יום חמישי, ינואר 05, 2006

Monk and me

I'm in Laos and the people here are so friendly and nice. Vientiane is a city I could live in - nice and slow paced.

Anyway, here is today's story:

Bangkok to Ayuthaya: The monk across the train from me is showing off his new digital camera. For a man wearing nothing but an orange robe its an odd luxury. I'll be nice to get out of Bangkok. Ayuthaya used to be the capitol city, we'll see what it has to offer.

---The above paragraph was what I wrote in the first few minuets of my train ride to Ayuthaya. From there we would have the day to tour the city and then at 10pm we had tickets for the sleeper train to Nong Khai on the Lao border. The following paragraph is what I wrote while waiting for the train later that evening.---

And I thought this would be dull. Nope. I can now say I exchanged emails with a Buddhist monk! So far, a highlight of my trip.I crossed the aisle to ask (in my phrasebook Thai) how long to Ayuthaya. That started a conversation and thought me a little more Thai. 'Phom phoud Thai lek noi' - I speak a little Thai. turns out these two monks across the Aisle were also going to see Ayuthaya. When we got there, Paradorn (monk with digital camera) was bargining with a taxi driver for a tour. We invited ourselves along. 50B per person, per hour. We got to see some fascinating Wats and since we were with monks we got in free. There were lots of fascinating sights but the best part was that we were going places very few tourists had gone - and made friends with two Buddhist monks! Apichart and Dorn, Thank you for a wonderful day!

posted by YS @ 1:12 AM