A day on the road

Our day began with our usual coffee run and then everything else was different. We hired a van and a guide today and set out to explore the Thai countryside. Our guide, Marco, was a lovely man who did a great job of getting us to and through the places we wanted to see. English is one of the 5 languages he speaks but, as he put it, was at an elementary level. He learned English from a German monk in his home community. It was good enough to get us through.

Our first stop was a Khlong floating market on the Latmayom Canal outside Bangkok. It was an incredible food market with many different prepared foods onsite. We wandered and then had the opportunity to try different dishes. We ate well and continued on our journey to our second stop.

It was an ecological centre that had a health market going on. It was an unexpectedly wonderful stop. The grounds were beautiful with interesting plants and butterflies

Fruit of the he Pong Pong Tree – also called the Suicide Tree due to its use as a poison or trials by ordeal

Dale, Brian and Greg underwent a Tok Sen treatment which is essentially “hammer massage”. The therapists put the guys through 10 minutes of being pounded with mallets (https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9ZguJRvi5o/?hl=en).

We wandered the grounds and had the opportunity to witness a life lesson. A young lad was encouraged to learn where his food came from by joining the instructor in planting rice. It is a definitely messy job.

Our third stop of the day was the Maeklong Railway market. The train route between Samir Songkhram to Bangkok started in 1901 and the market beside the tracks started five years later. It is a crazy set up. The vendors have their stalls immediately beside the tracks. They are so close that when the train comes close, it blows its horn and the vendors start taking down their umbrellas and awnings and we were told to ensure we were behind the red line, approximately 12” from the track bed. The train then came through and continued on its way.

Our guide took us on a tour of the temple near the train. It was a construction site as buildings were being added to the grounds. Our guide was very knowledgeable about Buddhist traditions and shared that there are two types of Buddhist monks – those in the world and contemplative monks. The ones in the city focus on the building, the contemplatives focus on enlightenment. We lit coloured, flower shaped candles at the temple as a prayer for long life. Marco explained that the colour you chose was connected to the day of your birth. I was born on a Tuesday and therefore floated a purple candle that then circled in the font.

With a little time to kill before our final stop, we went to yet another market. This was a meeting market outside the temple. People coming home at the end of a day stop at this market for supper supplies. The variety of foods was impressive, especially the protein displays. Apparently salted silk worm larva are lovely (low fat, high protein). We didn’t stop to taste.

While we explored the temple area a family offered prayers of gratitude for a prayer answered through lighting firecrackers. They lifted strings of firecrackers up on a pulley, then lit them causing tremendous noise. It was pretty dramatic.

Our final stop was the Nassaus Light Festival. We stopped for a lovely Thai dinner before heading into the light show. It was spectacular. There were several people dressed in Traditional costuming for their pictures. Some were acting out specific scenes from folk tales. The scenes were elaborate/