The Best and Worst List from the Similian Islands, Khao Sak NP, Erawan NP, Kanchanaburi, and Cambodia

Hello all! Sorry it's been so long! Life in Phuket has become more chaotic even as it has mellowed out. I've been feeling a bit guilty about not writing more often (and especially about leaving the Chiang Mai post unfinished) but it's always more fun living life than writing about it.

 However, I just returned from my first real vacation- 24 days in Thailand and Cambodia- and even though I was too busy exploring and enjoying to write detailed journal entries, I did try to write down the best thing and worst thing that happened each day to put my travels into perspective. This post is an exact copy of what I wrote during my travels and you will probably find references to things, places, and events that you may not be familiar with. I'm sorry, originally I wrote this only for me and I did not go back and provide any explanations. If you have questions let me know. Also, forgive the massive run on sentences and overuse of comma's and hyphens. Putting words on paper at the end of the day is hard enough without making it elegant.

7/4: Koh Lak/ Similan Islands

Dove in the Similan Islands one of the top dive sites in the world. Crystal clear water and perfect visibility for 25m. Gorgeous reef colors, abundant wildlife, and my first genuine swim throughs.

* Swimming through a hole formed between fallen granite boulders covered in beautiful hued soft corals and into a warm current. Floating warmly past a parrotfish half my size and a school of 1,000+ Feusia. Being part of a lifesize aquarium.

-          Freezing and being a 30 minute motorbike ride from our hostel when it started raining that night.

8/4: Khao Sak NP

Miracle of a day, woke up in a bungalow on the beach, shared half a bottle of wine with Isaac, swam and had breakfast before catching an uncatchable bus with no timetables or bus stop within 5 mins. Finding an awesome hostel run by a friendly family and hiking in the national park before dark. All with no planning whatsoever.

             +           Hiking 8K through a spectacular national rainforest along a river

-          Was bitten by 2 leeches and my ankles didn’t stop bleeding profusely for hours

 9/4: Khao Sak NP

Hiked for 8hrs through tropical rainforest on barely marked trails. Aimed to stop at at least 5 of the 6 waterfalls but only saw 3. Maybe more because some of the ‘waterfalls’ were more like rapids. I missed 2 of the 3 originally because I just thought it was rough river. Saw many lizards, snakes, and giant spiders. Got back before a huge thunderstorm.

·        Swimming in a pool beneath a small waterfall with a 360 degree panorama of towering green mountains, huge boulders worn smooth by time, and a beautiful river. The only thing visible outside of the walls of mountains was a tiny patch of blue sky and puffy white clouds floating through the open top of the canopy. It was like being in the bottom of a jar with the sky as a lid.

·         Sat on the roots of an enormous tree. The roots stood out from the soil 4ft in parts and stretched and wound for 20ft above the ground. It was a natural playground. Even made a friend there who I walked with for a while.

-Epic fail at finding waterfalls. Felt like an idiot not being able to find marked trails during the dry season.

10/4 Travel Khao Sak—Nathom Pathom—Kanchanaburi

13+ hrs on buses, trains, motobikes and more buses. Started with a morning run in the mist shrouded mountains in Khao Sak then bused to Surat Thani to catch a 9hr train to Nakhon Pathom. Saw the largest chedi in the world and made it to Kanchanaburi just as my hostel closed for the night. 10 bhat mixed drinks at street stalls all night!

 

       

   *watching a gorgeous sunset from between 2 train cars on a rickety and rocking platform that was         cascaded in falling water every time the train jerked. The train was part of ‘death railway’ and the views from the open windows in the bathroom while listening to “ Wonderwall’ by Oasis was also a strange but oddly enjoyable.

-          getting ripped off by a motorbike taxi from Nathom Pathom to KC. Only 30b but I was angry at myself for not arguing an obviously ridiculous price.

