very one-sided relationship - I hate them, but they seem to still love me back and find me quite tasty. The problem is, I react quite badly to the bites. So I had 3 bites in particular that had swelled up into big bubbles full of liquid (yes not pleasant I know) So Oliver takes me into the Pharmacist at Tesco and shows them my bites. So picture this, I am in Tesco, I have my leg up on a stool and the Pharmacist is extracting liquid from the bubbles with a syringe (mum, don't worry it was a brand new one
I had to buy off the shelf) I suppose you have to laugh at these things really! So now I have cream and tablets to take all because the little things are biting me!
Anyway, back to the resort...it was set in lovely grounds away from everything, we all had little chalets and there was a swimming pool so most of us sunbathed and swam. In the evening we all had a meal together which was your typical rice and veg combo followed by fruit. I wasn't loving this as you know but all day wednesday I just survived on toast and pringles as I felt sick from the thought of any more rice so I had had a days rest from it so to speak. After dinner we all piled back to the biggest chalet we had and drank beer we had bought from the shop down the road. It wasn't the most happening party but it was nice for us all to be together for the first time in a week, as 8 people had gone to the full moon party on the wednesday in the first week, and had arrived back in dribs and drabs, so
this was our first outing as a complete group. Oliver got quite drunk and was singing 'beautiful girl' to us all which provided good entertainment! Some of us went to bed but the next morning we discovered that Oliver had persuaded a load of the group to go and get in the swimming pool in their clothes so that was obviously the highlight of the night! Oliver is so great, we're not sure if he's meant to be a little more responsible though as he is our co-ordinator! After breakfast, 8 of us left the rest of the group to head to Hua Hin for the weekend.....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.052s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0252s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mum
non-member comment
Bug free trekking?
Last installment v interesting, didn't know you'd never planted anything before and were afraid get your hands dirty - who brought you up?! Expect you may not be quite so choosy after a week in the jungle - hope the creepy crawlies left you alone! Can't wait to hear about it all. Lots of love, Mum xx