May 15th
Today we got up early and had to check out of the hotel to take the drive to the monastery in the mountains to go and live with the monks for 20 hours and learn from them and learn what their lives are like on a day to day basis. On the way to the monastery we stopped at a crystal factory where they make handmade crystal glasses for all the markets in the world. They are a direct producer for Costco and other crystal companies that claim that their products are made in Europe and other countries but in fact they are made in the country of Thailand and at many factories just like this one. I think that this is interesting that the consumer assumes that the product is made in Europe by a very nice company but in fact the actual product is made in another country and imported into Europe so it become a product of Europe and the consumer has no idea of what they are buying.
After we left the crystal factory we then had lunch at a little restaurant where we had a great deal of food and tried new things like a fern that had been marinated in Thai spices and garlic which was incredibly good. We then left and stopped at a grocery store to pick up some food and other supplies for the offering to the monks the next day. We also needed food because the monks do not eat after 12 so we needed to get some food for ourselves so we could have a little snack to tide ourselves over until the next day. After leaving the supermarket we found a beach and had the opportunity to go and swim but we did not want to after feeling how warm the ocean water was, the water was hotter than bath water and it would have not been refreshing at all if we were to jump into the ocean. We then had a soda and were off to the monastery to begin learning how to meditate.
We got to the monastery at dusk and were allowed to take a shower but that didn’t help at all because of how humid and sticky it was outside. We had about one hour down time to get unpacked and see what we were sleeping on. We were sleeping on tile with a little bamboo mat and tiny little pillow and a blanket if we needed it (way too hot though). We then went to the top building of the complex where we were shown a video of how to meditate and then given the opportunity to meditate ourselves. Meditating is not for me, I am too ADD to sit still that long and focus on one thing. I guess I am a product of the 21st century and need to have my mind occupied with many things and have many things going on around me. We then were a part of a “ohm” and watched the monks pay their respects to the Buddha and all the other people that arrived to take apart of this. We were then allowed to go back to our separate houses where we were able to meditate some more or go to bed and sleep to get up at either 4 or 6 am depending on what you wanted to do. I fell right asleep but was awakened at 4am to the bell ringing and dozed off and on for the next two hours and got up at 6 to go down the hill and meet up with the girls and give our offering to the monks.
We set up along side of the road and offered all of our things that we had purchased for the monks and then were rushed into a temple for another offering. I began sitting in the room with about 100 people and was getting too hot and decided that I needed to get out of the room to go and cool off and have some water, because thought I was on the verge of passing out and didn’t want to cause a scene in front of all of the people there. We then ate with about 300 other people and ate a lot of food which was delicious and made us all overfull.
That's it for today... time to sleep on a mat :/
Pics are not uploading at the moment so I will try later to edit this post
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