hillside and supposed to have great views of the city below. The wat
is the second most popular pilgrimage site in Thailand, according to
our book, so it should be excellent people watching if nothing else.
Yesterday we scoped out the "bus station," where sangthaews going to
Doi Suthep hangout and learned the price of a ride up the mountain,
50B. We found a sangthaew offering this semi-standard rate, but the
kicker is they wait until the sangthaew is "full," 10 people minimum
the sign states before they leave. No other tourists were in sight. We
would give them 15 minutes and then leave if they still refused to
take us alone. Miraculously, 14 minutes into the wait two other
couples materialized. The driver grinned and made some crack that just
for us, he would go without a full seven people, which was apparently
his minimum, only the sign required 10. Anyways, in a split second,
our fortune changed as is apt to happen while traveling and off we
went.
The most frustrating thing about riding in a sangthaew (a truck onto
which a roof and bench seats have been welded) is that the windows are
too low for optimal viewing. You have the sensation of driving around,
but your eyes have trouble confirming this. Resultantly, Robert and I
both dislike riding in them for longer trips. This trip, however, was
about an hour and the roads climbed and wound around the mountain.
Not fun. We both felt sick and disoriented when we got to the top. In
fact, we crawled out of the sangthaew and just sat in the shade for
quite some time before trying to make any sense of our new
surroundings. I read about the wat in the guide book a little bit,
which shed light on the giant gold statue of a man nearby. He was the
monk that spearheaded a giant volunteer effort to pave the road up the
mountain to access the wat without having to hack through the jungle
for several hours.
We bought tickets to enter the wat at a stand nearby. We also ended up
with tickets for the cable car. I take this to be evidence that we
were both still a little out of it. It is well known that there is a
giant staircase to climb to get to the wat, but when I tried to tell
the woman we wanted to walk, she told us we still needed a cable car
ticket. I don't think she intentionally was trying to force the ticket
on us, but we didn't see a staircase so we went along. We took a cable
car up the mountain and it dropped us off at the top, still no sign of
a staircase. Hmm. (It wasn't until we tried to leave that we found the
GIANT staircase, but it was there all along.)
The wat was buzzing with activity. We beelined for a coffee stand in
hopes that a little caffeine would set the world right again. It
didn't really, but it was a nice slow start to our explorations. I was
quite content to walk slowly and capture everything on film, multiple
angles. Robert on the other hand, just loitered in the shade and used
his eye camera to take everything in. Expect lots of pics at the next
upload. The temple was much more photogenic than the view of the city,
which was obscured by the customary big-city smog. I did enjoy the
flower tree growing from a level below the viewpoint that came up
though a hole in the concrete floor and blossomed onto an arbor,
providing thick shade for the viewers and a million fuchsia flowers.
Another memorable feature were the numerous bells. Ringing the wat
proper, were lines of bells and it was supposedly very good luck to
ring all of them. The signs were specific, don't push the bells;
instead clang the internal ringer against the bell. I wanted a picture
of the bells with their clangers wagging after a good ringing, but I
was unsuccessful. No matter how small the aperture or how modestly I
delayed the shutter, the pictures were overexposed. Maybe inevitable
in the bright sunlight? Photographers, weigh in!
After a few laps around the outside of the temple, we ventured into
the main attraction. If you have ever seen a picture of a giant golden
chedi (upside-down ice cream cone) with a giant multi-tiered golden
umbrella next to it, this is the place. There were photographers on
hand offering to take a picture of you with said chedi and umbrella,
then photoshop in a more perfect sky and Photoshop out all the other
people. We didn't get one, but really I don't think we were offered
one either. They were targeting Thai pilgrims, not camera toting
tourists.
There were lots of cool pictures to take, but the people watching
surpassed the lens for once. Thais would buy lotus blossoms, candles
and incense, ceremoniously walk them once around the main chedi and
then present them to four main Buddha statues (not sure of the
significance of each). While kneeling in front of a Buddha image, one
could shake these cups full of sticks until one stick distinguished
itself. This stick had a number on it, which corresponded to fortune,
take the correctly numbered paper and read your fate - a much more
involved way of revealing your horoscope.