 11/4 Erawan NP

Got up early to catch a 2hr bus to Erawan NP. Bought 15b Khao man gui on the way and waited until I got to the first tier of the waterfall to eat it on a bamboo table. It was the best khao man gui I've ever had and I ate it in between two small waterfalls and was joined by 2 monkeys who were after my delicious food! The hiking was easy and incredible. The 2^nd tier of the waterfall was 30ft of cascading water with a clear blue  pool beneath that was so pristine that you could determine the species of fish swimming below.  The last tier was the best. Very secluded because the trail stops before it and you must scramble up the last leg. The most beautiful water I have ever seen. Wedged in between green mountains lay a pristine pool of milky blue water that was somehow also clear, shafts of sunlight landing on the waterfall, warming the rocks around it. Swimming behind the falls to watch the water drip from the rocky undercrop and send splashes of water so high that I couldn’t tell what droplets were coming up and which were going down. All the rocks were white and worn smooth and round over time. I found a perfect white, smooth rock that fit my body perfectly and lay there for an hour, watching butterflies dance across the surface of the water. One of my favorite places in Thailand and one of my favorite days ever. Had many free ‘fish massages’ and the water was cold but always refreshing.

·        

 While the 7^th tier was my personal paradise came to life, perfect in every way, the other major highlight of the day was sitting underneath a 40ft fall watching as 40+ fish nibbled my feet. It took hours to get accustomed to the sensation but by the time afternoon light filtered through the jungle canopy I appreciated the attention. I gave up counting at 40 because by then the camouflaged fish were making it impossible to see more than my ankles as the rest appeared to be moving rock! A gentle breeze blew across my skin sending water droplets flying forward. As water crashed over head and fishies cleaned my feet I glanced to my right and over the blue water was a rainbow formed on the mist. Spectacular.

-        Globert called to tell me there had been 2 earthquakes in Phuket today and the island is under a tsunami warning

  

 12/4 Kanchanaburi

Rented a rusty mountain bike and explored Kanchanaburi. 5 hours of cycling in 39 degrees (100 F) and humidity with no real plan. Visited a cave Wat, shared a magnificent view of the river and mountains with a huge fat Buddha statue and giggling locals, walked  the bridge over the River Kwai and saw where over 115,000 Allied POW’s and locals died constructing the railroad, and was given a guided tour of a wat with a zoo by a Thai ice cream vendor who only spoke Thai.

                                                                      (Bridge over the River Kwai)

(Countryside)

  * deciding to follow an ice cream vendors avid pointing down a mountain to what I was interpreting to have pretty scenery and some type of horned animals. Though it was the opposite direction of my map and hostel I went anyway . The vendor had waited for me 2K down the road. He pointed to a wat, introduced me to my first female monk and fed a popsicle to a bear in a cage. The bear seemed hot so he turned on the sprinkler and it stood up on its hind legs to play in it. I also petted some Thai deer, saw crocodiles, tons of tropical birds, peacocks, and lizards, learning their Thai names and the whole time trying out my broken Thai with limited success. I turned down a ride in the sidecar of the ice cream vendors bike with my bike back to Kanchanaburi and instead rode up a mountain, drenched in sweat, to eventually get back to the city.

(My ice cream vendor/tour guide and a bear)                   (The Wat with the zoo)

        -Timing my day perfectly-down to the minute only to sit in the scalding heat for an hour waiting for my very delayed bus to Bangkok. Also arriving in Bangkok pre-Songkran at night with my large backpack and no idea where to go and getting drenched by super soakers and fighting through a crowd of early celebrators every time I tried to stop and look for a street sign. Welcome to Songkran!

13/4 Bangkok- Songkran!

