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!

 

 

It's miserable and magical, Oh yeah

Previous blogposts of waterfalls and generally pretty things paint an illusion that we volunteers live in luxury. You could say we live 'la viva loca' or that we 'viva la viva' or celebrate 'la vie boheme' because my memories here are wonderful. But most of us are living 'on a shoestring' so we stay in the cheapest hostels avaliable (as long as it's clean I don't care) but yesterday the sink fell off the wall in the bathroom when I put down a toothbrush. It ain't luxury!

Today's hostel has the benefits of sinks securely attached to the wall (I checked) but the water comes out black so I'm washing and brushing using bottled water. It's gross and it's grim but there's about 30 of us staying here so it's kinda great.

 Walking today with Karan and Ash- we didn't make plans or directions. We wanted just to see the city without a guide or attractions, so walking down backstreets, turning random corners we came across a terracotta garden- full of old broken statues of deities: both Hindu and Buddhist :)

 

 

This reminds me of the Muses from Hercules, Thai style!

 

 This is my favourite photo from today. It was so hot and we'd been walking some time. So Ash and Karan found some shade and lay down. This is their high five in relief of the cool breeze.

Obligatory hipster photo

 

Yesterday everyone went to different restaurants and cafes. I've been here 3 weeks now and had never eaten street food, which is embarrassing considering Thailand has world class food for, like 30p on it's streets. So I walked around and got a pancake, some fried rice (funny how as soon as I leave the foundation I crave rice) and another dragon fruit smoothie. It was one of the coolest things because yesterday was the first day of Buddhist lent so I could taste the incense in the air, gongs were sounding and the drone of chants in unison carried over the yells of vendors and hustle. I kept walking until I found a more secluded area- which was full of locals- always a good sign. I sat (cross legged on the floor of a marquee, thai style) eating my food while a group of novice monks (teenagers) sat about a metre away from me, laughing with each other and passers by and switching their face and posture to reverent and melancholy whenever the older monk accompanying them turned around.

I also didn't bring my camera, it was nice to just experience something without looking at it through a lens.

 

 

 On a completely separate note: Thank you to the over 700 people who have viewed this blog- friends, family, strangers and fellow travellers. My sister, Nikita, is currently in Washington DC, America doing an internship in a Naval museum. For any readers here interested in culture and travel here's the link http://nikitagoestotheothersideofthepond.blogspot.com/ 

 

 

 

Open your eyes and the world will open up to you

Note: This blog is basically yesterday's journal typed up with some photos slotted in because I know people back home like to 'see' stuff. I'm having a great time, but I want this blog to be a real reflection of this experience- not all saccharine and twee. So I'll leave the stories of massages and gold temples for another blog. Here's a very different story-

"I knew I was volunteering in a third world country. But the poverty is hard to understand. I was angry at first to see skinny cats wander round the foundation. I pointed this out to Momo and she said “that’s what a cat’s supposed to look like Georgia, that’s how they look in India too; you feed them too much in England”. And I wonder which is true?

Then there’s the stories Thai staff told us about stray dogs in Chiang Rai getting driven to Vietnam and sold as meat. Wait, what? Cute fluffy stray dogs… but then I remembered horsemeat and Tesco and I wonder just how similar or different the East is from the West.

We were told in Orientation that we’ll be teaching in the poorest parts of the country. You don’t see that when the classrooms I teach in are pastel painted and decorated with children’s work and paper flowers. But the kids sleep on blankets on the floor in their homes and the nearby stream I’ve seen the hilltribe kids play, bathe and dive in is a murky brown. It could hold any number of diseases or snakes. But they are happy.

It’s hard to say what I really want to say here. It’s fascinating, for sure, this world so far from home. And weirdly, I’ve felt calm all the time I’ve been here- I’m happy to leave all my valuables in the back of a taxi for the day and trust the driver will return when we phone him, or dance in smoky clubs all night with people I met that morning.
If that’s one thing I’m learning, it’s that people are people. And however crazy it sounds, trust everyone you meet, everywhere you go; you’ll never be lost, alone or bored."

 

 

Weekend Adventures!

We get time in the evenings and weekend to do what we like. It’s fun- the girls on my last placement were English, Irish, American, Australian, New Zealand and India so dinnertimes sitting round talking about gun crime felt like a UN meeting with all our different accents. We’ve been visiting 7/11’s (like a corner shop) and stocking up on oreos and things. Oreo is now a food group in my diet.

 Visiting the White temple (Chiang Rai). It is, like it's name suggests, a white temple.

 The Night Bazaar in Chiang Rai. Here's where I bought some pants we all wear out here and it's full of Asian food to try (Sam, Lisa and I got some deep fried banana. You should try it)

 Lilly and I out in Chaing Mai (everyone went out to celebrate Kate's 20th birthday). I didn't know the cocktail matched my dress until it came over. Cute!

We stayed out until 3am. I told Kate in Britain it's still technically her birthday so we should keep celebrating. So we all (Josh, Tom, Alex, Martin, Lauren, Kate, Lucy, Laura, Arthur and I've forgotten a name...) went to nightclubs and rain dances in the street.

 10 of us in a songtao (pronounced song-toe). You can also have two people hang off the back on rails. There's no safety standards in Asia.

 

Behold: This weekend's hostel. It costs 400baht for two nights (almost £9! And it's gorgeous!)