Monk-eying Around

OK, so titles aren't my strong point. I never professed to be a creative individual - give me a topic and I can write factually about it, but ask me to come up with something by myself... that's a different story.

So you're all intrigued as to what this title means. I won't keep you in suspense for much longer.

South East Asia has a strong Buddhist culture - this is documented by the dozens and dozens of photos I've taken of the various temples. The monastic tradition is still very strong here - its an honour for families in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to send their oldest child to be ordained as a Buddhist monk. Its a common sight to see lines of young monks queuing up to collect alms in the morning (see my Laos blog for pictures). I've always been fascinated by Buddhism, and I have a lot of respect for the religion (as I do for most of the other world religions). I studied Buddhism for GCSE religious studies, and even though I haven't extended this study recently, I always welcomed the opportunity to learn more about it.

Anyway, looking through the Lonely Planet, I happened to stumble across something called "Monk Chat". What this "Monk Chat" lacks in name, it makes up for in substance - it offered foreigners the experience of spending two days at a meditation retreat in Chiang Mai, being instructed by some of the Buddhist monks. This program ran once a week, and I wanted to indulge my fascination. Initially, I had attempted to visit this retreat two weeks ago, but I was thwarted by the small matter of a Buddhist festival. No problem - I just decided to visit the retreat on my return.

So what did it consist of? The program was labelled as an introduction to meditation so it was intended to provide us with the basics and give us a taste of what meditation involved. So I arrived at the temple on the afternoon of the first day - and the temple itself was stunning. We were provided with a two hour talk on Buddhism, what the main precepts were and how meditation fits in to Buddhism. Much of it was what I had learnt at GCSE, but bearing in mind that that was almost 7 years ago now (I feel old!), it was nice to gain a refresher.

From there, we were taken by minibus to the retreat. The journey was about half an hour in total. and the retreat was a stunning location in the Chiang Mai countryside. It was completely deserted, and us 20 participants were the only occupants. It was there that we were informed that we were expected to maintain complete silence for the duration of the retreat!! We were given a surprisingly tasty dinner but everyone was very disconcerted by their inability to talk to the person sitting opposite them.

From there, we were given our first class. Sitting meditation, of the concentration meditation variety. This lasted for an hour, and its surprising how difficult it was to concentrate on the stimulus offered to us (in this case, the noise provided by a ringing bowl). The monk said that initially our minds would be 'like a monkey', and that was a fitting description - the mind jumped from thought to thought to thought. This was proceeded by the slightly strange "walking meditation", and the sleep inducing "lying down meditation". After an extensive session, we were released at 9pm (still maintaining complete silence), and were in bed by 10pm.

The next morning, we had the pleasure of a 5am start. This was followed by some counting meditation and yoga at 5:30, and to be fair, this actually managed to wake us up.

After this, we were instructed to practise some more of our sitting down meditation. At 7:30 we did something quite different, and were given the task of offering alms to the monks. In the Buddhist monastic tradition, monks do not cook or provide food for themselves; instead, this is provided to the monks by the local lay community. This means that the monks have more time in which to practice meditation and chanting (not burdened by the need to prepare food). The way that one of the monks put it was that 'the lay community look after our bodies, and we look after their minds - providing advice and counsel when needed'. This was followed by a well deserved breakfast for ourselves.

At 9am, we were finally granted permission to speak again - during a very interesting Discussion Session with some of the monks. It was very informative, and they answered many questions that the participants had about meditation and Buddhism. From there, we had another couple of hours of meditation practice, before lunch, and then the bus back to the temple. A very intense and interesting 24 hours.


So what did I think of this?

If anything, it has heightened my respect for Buddhism and for the South East Asian way of life. I like the way that the monks and lay community work in harmony together.

My respect for Buddhism has also increased. It strikes me as a very pragmatic religion, labelling itself as "The Middle Path" between excess and ascetism. In contrast to many of the other world religions, it forgoes talk of creators, gods, and much of the ceremony associated with religion, and instead is focussed on improving oneself as a person. The five precepts of Buddhism are to refrain from taking life, from stealing, from commiting sexual misconduct, from lying, and from taking intoxicants. Elementary yet useful. In place of a god, they follow the teachings of the Buddha, but it is just that - the teachings - Buddha is not revered as a god, and in fact, his teachings are more important than he is. This means that the Buddhist religion is free from the stories, and colourful gods of Hinduism, or from the devotion to one god of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The monks are free to leave and join the order as they please (obviously not frivously) - as Buddhism feels that life is centered around impermanence.

There are elements of the religion that I disagree with too. My main uncertainty is the Buddhist attitude towards vegetarianism. The monks told me that ideally, they would eat vegetarian food, but that in reality, they will eat meat if it is given by those offering alms. The reason for this is that the monks do not wish to cause extra trouble for those preparing the food, and will just eat the same dishes that the family do. This is at odds with their principle of not killing, and I brought this argument up at length with the monk.

