Learning to Meditate and the Military Coup

---

So Bangkok. Supposed to be one of the craziest cities in the world, but we took a much more tame approach to it than most. Add to its reputation the fact that we arrived less than a week after the military coup, and you would expect our trip to have been crazy, but the two highlights of our three days in Bangkok were definitely the National Museum and Wat Mahathat. We did get the requisite photos of and with the tanks and soldiers, but it was not really that exciting. I am not usually a big museum person- I don't tend to like art that isn't photography that often- but this museum was amazing. We went for the Wednesday morning free English guided tour, and our tour guide knew a wealth of information about everything Thai and Buddhist and Thai Buddhist. Wat Mahathat is this Buddhist temple right by the National Palace where you can go and get free meditation classes, for an afternoon, a whole day, or a live-in course that lasts as long as you want it to (this one is free to). The monk was really cool- he wanted me to major in Religious Studies so that I could explore all religions- not to find Buddhism to be the correct one- and then he taught me the basics to meditation. When I finished, my leg was so numb that I tried to stand up and fell in to the wall because it was asleep. We had the normal offers for ping pong shows, sex shows, etc. etc. etc. But we pretty much stuck to the Buddhist route- going to a couple of other Wats, shopping a little bit, and then heading down to Krabi and over to Ko Phi Phi in another overland fiasco.

---