My favorite people watching experience of the day was in front of a
large gong. There were several gongs hanging throughout the complex
and I puzzled over the consistently missing gong-whackers. Then I
spied a green-shirted man and his entourage, who revealed the proper
way to play the gong. He used one hand to slowly rub the center of the
gong and a low hum, soft at first, was produced. This was definitely a
skill he had honed over years of practiced, but he cheerfully tried to
teach his compatriots; none was nearly as successful as he. When the
crowd dispersed, Robert and I tried, equally unsuccessful despite
eavesdropping on the lesson. Others opted to whack the gong three
times with a closed fist, but that seemed far too easy to garner any
significant amount of luck.
I don't want to forget to explain how this temple was initially
created. It seems a bit far-fetched and it admittedly a legion, but
the story goes... A famous Buddha relic was being given a new home
when it spontaneously duplicated itself. This clone needed a home, but
there wasn't a wat available, so a monk enshrined the relic on the
back of a holy white elephant. (Buddha's mother was barren until she
dreamt that a white elephant crawled into her womb, so white elephants
are highly revered.) For years the white elephant wandered the
countryside, eventually climbing the Doi Suthep mountain and dying at
the top. The wat was then built to permanently house the relic, which
now resides beneath the chedi.
After exhausting my desire to take pictures and my companion's
patience, we located the stairs and ceremoniously descended, feeling
like we had cheated on the way up. Robert had a rice sausage (similar
to boudan, he says) and I had a sour green mango. The woman tried to
warn me, but I didn't understand until it was too late - she had sweet
green mangoes too! Oops. I suffered through the mouth-puckering one
and will remember to get a sweet one next time, if offered.
We arranged a sangthaew to take us down the mountain because we were
getting hungry for real food. It left at three, thankfully no
extensive waiting on this end either, granted there were so many
tourists and extra sangthaews that I cant imagine having to wait long.
The trip down was brutal. I felt sick after mere moments and
progressively got worse. When we stopped at the zoo to drop other
passengers off and change sangthaews, the driver tried to explain to
me the fare and to pay the new driver. It took all of my concentration
to remain standing and not puke on his shoes. He took this for
non-comprehension and continued repeating himself until I just boarded
the new sangthaew, hopefully not too rudely. We made it back to our
stomping grounds, paid the man and dragged ourselves into a
nearby....Starbucks! We sat there for a long time, without getting
anything, just trying to readjust to this very still reality. In fact,
they came around and offered Robert a taste of some new carmel
monstrosity - I didn't lift my head off the table. Finally, Robert got
me up and moving and we made our way back to the guesthouse. We
stopped to get noodle soup and I began to feel better. This bout was
almost as bad as when we tried to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway in the
Smoky Mountains.
After some rest in our room, we ventured out to make Thanksgiving
calls home! Very exciting, but I quickly realized that maybe I should
have revealed my plan prior to calling so I didnt have to leave so
many voice mails. I'll do better next time, sorry!
Dinner. We were famished after our stint at the Internet shop and
tonight we were in no mood to wander as much as we did while locating
a suitable dinner the night before. We hastily chose a cheap-enough
Indian restaurant and I started to get excited about palak paneer,
which, in my excitement, I did not order, but the mutter paneer was
equally lovely. We will most likely go back because it was such a
welcome treat, just like food from my beloved Sarovar! Also, we met a
friendly Indian man who gave us lots of advice, travel and otherwise.
He lived in Sugarland for four years, so we had a place to start. I'll
pass on his advice: 1)you think the prices at home depot are cheap,
they are not. He claimed to be able to cut prices 40% and still make a
nice profit. (he was in the flooring business.) 2) if you like to
travel, invest in a lifetime membership to continental's president's
club. He was quit amusing and we talked to him for a while. He even
gave us another veggie friendly place to try, asking if I had
committed the map to memory and repeating his description to solidify
it.
Happy Thanksgiving!!
1 comment:
That sucks about feeling car sick. Poor Jenn! xoxo
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