And the meditation? It was interesting. The concept behind it is to attain total focus on one thing, and it is infinitely harder than it looks. I feel that it would be very useful in day to day life - it would heighten one's skills of concentration. However, I was barely able to attain even a few seconds of total concentration - its something that requires years of training.

Before I end this blog, I don't want people to be afraid that I've suddenly gained religion or spirituality. I'm still a devout agnostic! It was an eye-opening experience though, and definitely an incredible opportunity.

By the way, this whole programme was run on donation - food, accomodation and all.

Hope everyone is well,

Nihal

On the last episode, our noble hero was trapped on a tropical island off the Thai coast... how would he escape from there?? Stay tuned in to find out...

So Koh Chang was great. We had fantastic food, the beach was beautiful, deserted and not full of people peddling unwanted goods, and the beach parties were also awesome. This was somewhat ruined by the rain that started on Day 3, and refused to leave us for the rest of the stay. When it rains on a beach paradise there's really not all that much to do, except to hole yourself up in your room and curl up with a good book. Unfortunately, my book wasn't good, so by the third day of torrential downpours, we decided to leave the island.

Back to Bangkok it was then. We decided this because we felt that rain in Bangkok would be less of a barrier to activities than rain in Koh Chang. Fair assessment I think.

Anyway, during the course of our previous stay in Bangkok, I had visited about a dozen temples, frequented a similar amount of markets, eaten tens of Pad Thais, and been accosted by uncountable numbers of tuk tuk drivers. That's Bangkok done then, right?

Pretty much. Going back to Bangkok was like that scene in The Beach where Leo (no, I haven't read the book) revisits Koh Pha Ngan after spending a significant amount of time in paradise. He was disgusted by his fellow American tourists, thought of the place as overly loud, couldn't stand the sight of drunken louts crowding the streets etc etc. Travelling makes you a bitter individual, and personally, I'm sick of the sight of bald-headed British lager louts in their football shirts staggering down Khao San Road (ironically, this same description could have been used for me about a year ago!). Equally disgusting, yet somewhat tragically amusing, are the hundreds of old, ugly, overweight European men who have somehow managed to land themselves a young, beautiful Thai girl. You feel sorry for both the girl and the man in this situation - the girl because of the ordeal she's faced with, and the man, because you know that the girl is only after him for his money. As I said before, tragically amusing.

So having done most of the cultural stuff, we elected to have a different stay in Bangkok. We spent several hours in guesthouse lobbies, watching recent movies on their big screens. We even decided to treat ourselves to a day at the local theme park - Siam Park City. Now this was all of my childhood dreams come true - a theme park that was almost completely deserted. And this meant... wait for it... no queues for rides whatsoever! Admittedly, some of the rides were slightly dated, e.g. "African Adventure" - complete with stereotypical plastic African savage figurines burning white people at the stake, but it had some good roller coasters, and also housed a small water park. I'm sorry to destroy anyone's fantasy, but having your own theme park does mean that you ultimately get bored of the rides - by the second ride of each roller coaster, I'd already memorised each peak, fall and loop-the-loop. Can't complain though.

So Khilna went home yesterday, leaving me with a tough decision - more hell in Bangkok - waiting for friends to arrive, solitude on the islands, or back north to Chiang Mai which I knew and loved. I went with the last of the three options, and am presently staying at the guesthouse that's become known as my second home (this is my third separate stay!).

Expect more escapades and mischief soon.

I found the second volume of A Suitable Boy in a bookshop in Bangkok. My (almost unread) copy of Dostoevsky's The Idiot had to be sacrificed, but that's no great loss. I'm admitting defeat! I'm still a happy man though!

The substitute blog

I had a blog ready and waiting for you, but my brother went and got in there before me. Have a read - its much better than the one I would have written - http://www.mihirsadventures.blogspot.com/. He's got some interesting descriptions of me on there too, so that should be reason enough to read it! So rather than bore you with the same thing all over again, I've decided to give you some reflections on my trip so far.

I recently read a trashy travel novel (actually, Khilna was reading it - I'd already read it a couple of years ago, and was hijacking the book when possible), about a guy going to India on his gap year. The book contained the standard parts about drink, drugs, sex, and diarrhoea, but in it, there was an extended tirade by a Westerner towards the book's subject (a 19 year old gap year kid). Anyway, the brunt of the rant was about the fact that this flock of kids come over to a developing country, stay in traveller resorts, never interact with the locals, congratulate themselves on how "brave" and "adventurous" they've been, and leave with something to write down on their CVs - Third World experience - check. (The book was called Are You Experienced by William Sutcliffe for anyone interested). So before I start rambling and lose my point, this led me to question the whole "Gap Year" experience. Was it just another box to tick off on the list? Has it "changed me as a person"? And have I had a lot of interaction with foreign culture, learning more about the countries in question? Well, I'm sorry to say that I don't know the answer to these questions.

