With a little bit of trepidation about getting myself around on my own, I covered myself with long pants, a respectable T-shirt and brought a pair of socks to wear with my sandals for the purpose of visiting temples and the Royal Palace. In lots of temples you must be modestly dressed to enter. You are after all visiting the house of Buddha and to reveal too much flesh is unacceptable.
The Royal Palace Bangkok
The first part of the trip was the express boat from Tha Arthit at Banglampoo to Tha Chang, close to the Royal Palace. It cost a whole 8 baht, which if I work it out is about 20c, Visiting the Royal Palace again was still as awesome a first sight and experience as the very first time. Today being Sunday it was too busy. The crowds were overwhelming. But I did manage to wander around and take some photos for about 2 hours. At one point two local school children came up to me and asked to practice their English. They were very polite, and asking the questions in English was obviously very difficult for them. But they got through it bravely and now I've got 2 'friends' who have my email address. I wonder if I'll ever hear from them?
The second place was Wat Po. Much has been written about Wat Po and it's all true, except at this visit. It's in a state of being repaired so all the wonders are not quite as visible as the last time we were here. But that's good. They'll repair things and keep the temple going for more time.
This time the scaffolding around the reclining Buddha had been removed so I had the best opportunity to see it I've ever had, and to take photos. Surprisingly, in contrast to the Royal Palace, Wat Po was empty, I nearly had the place to myself.
Again, during my trip around the Wat, I was approached by two school children, this time from South Korea, who wanted to practice their English. They had a better command of the language than the first school children, and were more lively and entertaining. One of the questions they asked was what did I think of South Korea and what first came to mind when I thought of South Korea. Then they asked what did I think of North Korea and to be honest I couldn't tell them war and trouble, so I told them as I didn't hear very much about North Korea I didn't really know. Again they got my email address and I have two more 'friends', plus photos of these two.
Walking back to Tha Thien I was debating whether or not to call it a day and head for home as it was already 3:00pm or whether to take the ferry across to Wat Arun. Wat Arun won and I'm so glad it did.
Wat Arun is nothing to write home about in that it's not ornately decorated like the Royal Palace or not as intricate as Wat Po, or as large, but it's unusual in that the ceramic decorations that are attached to the monuments are pieces of dishaware from China. Apparently the ships from China needed something to weigh them down with, so broken china was put in the bottoms of the boats. Once in Bangkok what to do with it? Well the Thai had ways of using it, so Wat Arun was decorated.
Walking around I noticed a couple of small groups of school children, with one monk each, sitting under some trees. As I passed by one of the monks smiled at me and gestured for me to come over. Joining them he explained he was trying to each conversational English to the Thai children as he felt they needed to know it so that they could participate in the global world. So they pulled up a seat for me beside the monk and began to interview me. It was a lovely lovely experience.
During the interview the monk and I had some conversations about the need for people to learn who they are within. He feels the monks and Thai people in general need to have conversational English in order to pass on and teach medidation. He feels that though all religions have their own moralities and ethics, meditation is non-religion specific but it is the most needed skill for all the Western worl. As the Western world is so materially oriented and the developing countries are aiming to take part in the global economy, they become more materialistic losing the reality of whoe they are, their cultures etc. I completely agree with him.
I know one of the reasons I'm on this extended trip is to get away from materialism, to see who I now think I am inside and to meditate on where next. The monk wisely said you don't have to sit cross-legged in the 'ohm' position to be meditating, as long as you're aware of every moment of the day you're in and live it with care and consideration, you're meditating. This was the most awesome experience of the trip so far. I feel like going back and having more conversations with him. I wish I had taken a photo of them.
Dinner at 'Comme' last night was lovely. Walking around after dinner we came across the local park which had a raised dias on which a local instrumental orchestra was playing. It was a group of about 12 players sitting crossed legged and holding traditional thai instruments. The sound was just gorgeous. We stood and listened for a while. Jeff of course was nearly immediately approached by a Thai person. Apparently he was about 70, looked about 45, and had traveled around 50 countries throughout his life. He stayed chatting to Jeff for quite a while. Actually chatting is the wrong word, he talked at Jeff for a while telling him each and every country he'd been to. Apparently he had been a missionary.
Anyway towards the end of the conversation he kept mentioning this lovely girl, very sexy. I wasn't so hot on that and when I stood really close to Jeff and say I number 1, he understood. But I wonder what he was really up to with that line of conversation, he being a "missionary" and all.
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