Woke up at 6am to watch the sunrise, find shortcuts and buy a super soaker and dry bag from the thousands piled high by street vendors. Everything was covered in plastic in preparation for the Thai New Year/ nation wide water war. ATM’s, registers and drawers in 7-11’s, and taxi seats were all covered entirely in plastic. Huge blocks of ice were peddled around on the back of motorbikes and dumped into huge bins of water. Met up with Teddy around 9am and was already soaked head to toe and covered in talcum powder. Stages were set up for dancers- EVERYONE, babies, little kids, street vendors, adults were 100% into the water fight. Even cops and cop cars were covered in gooey talcum powder and handprints. Camera lenses and video recordes were covered in tight plastic wrap and I was interviewed by a reported for local T.V. Even when we stepped off the street to eat the water fight continued in the restaurants. It’s the only time you’ll see hords of people eating lunch soaking wet with massive water guns on the table, prepared to battle while they munch. Its perfectly acceptable to be on public transportation and inside buildings because everyone, everywhere is celebrating.

·         The whole day! Thousands of happy people just having fun. Getting soaking wet and staying that way all day in incredible heat. Squirting everyone and doing nothing but water fight from  morning til you drop at night. Walking through a street of foam and  having random gooey hands gently (usually) swipe wet talcum across my face. Not seeing a sad, angry, or confused face all day. Dancing in the street outside a club in RCA with hundreds of Thai’s after all of the other clubs had shut down but a DJ refused to stop the party.

-  Khao San shutting down at 11pm and having to relocate to RCA (an hour’s taxi ride across the city).

14/4 Bangkok- Songkran Day 2

More Songkran- this time I spent most of my time in the roads surrounding Khao San where talc coated the streets in grey goo and I was covered in talc of grey, green, pink, and purple by hundreds of hands accompanied by smiling eyes and 'im sorry,’ ‘excuse my,’ or ‘happy new year!’ Asking people to spray me in the face with icy water to get the talc off, only to be covered again within minutes.

·       Spending the afternoon dancing in the talc covered streets as an awesome DJ played. Some boys carried signs advertising free hugs and girls danced wildly without a care in the world. Being the only foreigner there and not minding at all that I was being crushed by people and that it would take me 30 mins to push my way through the crowd if I ever decided to leave.  Partying with Teddy and his friends at Route 66. Thousands of people crammed into a massive club. Raised stages, shows, large screens, and contests taking place 30ft above our heads. Ice water being dumped from the high stages and being shot, poured, and thrown from all directions. Dancing soaking wet, surrounded with people in the midst of bubbles and foam.

(Route 66- outside section)

 

                                              (4am dinner/breakfast after Route 66)

-         Freezing in a taxi stuck in traffic for an hour soaking wet. Got to speak Thai with the driver the whole time though and felt like my speaking skill took a considerable leap forward in the hour of one on one conversation and lack of anything else to do.

15/4 Bangkok

* Selling my water gun to a Japanese girl who was getting massivly overcharged, plus I made half my                

  money back.

-Being exhausted after 2 nights with -3 hrs of sleep and not finding a taxi who knew where my new  

 hostel was for 40 minutes

When the exotic becomes normal

So things have mellowed out for Jackie and me as we have come to grasps with our lives in Phuket. Many of our experiences, though quite interesting, are no longer seem exotic. Our nights out and small side adventures aren't driving us to the blog to recount them, so things are slowing down (as I'm sure some of you have noticed).

We'll do our best to force ourselves down at our computers occasionally to put into words some travel oddity, or beautiful moment, but I think any expectations of a blow-by-blow account of our time here should sadly be shedded.

My dive column, which as been irregular in the past, will be coming out every two weeks from now to the end of my contract (holiday), so I'll keep posting those here as well.

Here is a link to my most recent dive column: http://www.phuketgazette.net/archives/articles/2012/article12512.html

Freediving

There is a certain point when I'm fairly sure I forgot I was living in a tropical paradise. The morning runs on the beach had petered out, and I was getting home from work past sunset daily. Even the weekends were slogging along.

It takes a certain amount of determination after a long week of work to get out of bed and explore. It's not a lack of desire, but a lack of determination. Too many hours had already been wasted aimlessly "exploring," but never exploring the right areas or finding the small moments of flavor and interest -- their was a blandness, probably more due my perspective then my surroundings.

