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Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, Rockin’ Everywhere – Thailand Part 8

Another very full day.

After sleeping off the night before and waking up around 2, Christine and I headed out yesterday and got a boat tour through the Ayutthaya river. The boat ride was excellent. It was a lot of fun to ride past people swimming in the river and have them turn to wave at us. The boat made three stops, the first of which was a Buddhist temple that houses one of Thailand’s largest Buddha statues. The thing was massive! There were also monks leading holy blessings. A man was walking around with a microphone and stopping to let people shout in it. The whole experience felt somewhat bizarrely like a Buddhist version of an evangelist Church, surreal. But at least the statue was pretty cool.

I’m not quite sure what the second stop was. Some monks were wandering all around, and there were some interesting buildings and statues, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t go to the spots I was supposed to. When I got back to the boat, our whole tour group was there except for Christine. I went back to look for her but had no luck. Since I had no other way to find her, I had no other choice but to call her on my iPhone, which I had not purchased an international calling plan for. So, I’m fairly certain the call cost somewhere around $6 for 2 minutes. Awesome. After that, I somehow pocket-dialed my friend Jenn in California at 4:30 AM in her time zone. Which she was thrilled about and cost me another $6 at least. Doubly awesome!

From there, we went to our third stop, which seemed to be the ruins of a Buddhist temple. Unfortunately, since everything was in Thai and no one in our group spoke any English, I had no idea what I was looking at. However, I feel like I’ve seen photos of this place before, so maybe once the pictures are online, someone will be able to identify it.

After that, we caught the bus to Nakhon Sawan, where Christine has an apartment. We dropped off our stuff, grabbed her motorbike, and then met up with two friends of hers for dinner, drinks, and karaoke. We wound up staying out until 3:30 AM and had a pretty good time with laughs all around. Today is my last full day here, as tomorrow I have to take a bus back to Bangkok and then a flight to Tokyo at 4 PM. While I’m really excited for Tokyo, and I’ll be glad to get out of the sweltering heat, I’m definitely going to miss this place and Christine.

In a few moments, we’re going to head out for the day. Christine wants to show me some of her favorite places around town and attempt to teach me to drive the motorbike. Assuming I don’t kill us both, I’m hoping to make it an early night, so I can be rested up to travel tomorrow. We’ll see if I succeed.

Cheers!

Another Day, Another Bus, Another Buddhist – Thailand Part 6

We got up this morning, had breakfast, and caught a motorbike taxi to the bus station. We were actually walking there ourselves when we came across an older man who offered us a ride as we walked past his house. He was a funny little man with a great big friendly smile so we couldn’t help but accept his offer.

As we walked up, we saw his back was covered in a large tattoo written In the Thai alphabet, so while it was illegible to me, it was very detailed and very beautiful. Christine informed me that she’d seen the same design before and that it was a spell of protection that the monks do. Sadly, I did not get a picture, but the idea is fascinating to me.

Thailand is one of the most populous Buddhist countries in the world, and it has greatly changed a lot of my outlook on Buddhist culture. I suspect and hope that I may be misinterpreting things, but at first glance, there seems to be a lot of materialism and superstition around it here, which was not at all what I had understood from the beliefs previously. I also, in general, know very little about Thai Buddhism and how it varies from other forms. This is something I plan to research further when I return to having a regular Internet connection.

I have noticed that meat is very popular over here, but beef is almost nonexistent. This fascinates me because my perception was that spiritual Buddhists are often vegetarian. As such, I would have suspected to see a lot less meat as a whole. But the no beef thing, one would guess to be influenced by Hindu beliefs? One thing I’ve seen for sure is a friendly, laid-back culture of lovingkindness here. I definitely need to read more before I go on talking about this. Otherwise, I’m sure to make myself sound ignorant.

We are headed now to Ayutthaya, which used to be the capital of Thailand before Bangkok. We’ll be meeting up with some of Christine’s friends from her job over here (note: I forget if I mentioned this but Christine is over here teaching English as a foreign language). She tells me it’s among her favorite places here. I’m excited all around.