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Published: April 26th 2011
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THREE TEMPLES AND THE KINDNESS OF THAI FOLK
PART 1 I was fortunate to meet a fellow Brit traveler over brekkie. We got chatting and we decided to team up for the day. He was only here for the day as he booked a train to the South of Thailand to meet his girlfriend
CHINA TOWN First we explored a little of China Town, walking down side streets and alleys observing the thai folk going about their daily lives. The streets have a certain smell about them, sometimes you get a waft that is very similiar to a pig farm. I presume it's their sewage system coupled with the fact that it's very hot. I used to work on a pig farm so its wasn't overly unpleasant.
We met a very helpful Thai gentleman whom spoke very good English. He recommended That we visit China Town in the evening and recommended a few sites in the meantime..we were game for anything so he called over a tuk-tuk for us. The driver tried to charge us 200 baht to take us to both Temples but the Thai gentleman had cross words with the
driver. The driver then charged us 80 baht.The Thai Gentleman told us we should only pay him after he had taken us to the temples and not before...what a sound guy.
However the tuk-tuk driver did manage to take us to two suit shops, i'm not exactly sure why but i guess he receives commission on how many travellers he manages to push through the doors. Oh well, at least the shop had good air conditioning and if i ever wanted a suit , I could buy two then get the third one for free..Bargain...hhhmmmmm
WAT SAKET ( THE GOLDEN MOUNT ) Apparently this boasts 318 steps, it seems alot but they are little steps. Im a small chap and I could easily stride three steps at a time but i didn't because it had a rock slash waterfall at the side which sprayed water on the steps. I took a few pictures of this magnificent rock formation until alistair knocked on the rock and we realised it was made of paper mache. DOH!!! The views at the top of the temple gave me an idea of how big Bangkok is and some of the amazing
architecture interwoven with shanty town dwellings living side by side.
It was getting hot and we were getting hungry and thirsty and in need of restspite since the sweat was pouring from us like a flowing tap..I have never seen a Thai person sweat. We stopped at a street food vendor and decided to risk eating something. Alistair wasn't sure what he ordered for us both but what came was a mixture of roots and veg mashed up in a mortar and pestle with shit loads of chilli. I really couldn't finish mine , it was soo hot, personally i think it was a ploy for us to buy drinks off her so we could cool down. When we asked for a pepis she proceeded to put ice in a bag, I first thought it was nice of her to keep my drink cool, then she started to pour the pepis in the bag..we sort of squelched in a ' what you're doing ' sort of voice. she wanted the bottle back, so we hung around and gave the empty bottles back.
At some point i realised I lost my camera, I back tracked and the 'pepis in
pepis in a bag lady
Kind thai lady who found my camera and returned it to me a bag lady' started to motion me over when she saw me. She went behind her station and produced my camera. She had found it on the bench where we were sitting. I was really grateful and overwhelmed by the honesty and kindness of the thai people, for i know it may of been some monetary worth to her. To be honest im not very happy with the camera but I was more concerned with the videos and pictures i had taken. Thankyou sweet lady.
WAT BENJAMABOPHIT With out of doubt in my personal opinion this is one of the best Temples I had been to , not just for the architecture and buddha images ( which are wonderfu in themselves ) but also for its authenticity. It was saturday which is considered the holy day for Buddhists and when we got there we could see and hear the Buddhist monks chanting in the centre of this impressive room with sky high ornated ceilings. Their chanting echoed and reverberated all around us, the worshippers kneeled down with their faces to the ground. This and the surroundings really gave me a sense of sacredness and in such
a place its easy to understand why.
In the court yard there are stunning buddha images with wonderful fine detail. The buddha images run all around the courtyard and in amongst these was a buddhist monk sitting on a mat conversing with worshippers.
Then by chance we walked upon somekind of celebration. This young boy was sitting in a chair and they started cutting his hair and some other rituals. Im not quite sure what was happening but everyone was in high spirits. It looked like a family and friends sort of celebration. whether he was preparing for monkhood im not sure but I would like to think so. I only felt assured I could take a photo when the thai folk started whipping out there cameras to take photos. The Thai folk noticed we were there and we had many smiles and pray like gestures.
We headed off and manage to walk down where the living quarters were. I wasn't sure if we were allowed down there so we didn't stay around for long
LUCKY COIN THROWING Im not quite sure if this happened at Wat Saket or Wat Benjamabophit but we happened
upon another celebration and the Thai folk were going absolutley crazy with joyous excitement. This Priest was throwing what i first thought was confetti or sweets and i later found out is a 1 baht coin hand wrapped in colourful ribbons. A Thai man saw us watching so he pointed us out to the monk and he threw some coins in our direction. There was a mad scramble and I managed to get one. Later a thai lady said it was considered lucky to get one of these coins. I managed to get a video of some of the action..Wow i was so lucky to witness this, everyone was soo happy.
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