Day 133 (12) – 16.12.2019 (Monday)
Because I decided to give myself a bit more rest, I booked the 12.30 bus to Chiang Rai. That meant I could take it quite slow this morning. After a long discussion with the not-English speaking host, I could print my busticket, waved a Song Taew to a halt and I was on my way. At the busstation I met Raquel (Portugal) and we decided to meet up for dinner again. Arrived at my Homestay, I realized how fancy this place was in comparison to my usual hostels. I had a single bed in a ‘dorm room’ of three with its own bathroom! After a long Skype call with Bente (we’re super excited to see eachother again), I made my way to the night market.
On my way I noticed a weird sound. As if it was raining… I looked up to the sky and saw thousands of bats! Everywhere I could see, they were filling up the whole sky between the houses. When they weren’t flying, they were lining up on the electricity cables and painting the streets below them white with their droppings. Looking at the locals hiding for the droppings and running to cross the street, I knew at that exact moment I liked Chiang Rai way more than Chiang Mai. When I arrived at the night market every stall owner was trying to scare away the bats by shining against the walls with their flashlight. It just gave this city such a character.
The night market was actually quite big! Numerous stalls selling mostly jewellery and clothes but also a drag show in the centre. Without my glasses I didn’t even realise! Together with Raquel we tried to see every stall. Her buying habit made me want to buy something too and when I finally saw something that made me sigh and say ‘that’s pretty..’ I bargained myself a new necklace. After we had our food and looked at the rest of the market one more time, we parted our ways to our hostels.
I was enjoying the luxury so much I decided I needed to stay up longer to fully experience everything I paid for. So I watched a movie and had a beauty/spa moment before I crawled into the most comfortable bed I had slept in, in months.
Day 134 (13) – 17.12.2019 (Tuesday)
Of course I had to extend the luxury of this hostel, so I slept in and slowly ate my breakfast on the porch. I was going to go to a cheaper hostel today, but when I saw the Instagram story of Rebecca, who’s staying there, about her waking up at 3am due to roosters, I wasn’t so sure anymore. We got to talking and she told me she firstly intended to go to volunteer at a monastery but decided to back out because of a minimum stay of 3 days. Actually, quite recently I learned that this was a possibility and since I had heard it the first time, I was silently wishing I’d be able to have an experience like that once in my life. That possibility came a lot sooner than expected and I jumped on the chance. Rebecca even decided to join me after all!
When we met up at the reggae-like hostel we decided to rent a scooter and take the rest of the day to drive around the area. We did careful research as to avoid police and soon I was racing to the Big Buddha Mae Yao. It was a beautiful sight to drive towards such a huge statue somewhere in the middle of nowhere and when we arrived it was even more impressive. There was a beautiful white temple that made us wonder how the actual white temple would look from the outside… And we decided to climb up towards the brain of the buddha next to it (it seemed like there would be a beautiful view). Unfortunately there was a limited amount of windows, so the panorama view we had hoped for wasn’t possible. However, literally looking through Buddha’s eyes I thought was a special feeling.
After a free padthai meal we made our way to the Black House. This house is seen as the opposite of the white temple. As where the white temple represents heaven, most say the black house represent hell. Although, the architect didn’t intend it like that. From the outside and the art gallery we got the image of what was inside and we decided that, although interesting, it wouldn’t be beautiful or worth it. We made our way to its opposite. At the white temple we first wanted to go to the art gallery to get the story of the architect. It was really interesting to see his style develop from, in my opinion, beautiful and conserved to cotton candy magic (unfortunately we weren’t allowed to make pictures). At the end of the gallery there were some paintings where he also went in on current problems like climate change and politics.
Apparently we had missed the big sign that the temple would close at 16.00 so at 15.55 we were allowed to go in for free and almost running we looked at the beautiful white temple from the outside. Right before they closed we took one more glance at the completely golden temple and then we had to leave. We had one more temple on our route: the blue temple aka Wat Rong Suea Ten. Luckily they didn’t close and we could look our eyes out at the interesting colours, forms and shapes. We read our future with some Chinese sticks and made our way back, hoping not to be caught by the police again.
