Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Here is a story from this past Saturday when we went out to Roi Et (another province 1 hour away by bus from here) with some of our Thai friends:
We went to a temple in downtown Roi Et that was famous for having a 50.2 meter golden statue of Buddha (does anyone know how many feet that is ?). Beside the wat (a Buddhist temple) there was a dormitory for all of the monks that live and work at the temple. We see monks a lot here, and I have been wanting to get a good picture of one of them, but I have not known if that is appropriate or not, so I had not gotten a good one yet. So when I saw all of the monks standing out on there balconies of the dormitory I knew that I had to get a good picture of one. There were a lot of saffron robes hanging up to dry on their balconies, which made a pretty cool picture, but what was even sweeter was that I saw a monk leaning over the ledge and looking straight at me. I decided to go in for the shot, and he smiled. Yes! The he shot up his hand and made a peace sign...Even better! He started waving his hands and Brandon and I figured out that he wanted us to climb some of the statue. When we got to where the Buddah's feet were, I told Brandon to go back down and take a picture of me from the ground next to the statue. When I turned around, there was the monk standing right behind me! It was like a movie, I was so shocked. I did not know what to do, so I simply said "Sawatee-kah!" and walked back down the stairs. But, when I got down to the ground, I saw that the monk was still at the feet of the statue, and posing so that Brandon could take pictures of him! He walked down the stairs and met us around the side of the temple and we started talking, and somehow, between our very limited Thai, and his broken English, we were able to have about a 30 minute conversation! And to think that earlier that day I had said to Brandon jokingly "I want a monk friend!" and now we have one!
We went to a temple in downtown Roi Et that was famous for having a 50.2 meter golden statue of Buddha (does anyone know how many feet that is ?). Beside the wat (a Buddhist temple) there was a dormitory for all of the monks that live and work at the temple. We see monks a lot here, and I have been wanting to get a good picture of one of them, but I have not known if that is appropriate or not, so I had not gotten a good one yet. So when I saw all of the monks standing out on there balconies of the dormitory I knew that I had to get a good picture of one. There were a lot of saffron robes hanging up to dry on their balconies, which made a pretty cool picture, but what was even sweeter was that I saw a monk leaning over the ledge and looking straight at me. I decided to go in for the shot, and he smiled. Yes! The he shot up his hand and made a peace sign...Even better! He started waving his hands and Brandon and I figured out that he wanted us to climb some of the statue. When we got to where the Buddah's feet were, I told Brandon to go back down and take a picture of me from the ground next to the statue. When I turned around, there was the monk standing right behind me! It was like a movie, I was so shocked. I did not know what to do, so I simply said "Sawatee-kah!" and walked back down the stairs. But, when I got down to the ground, I saw that the monk was still at the feet of the statue, and posing so that Brandon could take pictures of him! He walked down the stairs and met us around the side of the temple and we started talking, and somehow, between our very limited Thai, and his broken English, we were able to have about a 30 minute conversation! And to think that earlier that day I had said to Brandon jokingly "I want a monk friend!" and now we have one!
Temple with the 50.2 meter statue of Buddha
Rachael and I running through the pigeons at the park in Roi Et.
This is from a while back, but I had to include it anyways. Bugs are a common snack for the Isaan people. Here I am eating a queen red ant cooked with lemon grass and sold by some woman off the side of the road. It had a slightly nutty taste, with a little bit of a lemony aftertaste....a refreshing snack :P
We went to a park on the way to Khon Kaen and found out that it was a monkey park....They were everywhere! Can you pick out which ones are the monkeys?
This is me and the monk that Brandon and I met in Roi Et. His Thai nickname is Gaset. We were finally able to start English classes at the univeristy this past Tuesday. So far classes have been great. I will have to update you with more on that later. :)
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okay, so I know that I am the lousy emailer now, but I am keeping up with your blog and I love seeing all your cool pictures and hearing about life in thailand, and then of course telling all my friends here about my really cool friend in thailand!
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