For the dive column I arranged a meeting with Sarah and Richard from We Freedive. They took me to a small beach that I hadn't been to before, a little off the beaten track.

We drive through the hotel parking lot near Nai Harn Beach and then it opens back up into a public road. A thin, snaking road making its way up through long warm-brown grass. Suddenly, it doesn't feel like Thailand, it feels more like you are looking out onto the Mediterranean ocean from the Tuscany countryside.

Down the hill and you are on the little beach, which has a coral reef full of life just a stone throw away.

Now on the weekends, I go by myself (breaking the first rule of freediving) and I play. I wouldn't say I train, but I take a breath and spend sometime underwater exploring. Here is a link to the published dive story (that ended up going nation wide): http://www.phuketgazette.net/archives/phuketsports/2012/article12221.html

(A couple inaccuracies have been brought to my attention post-publication: It's AIDA not AIDEA; it's called  "static apnea" not "breath hold," which is what the comp. blog said; lastly "No Limit" and "Variable Weight" are not part of competitive freediving!) (Yikes that was a lot.)

The following is the full length story. To fit on page, it's necessary to hack these stories apart. A newspapers page, well at least our pages, are more about presentation than content. So we make sacrifices, but while I was slashing 200+ words from the 700 word original I realized that in the editing process, when you are forced to make it fit, the ego of the writer can be dropped from the story. The squirrelly little phrases that drew the reader away from the story and towards your "cleverness" or your "keen wit" are the first to go in a good edit. They simply aren't as important as the essence of the story.

FREEDIVING. It’s different than scuba diving. There is a quietness underwater. Not a silence, but a quietness. There is the sound of shifting sand and parrot fish chewing on coral. These are the sounds of life that don’t exist for scuba divers, as they bubble away on their regulators. It was one of the beauties of diving on a single breath.

Freediving is about calmness, not necessarily lung capacity. You slow your heart rate down, you stay streamlined and you take one breath, and never let it go – no blowing bubbles all the way up. You hold it in, because despite the rising carbon-dioxide levels setting off alarms in your head, the air in your lungs still has plenty of oxygen to keep you running, to keep you from blacking out.

“People, especially scuba divers, think that freediving is really risky, but it’s not. The stuff that is really risky is the breathing – and since we don’t do that, we don’t have those problems. There is one basic rule: always free dive with a buddy,” says Richard Wonka from We Freedive.

“It would be hard work to get yourself in a position that you could black out, and if you have a buddy not even that would be a big problem,” he adds.

Richard runs We Freedive, an AIDEA certifying freediving school, along with Sarah Whitcher.

He was a member of the German national team at the freediving world championships in 2008. Before that he had trained in Dahab, Egypt – famous for its freediving location, the Blue Hole. While in Dahab, Richard met Sarah who had moved to there to work as a freedive instructor. Together they opened We Freedive, which recently relocated to Phuket.

Freediving is a multifaceted discipline, like almost every other sport. It is composed of eight different fields: no limit, variable weight, constant weight, constant weight without fins, free immersion, dynamic with fins, dynamic without fins and static apnea.

On one of the lesser-known beaches of Phuket just north of Nai Harn, Sarah talks me and my freedive buddy, who’s just as green as I am about the sport, through some light stretches, some“belly breathing” and then with nothing put fins, snorkel and a mask we kick out into the water.

The equipment, or the lack of it, is another draw for the sport. I’ve been scuba diving for years and I have grown used to the awkward five minutes of clunking around a dive boat in my BCD and flippers, like some over-zealous off-balance turtle, but there is none of that. The sport is beautiful in its simplicity. It’s what Richard calls “Snorkeling 2.0”.

“People learn to freedive during our three-day course – and that’s when they surprise themselves,” Sarah says.

At the end of the certifying course, most people, though maybe not as fluid as seals underwater, are at least very comfortable and can make a two or three-minute dive covering about 50 meters.