I decided to use the hostel for the reason I had booked it for and relaxed in a hammock for a while, before I went to the night market. There I met up with Rebecca again for the most disappointing mango sticky rice in my life. After long conversations, we made our way back and I chilled a bit more with the hostel guests and host (a very young guy who was stupid enough to want to join a Chinese gang in the USA and got caught with not only an unlicensed gun but also with the drugs he was selling… Now he fled to Thailand and is facing jail time if he goes back to the US). You meet the most interesting people when you travel I guess.
Day 135 (14) – 18.12.2019 (Wednesday)
We had the intention of getting up early today to visit one of the biggest waterfalls of Thailand the Khun Kon. It may not have been as early as we had hoped for but eventually everything was going quite perfectly. I raced us safely to the waterfall, through incredibly cute villages with many colours and hidden beauty. The parking spot was at a campsite! It was such a beautiful spot I wished I had brought a tent. From here it was still a 40min hike to the waterfall and when we arrived it was worth the whole journey. Despite the dry season, this was still a pretty full waterfall with enchanting properties. A great morning activity on an empty stomach, so back at the campsite we got some spongy omelet breakfast at a very adorable couple.
Also on the way back we had no difficulty with the police and soon we were ready for our second adventure of the day: the monastery in Mae Sai. After 2h in de bus we were dropped off at a sports day at a primary school in the middle of nowhere. The Workaway-guy was a teacher off one of the schools and introduced us a little to his life. He seemed really good with the kids and we felt very welcomed by the non-English speaking teachers. The teachers explained to us that teachers are considered the heroes of the country and the corrupt police the villains.
The next stop was the teafields. A quite artificial place in comparison to Cameron Highlands [see post ‘Week 16 – A week in Malaysia‘] it was still nice he wanted to show us a bit of the region. He stopped once more for the ‘lying lady’ mountains, a very cute market where I tried tofu empanadas (delicious!) and some fermented tofu paste (grossest ever). Much new food today, adding the bamboo shoot sticky rice and soya beans I tried this morning. His jeep and his personality were definitely not focused on hurrying and we arrived a bit late at the temple.
It was quite clear already that the Workaway-guy had not fully communicated the reason we were there. It seemed like they assumed we were there to learn how to meditate. I didn’t mind too much. I came here for the experience and if that was going to be working for them or living with them, I didn’t have a preference. Within minutes we were completely stripped from all our jewellery, bucket–showered with cold water and were wearing the white uniform.
They made an arrival exception for us by giving us food for the evening and after we had finished our ramen the inauguration to our temple life started.
Firstly we met our teacher. We had to kneel down and bow 3 times before talking to him. Then we had to gift our donation by laying it on a golden plate and placing that shortly on a holy cloth while holding it together before we could receive our blessing. Almost an hour we were repeating the fast Thai speaking monk in our best Thai… sounds …. and bowing one or three times when we were told so. It was a very special feeling and quite strange. The Thai words obviously don’t have any meaning to us but the sounds started to feel familiar after a while and I got in some sort of trance. After that, our buddhist learning started. There were 8 rules we were going to live by and forgive me if it’s not in order but I at least still remember them!
1. No killing (not even a mosquito)
2. No touching of the other gender
3. No food after noon
4. No alcohol
5. No cheating/lying
6. Asking permission for everything
7. Sleeping on the ground, no mattress
8. No perfume/sense/jewellery -> nothing unique
After that we started our first meditation learning. There are three types, standing, walking and sitting meditation. In the evening you start at 18.00 untill 20.30 and then from 20.30-21.30 is the praying. Luckily we started at 20.00 this evening so our first session was cut short a bit. Eventhough it felt a little bit weird to walk so incredibly careful, I actually really liked the meditation. Also the prayer in Thai was enjoyable and I tried to mimic the sounds I heard when the song was mostly repeating. Afterwards we talked to WeyWey (basically the only English speaking resident here) to hear what was being expected from us and what we could expect the next two days. I was excited but not exhausted enough to really sleep this night.
Day 136 (15) – 19.12.2019 (Thursday)
At 3.00am the rooster alarm went off and at 3.30am ours as well. We soon found out however that it was 4.00am instead, Rebecca’s phone had switched to Myanmar time! I was feeling so awful for being late on our first day. Especially because it was a special day today: Buddha day. We were still able to catch most of the morning prayer and they were understanding towards us. After the prayer we wanted to get back again on a good note with them and worked as much as possible in the kitchen for breakfast preparations.
