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“"Better to speak unpleasant truths than to tell lies"” |
After a good nights rest from the Hill Tribe trekking, we pulled ourselves out of bed and into the new day to do a little exploring of the old Chang Mai. We headed down the main street intersecting the city centre east to west called Th Ratchdamnoen, filled mainly with monasteries, squares, Café/Bars and hotels. The street was no where as exciting through the day as it is through a Sunday night, when the night market is booming, creating a rich atmosphere of food, people and music. However we continued on our way with two destinations in mind, the first one being Lunch at Si Phen Restaurant.
Upon entering the restaurant we were immediately greeting by some traveling companions who we met while hiking who appeared to have the same idea as us with regards to a relaxing day around Chang Mai. With a bunch of big happy greetings we joined Claire, Joanna and Caren for a delightful lunch before all heading to our second destination of a Buddhist temple by the name of Wat Phra Singh. Said to be the most visited temple in Chang Mai, this magnificent place holds the Buddha image
of Phra Singh(Lion Buddha). All of us entered the temple grounds we spread out as our curiosities took over and we could not help but want to explore. Besides the delicate beauty of the main temple the rest of the grounds held some wonderful sites, that including some smaller temples and a garden that I have aptly named "The Garden of Wisdom", The reason for this is that nailed to each tree was a plaque with individual Buddhist sayings, such as: "It is better to cry with the wise than to laugh with the fools" and "One today is better than two tomorrows" and my favourite among many, "Better to speak unpleasant truths than to tell lies"..... Ahhh how auspicious master Buddha....
Once I had taken in the sites I decided to try and look for some of the troops to see and share the experiences with. Exiting the Garden of Wisdom I walked past a small group of novice monks, a bunch of boys no older than 15 with shaved heads and wearing orange robes. Friendly as I am I smiled which seemed to bring on quite a reaction, the last novice I passed turned on his heel and quickly blurted out "Hello!", so in return I said "Hello, how are you?" Thinking that I would test how far this would go.... remember they were no older than 15. This in turn created a mottled chorus among then of "Hello," "Hello," "Hello," "Hello," "Hello," "Hello," "Hello," as they walked further and further away. I was not sure if they wanted to talk or merely have the excited rush of saying "hello to a westerner. However as they were heading the opposite direction I thought that I would let them of the hook and continue with my search for my friends and partner. Finding Anne first we continued to walk around before we soon came across Claire, who had some how not only started communication with the local monk populis but had also been able to maintain a conversation. Curiosity having the better of us all including Caren and Joanna, we joined Claire
to find out that she had managed to stumble upon an English class who in turn had seen her in-depth wisdom and wished to trade stories. So our experience for the next hour was to trade stories with the novice monks and there teacher (who's English was very good). We answered questions about our lives back home, this included curiosities about exactly where we were from and what food we liked to eat and in turn we asked them about there training as monks and was it compulsory? (Which it was for all Thai males). I hope that it was as exciting for the monks as it was for us.
Following the excitement of the day we all decided to meet up for a final meal, let me just say that Jo, Cliare, Caren, Firgus, Ross, you all rock. Please be sure to contact Anne and I if you are ever in Melbourne....:)
Back at the hotel we rested up for the next days adventure to the "Golden Triangle"
previous travel blog entry
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