Tuesday 18th December – Chaiya, still

I decided to stay another day in Chaiya. It’s a nice village and I like the atmosphere here.

I visited Wat Suanmokk yesterday, a 10 min minibus ride from Chaiya. It more of a meditation centre than a Wat. There are none of the usual traditional ornate Wat buildings and statues. Instead there are a number of rather strange concrete buildings including one which is the shape of a ship. The accommodation is more traditional wooden structures, where the monks stay. There are also wooden and concrete dormitory buildings for visitors attending the meditation classes. The centre covers 120 acres and is in a lovely woodland jungle setting. Unfortunately the peace and quite is disturbed by the main highway which about 100m away. There is an interesting open air lecture area, where a monk delivers his talk, via PA system, to an audience which sit in a multi leveled circular wooded area. As I mentioned before the 10 day meditation regime seem pretty severe. No talking, no outside food, no reading, no even thinking about sex and a strict diet of meditation. To make it more difficult outside the gates there are about a dozen stalls selling food, sweets and all those terrible goodies. Also I was rather badly bitten by mosquitoes in the hour I was there. I don’t suppose you would be allowed to kill them.

I’ve visited a couple of other nearby Wats, they’re everywhere. I saw some young monks there playing football and volleyball. They also appear to love dogs. There were plenty around the Wat and a young monk was walking a puppy on a lead, bit unusual for this part of the world.

Breakfast in Asia is a bit of a problem. The options are curry and rice or a kind of noodle soup with vegetables and chicken, neither of which are really to my taste for breakfast. It’s sometimes possible to get an egg Roti as mentioned previously, which is much better.

I managed to get a few Christmas cards today, to my surprise. There isn’t much evidence of all the Santa and Christmas tree stuff here but some shops appear to be selling Christmas hampers. The usually contain fancy food stuff and maybe some coffee of whiskey.

Another thing I have noticed about South East Asia is that people don’t like to do much walking. They usually get around by mini bus or motorbike. This can possibly be explained by the heat and humidity. Another reason is that the drains, and I think by the smell the sewers, run directly under the pavements. These are covered by concrete slabs with air vents, so the smell can be awful at times. All part of the experience I suppose.

I hired a motorbike and rider today, to take me to the beach and a nearby village. The beach is about 7km away and really isn’t up to much, at least compared to the magnificent beaches in the Krabi area. The village was more interesting with some
old wooden houses a nice riverside dock area for fishing boats. I gave in and actually bought a souvenir. A nicely patterned batik sarong from one of the village shops, 220 baht.

I’m off on the sleeper train to Bankok for real tonight. I’ve already changed the date for my train ticket twice (50baht a time) so I can stay here but I think I’ve seen all I can now.

Time for a late afternoon Singha beer now. It's a hard life.