At 6am we were allowed to have our first coffee and soon the offerings for the monks came in. We had to separate all the cookies, cakes, milk, rice and sauces (mostly with meat. They have the rule of not killing any animal but they eat meat because they didn’t kill it themselves, hmm) on different platters and when they were completely full, bring them into the temple. There the food got a blessing and soon the plates were placed on rolling tableaus starting at the monks, going towards the place where we were kneeling. With every plate that you received or gave away, a short blessing was appropriate. I scooped the many different dishes into my bowl and put some cakes and fruit into my bag for later. Before and after eating we had to bow three times and while eating leave the knees and bowl on the ground.
After this special experience the kitchen had to be cleaned and then it was time for meditation. Many residents chose the sleeping meditation. Rebecca and I decided to use our last time to eat today well and we had our feast till exactly 12.00pm in the sun. From 1pm fill 4pm it was time for meditation and the first 1h we did so in the temple. No one was there so we made our way to the cave and did another 30min. I had a lot of difficulty with keeping my mind clear and when I succeeded I fell asleep… I decided to use my time to be mindful at the viewpoint at the big Buddha for the rest of the meditation time. I watched monks and tourists finding their peace here as well.
In our free time (4pm-6.30pm) Rebecca wasn’t feeling so good. She had eaten 1 thing that I hadn’t eaten and it made here so sick that she puked. I decided to let her sleep and go the evening meditation because a special monk was going to be there. The meditation was super hard on me, I was mentally exhausted of all the meditation and didn’t enjoy it that much anymore. I was slowly getting hungry and literally every position was hurting so much I had to change every minute. Unfortunately the whole meditation and prayer took 3h!
When I had finished the whole 3h I returned to our room with pride and utter relief. Also, I wasn’t hungry anymore.
Day 137 (16) – 20.12.2019 (Friday)
I didn’t feel much for getting up at 3h again but the rooster didn’t care. Rebecca told me she had been throwing up the whole evening and night and was thinking of going to the hospital. I decided that was the perfect reason for me to stay in bed and accompany her back to Chiang Rai. As much as I loved the experience for one and a half day, I didn’t really need to stay a lot longer.
In a way I was also sad to leave. It was super interesting to learn about all the traditions and habits and I would have loved to have even more conversations with the residents of the temple. The people here are incredibly kind-hearted, súper smiley, helpful and open and I loved the occasional conversations we could have, whether it was in English or just in motion language and a lot of smiling. We received our blessing from the head monk ‘[I’ll get back on the name…]’ and I joined for breakfast one more time. I want to mention I didn’t cheat one time with eating and I was actually so not hungry still that I only ate a little bit. I think it’s the biggest thing I discovered about myself… I snack so much because my thoughts were set to it all the time, but when I know I won’t be eating it’s all fine!
Back in Chiang Rai I had to say goodbye to the somewhat better feeling Rebecca who had accompanied me for the past small week. Without her this monastery experience wouldn’t have happened and I was incredibly happy we could share and laugh at all the strange and hard things we experienced here.
Back in Chiang Rai I met up with Bente again 🙂 I was way too exhausted to still do activities but we had a nice lunch, played some table tennis and shared a hotpot at the night market. I’m looking forward to travelling in Laos together!
Day 138 (17) – 21.12.2019 (Saturday)
With a quick breakfast in our stomach we made our way to the bus terminal. The bus to Chiang Khong would only leave 30min later so I decided to tupper some lunch and we were on our way. Within minutes we were in the middle of nowhere and the bus was basically empty. The border crossing went quite smoothly although much was being asked for every little bit of transportation and additional charges for the fact that it was a weekend day. Bus-tuktuk-shuttle bus-tuktuk-bus-tuktuk. We were surprised of the high transportation costs. Soon we’d discover that that’s not the only things that’s more expensive than expected in Laos.
We had chosen to take a route through Laos that was a bit off the Banana-pancake trail (the route that every backpacker takes) and made our way to Luang Namtha instead. Here trekking is thé thing to do and that’s what we’re planning, untill we heard the price… €90 for two days! We made a different plan of taking a scooter trip to Muang Sing but eventually found a one day trekking for €25. Still expensive, but this is what we came to do and we were excited! After a filling noodle soup we made our way to bed.
miriamandmirte 