“The numbers aren’t that important. The courses aren’t so much about covering a certain distance or staying underwater for a certain time, but are about learning how to dive well, about being relaxed and streamlined underwater,” Sarah says.

“Once you learn those things, the times and numbers just happen. They are a byproduct of good diving,” she adds.

Laying face down on the surface of the water, I calmly breathe, trying to slow my heart rate. The slower the heart rate, the less oxygen you burn, the longer you can stay underwater and explore.

A deep breath in and I duck dive and follow the rope that Sarah set up. Halfway down, equalizing constantly, I suddenly realize that I am looking at the bottom, which is a no-no.

“It takes twice as long to get there if you’re watching,” says Richard. Not only does it just seem to take forever to get to the bottom – even just 10 meters – but your head position when you are looking at the bottom is less streamlined. I correct my head position and suddenly I am at the bottom.

Floating just above the reef, there is a moment of meditative calmness. I watch a pair of butterfly fish flutter past, totally unfazed by my silent presence.

Calmly I put one hand on the rope and slowly start to let myself rise. Calmly down, calmly up – easy does it seems to be the name of the game.

“Once you’ve understood. Once you’ve done your freedives and been underwater for an extended amount of time, and you came up fine – that experience will never leave you. You won’t get nervous underwater with only a breath,” says Richard.

Cruel and unusual: Slowing down a Slow Loris in Phuket

We didn't know what it was, but as the days roll on the guilt builds. The more I know, the less proud I am. I feel like I went from an animal rights, "PETA certified", servant of the wild to a 6-year-old boy with a magnifying glass -- but only in reflection.

It was dark and Jackie riding pillion as we ground up the the dark hill near our house. There, flat in the middle of the back road and sprawled out as if it had been crushed, was a little swath of fur.

Interested, keen and animal roadkill savvy, I pulled over to have me an investigation: not roadkill -- roadliving. The small creature turned its flat face up to us. One armed was stretched out. There was something desperate and compelling about its prostrated posture, about its sad, wet noise and seemingly teary eyes. It looked sick. It hardly seemed to have the energy to move once caught in our light. Like I said we didn't know what it was. Not a monkey. A lemur? A marmoset?

I wasn't sure what to do. It didn't seem injured just tired, exhausted -- slow. A man (Simon) and woman drove by us on the main road. I waved them down. It was instinctual, because I recognized them. Though just four hours earlier I had seen them and thought "God, I hate those two." It was nothing personal of course, but one was a farang and the other a Thai woman; they both had bright-red dyed hair and his was just a little ratty top-ponytail. They looked ridiculous. Early that day wasn't the first time I had seen them -- that hair was hard to miss.

They stopped and came down. They also thought it was sick. Simone, who we later found out was vegetarian after someone joked about eating the animal, offered to take it home and then to the veterinarian the next day. He and his girlfriend were incredibly nice, it looks like my snap judgment has started to fail me, might explain some poker issues.

We all crouched around the little animal, who kept turning its face down, hiding, but not running -- clearly a sick creature or maybe just a sad lost creature. (It turns out the Slow Loris is native to Phuket and the slowest mammal in the world.) A pickup truck started to rumble up the hill, and already another moped had stopped. The woman on the moped asked if the animal was a dog. No dog, no monkey, it's a . . .  well, none of us knew.

Simon tried to pick it up and get it out of the road. It then somehow managed to bite his girlfriend. She screamed and threw her purse, which the creature had managed to end up on. It landed on the seat of Simon's motorbike, and there it lay.

The truck driver, catching onto the obvious commotion, pulled over to have a look.

The poor animal, had the air of a mother who had lost its child as we tried to figure out how to get it into the purse, so Simon could take it to the vet. The Thai man in the truck, knew what it was, though he didn't know the English name, leaving us all with a set of sounds with a very clear meaning . . . whatever we had in front of us, but no context to put it in.

