Vassa (Buddhist lent)

So. (Notice how every time I start a story I begin with "So"? Sorry.).

Arrive in Chiang Mai for the weekend, sitting with the Irish girls in a café, suddenly a parade goes past us- with monks filing, drums banging and floats being pulled by people. The most unexpected thing!

 

This was the start of the huge festival that is Buddhist lent!

Here are the Monks walking through town to the temple where they will spend the next 3 months. Only under exceptional circumstances can a Monk stay overnight anywhere over than this temple until the end of the rainy season.

 

Asarnha Bucha Day, the full-moon day of the eighth lunar month, commemorates the Lord Buddha’s first sermon to his first five disciples after attaining Enlightenment more than 2,500 years ago. Evening candlelit processions will be held in all Thai Buddhist temples.

 

^Google kindly summarised what this is all about. On our way to dinner we walked past a temple to see Monks circling a pagoda, chanting and holding white lilies. It's crazy, how we keep stumbling upon these things!

 

 

Also, alcohol is forbidden to be sold on this day so our plans to hit the town were instantly dismissed...

We arrived at Mirror in the early evening on Tuesday so we could go to a Wat (temple) and observe celebrations. Sadly, Kartoon, our co-ordinator thought the ceremony would be in the evening, but it was in the morning, so we missed it. Instead we visited the 'temple of light' where we walked up 10 flights of stairs, took photos with a giant statue and had our fortunes told. 

Behold. The temple of light.

 

Ash, Trip I and...Buddha!