Blogs from Singburi, Central Thailand, Thailand, Asia - page 4

Since we have been out in thailand all there has been is non stop heat, often above 30 and with little wind you can often feel quite sticky! the evening after my last post, (3 nights ago i think) we witnessed our first monsoon-esque weather - solid downpour for 30 mins with a little bit of thunder thrown in. To most it was a relief since it was so hot - and a few people went out in it and got quite wet! the day after we went to a war monument in the morning and a temple in the afternoon, where there various relgious things to do with buddhism. we did various things such as lighting candles and placing a lotus flower by our statue (our statue being the day of the week we were ... read more

Arriving at Brown House After our two hour drive from Bangkok, we eventually arrived at Brown House, our home for the next two weeks! We had already been split into our rooms, so in we moved and to my sheer joy I found out that although the rooms can hold 6 people, two people had not turned up for the program so we had two spare beds! Naturally one of those has become my storage space! It was then dinner time and time for me to discover that Brown House is a vegetarian house so I would be suffering a severe meat shortage over the coming weeks! Depressing much! We then found out all about the house rules and chilled out for a bit in the make-shift shack of a bar that existed just for us ... read more

Since last I blogged, we've had a pretty packed schedule here. We've been taken around several beautiful temples, some fairly new and still in use, some simply ancient ruins. Some of them I could have stayed in all day and just relaxed, but frankly I'm feeling a little templed out. Still, I'll be spending a couple of days with the monks next week. It's pretty bizarre, seeing orange-robed monks wandering the streets amongst everyone else, or hopping out of cabs, stopping for a pray at an ancient monuments, then hopping back in the cab and driving off. Pretty surreal. Not as surreal as having a foot rub from an old man in a Thai shopping mall (even if it did make me feel rejuvanated, and only cost two pounds fifty for an hour), fighting off dwarf ... read more

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 ... read more

Sawat dii ka!! Still having lots of fun here in Singburi, exploring around the place and visiting temples The things you get used to but feel strange at first are; 1) Walking around a lot bare footed...especially around the eco house...kind of makes your feet very dirty though!! 2) Cold showers...hard to get into at first but then refreshing 3) Gecko's - lizards that are on all the walls around your room and bathroom - suprisingly I am fine with it!! 4) The rituals at the temples...(explained later) The things I am seriously NOT getting used to are; 1) Rice and vegetables for every meal with varying sauces 2) Pineapple and Watermelon for every meal dessert - and pineapple is my favourite fruit so it's a shame I'm getting sick of it! 3) How cheap everything ... read more