In one of the many attempts to get the loris in the bag the man was bitten. He squeezed his finger and a drop of blood appeared.

In our attempts to move the loris, which was really very chilled out and kept tucking its head down, trying to get away from the lights and commotion, it fell to the ground with a horrible thud.

Shortly after, I can't remember exactly how, it ended up wrapped around the clutch of the motorcycle. The Thai man firmly pulled and wiggled and tried his best to pull the loris free, but it refused to budge -- its sudden strength and obvious "fuck off" attitude didn't ring bells for anyone. We had established it was "sick" and were working solely from that premise -- no time to re-evaluate

Finally, by prying the the poor loris's fingers off one by one they were able to sack the little animal. Now they could take it to the hospital in the morning.





















I didn't figure out what that it was a slow loris until I did a little Google research the next day.

I didn't know that it was supposedly the slowest moving mammal in the world until Chris mentioned it at lunch.

I didn't realize that my will, no matter its intentions, actually bought about the torture of a tiny, wild, benign and endangered creature.

Simone and his girlfriend will no-doubt be spotted again at some point. I look forward to following up on the happenings of our poor loris and perhaps apologizing to them also -- it had to be very embarrassing to take a slow loris to a vet and ask him why it had seemed so sluggish and unhappy in the bright lights and cacophony of curiosity we had inundated it with.

Chiang Mai Part 1: Temples

 After 4 months in Thailand I finally left Phuket to explore another part of country. For Christmas break I flew up north to Chiang Mai, trading in beaches for mountains. I was thrilled to get off the plane and suddenly be somewhere new and different. Phuket is great but with a full time job and a 6:30pm sunset I don’t get out exploring much and was starting to feel stagnant, boring, and bored. The week long trip to Chiang Mai helped put my mind at ease again and rejuvenated my wilting sense of adventure.

I had decided not to plan anything for the trip, traveling without a guide book worked so well for Tonsai I figured why not try it again? During my last few trips guide books have started making me feel trapped or coerced into doing all the ‘coolest’ things at the sacrifice of letting me discover my own favorite places or exploring on my own time frame. I think most of this sudden distaste for guides comes from being a resident instead of a tourist, even in distant regions (24 hrs by bus), I still know that I can and will visit most of these places again, so I am in no rush to see and do everything exciting all in one week. I was also going on vacation with the ulterior motive of testing the northern region to see if I would enjoy living there more permanently, so I was trying to stay out of the super touristy areas.

Planning each day as it unwound, I had a spectacular time living from moment to moment, lingering indefinitely at places I liked, leaving quickly when I didn’t. Exploring in this lackadaisical style, going with the flow of each day, every day of the trip was so different from any other that I’m going to try to break them down into different blogs over the next few weeks.

 Day 1: temples. After only few hours of sleep I jumped out of my bed in a shared dorm room, excited to explore the new city.  After wondering about how best to start my adventure, I decided to familiarize myself with the city by taking a much needed respite from motorbikes and wandering the city on foot. While this was fantastic for 4-5 hours, because Chiang Mai is more conservative than Phuket and bare shoulders and shorts are not allowed inside temples, I was burning up wearing jeans and a jacket in 90 °F heat and exhausted by the end of the day.

  There are over 300 temples in CM, making them more profuse than McDonalds and Starbucks combined in the entire state of Indiana. I had heard about two especially noteworthy temples and my goal was to eventually wander to them, but without a map. Every temple had something new to see, whether it be deeply engraved gold doors depicting ancient stories, various famous Buddha images, fountains, or giant glimmering dragons guarding the entrances. However, even though each was unique, after 5 hours all the incredible statues and ornamentation that had awed me initially became blurred together with all of the other statues and reliefs of other temples. The day is a blur of gold decorations, stained glass dragons, giant Buddha’s, and monks swathed in orange.

There are two exceptions to this blur, even 2 weeks after returning home Wat Chedi Lueang and Wat Pra That  Doi Suthep still remain clear in my memory. Wat Chedi Lueang consists of many temples (Wats) of varying size and importance. While the main temple was similar to many of the other temples I had visited that day, there was also a magnificent and crumbling ancient Lanna style temple towering over it. Not having looked anything up in a guide book I had no idea what the structure was at the time. But I spent 2 hours wandering around it, utterly fascinated and awestruck.

                   (Wat Chedi Lueang)                                     (Wat Pra That  Doi Suthep )

The building is made of brick and appeared extremely old, the dome at the top has crumbled and only half remains, looking blackened as if it had survived a massive fire. There did not seem to be any easy way to get inside and what I initially perceived to be 4 entrances, one in each cardinal direction, turned out to be hollowed out shrines housing Buddha images. Each statue is ~50ft up the structure and leading to each is a long, very steep paved ‘sidewalk’ that would be absolutely terrifying to walk down.  Guarding the base of each were 2 six headed dragons that appeared to be slightly newer than the rest of the building. On the southern wall there were 6 beautifully carved elephants high on the rampart. One had lost it trunk and ears and had been worn smooth by time. While this was confusing at the time, later I looked it up and found that the temple had been built in the 14^th century but was partially restored in the 1990’s when it became a UNESCO world heritage site. The dome had not been restored because no one knew what the original looked like and one elephant was left untouched for reasons I don’t know.  The structure was incredible though and seemed to have a personality and aged grace that demanded reverence, even without knowing its remarkable history.

                              

The second truly remarkable temple was Wat Pra That  Doi Suthep, a temple at the peak of a mountain. In order to get to the temple each visitor must climb a 309 step staircase with magnificent stained glass studded dragons following the entire stair case.  Small children from the nearby Hmong villages are brought there daily in full black velvet clothing, intricately beaded hats and shoes, and heavy makeup. Most of the children were girls under the age of 5 and looked absolutely miserable, chided and told to stay still and smile at the tourists so that they will get money. Those little girls had some of the saddest smiles I have ever seen.  They would often get distracted from their ‘job’ and would crawl around comfortable on all fours, showing just how young they were.

                                                                                                   

(Hmong village children)

The stairs give way to a beautiful panoramic view of Chiang Mai and the most gold I have ever seen or will ever see in my life. Absolutely everything in the outdoor Wat was covered in gold and shone brilliantly in the sun, to the extent that I had to keep my sunglasses on throughout my visit. It was very crowded and between the crush of people, intense heat, burning incense, and the shining gold surfaces I was in a sensory overload and had to keep ducking off into shaded corners to escape the crowds and to view the temple from a quieter, more stationary position.

 My favorite part of the temple, outside the fact that it was like being in King Midas’s palace, was a large trough of oil with 7 lamps, one for each day of the week. Similar to Ghana, the day you were born is very important in the Buddhist tradition. Luckily, thanks to Ghanaian culture I already knew that I was born on a Monday so I knew which Buddha position I should light a lamp for (or keep alight).  In this temple people took turns ladling oil into shallow lamps to keep the flames burning ceaselessly. It was a pleasant and peaceful tradition and one of the few I felt comfortable doing. Most of the time I feel like an idiot or a fraud when I participate in any Buddhist ritual, no matter how minor, unless I am with one of my Thai friends and they explain what to do and why . Even though I enjoy watching most rituals and would probably enjoy doing them, I am very uncomfortable mimicking religious rituals with no idea what their purpose or importance to the religion is.

 The other very memorable part of the temple was its long exit, rimmed with bells of varying sizes and voices. As you exit the Wat you can ring all of the 100 bells that are strung out in rows 2 bells high. I was impressed with how many people went through the effort of crouching to reach the low bells and make every one chime until I started doing it. It is highly addictive and I was laughing as I rang the bells, waiting patiently as little kids ran past me, darting their tiny hands into the bells as they raced to chime them all as fast as possible.