So what is travelling? Well its waking up every day in a foreign country, being at total liberty for what to do. I've never experienced this much freedom. You can stay in bed all day, go to a pub at 12 in the afternoon, sit and read all day - anything that takes your fancy on that particular day. When you're at home, there's always an errand to run, or someone to phone, or something on TV - here, there's nothing. Its a disconcerting but beautiful feeling. As I've said, some abuse this freedom, and spend every day in a drunken stupor, but that's not a valuable usage of their precious time. During this trip, I've had the opportunity to go tubing (twice), to go white water rafting, to bathe with the elephants, to feed elephants (on numerous occassions), to visit numerous waterfalls, to do both a Thai and Vietnamese cooking course, to see the temples at Angkor Wat - and these are just the things that I can remember. A lifetime's worth of experiences in three months.

So how much have I experienced the local culture? Not very much I'd say. Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are rites of passage for most middle-class kids these days, and the result is that you're provided with an experience that is watered down, and not "authentic". After you've got over the disappointment of not being able to stay in village huts with no electricity and running water, you realise that this isn't a bad thing, and that the local areas are just a stone's throw away from the backpacker districts - if you can just be bothered to put down the Lonely Planet and actually look for them! The fact that the route is so touristy means that things like elephant riding and the like are actually quite accessible and inexpensive - something to be grateful for.

So how have I changed as a person? The first thing to change was my attire.. Out went the Ralph Lauren Polos and True Religion jeans, and in came the linen trousers, and locally sourced T-shirts. Over here, nobody cares whether you've got the Abercrombie stag on your shirt, or the Nike tick on your shoes, instead its about comfort, and the hippy vibe! Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix t-shirts are everwhere, as are funky cotton trousers and shorts. Its a great feeling.

Losing my trainers was a blessing in disguise. As much as I loved the Adidas 3-stripe shell toes, I'm enjoying the liberating feeling of not having worn proper shoes and socks for 3 months. I'm currently on my third pair of flip flops, and as people will tell you, every pair of flip flops tells a story! My current flip flops were purchased when my beloved bamboo flip flops broke in Vietnam, just before a long bus journey. These flip flops were bought as a stop gap solution 7 weeks ago, and are still serving me faithfully to this day. They're the very same pair that accompanied me on that trek, when I had to go barefoot. Everyone knows that I've always been a strong advocate of the trainer, but I'm currently loving the feeling that a good flip flop brings!

As for other changes, travelling lets you spend a lot of time thinking about things - a luxury not afforded in the hectic London lifestyle. I've come to some important decisions about my life, and I'll let you know about these later on. I don't feel like I've become a more spiritual person, but I do feel like I have a lot more to talk about (as is evident from these overly lengthy blogs).

I've always been a fan of a good book, and being abroad has allowed me to indulge this passion. Initially, I attempted to read two stupidly complicated books (keeping the mind engaged and all) - A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, and the encyclopaedia-esque An Outline of History by HG Wells. Both attracted strange looks from fellow travellers, and both were abandoned - at 200 pages and at 500 pages respectively. I've reverted to my true passion - fiction. I hope this doesn't come across as pretentious, unneccessary or stupid, but I'll list my holiday reading, accompanied by a brief review:

The Damned United - a fantastic page turner. This book resulted in a couple of sleepness nights in China, in a desperate attempt to finish the book. A great insight into Brian Clough.

The Grapes of Wrath - possibly one of the best books I've ever read. I've always been snobby about American culture (I don't know why - just a British stigma), but this was a beautiful account of problems affecting those farmers in the Deep South in the early 1900s. I enjoyed the way that it was written by both the farmers and the big businessmen. I can't recommend it strongly enough.

First They Killed my Father - A first person account of a young girl's experience during the Cambodian genocide. A truly harrowing and upsetting book, but a great read for anyone wishing to learn more about Cambodia.

White Teeth - a book that I initially enjoyed a great deal, but that I felt became more and more laboured as it went on. Very creative, and perhaps overly so - Zadie Smith seemed to get more and more lost in her own plot.

A Suitable Boy (volume one) - I'd intended to read this book for a while, especially after having seen Vikram Seth at the Jaipur Literature Festival. It was a wonderfully convaluted account of the attempt to find a husband for one Lata Mehra. I loved it. I was lucky enough to find this book in my guesthouse, and unfortunately for me, all of the local bookshops only seemed to stock Volumes One and Three - the result being that I wasn't able to continue with A Suitable Boy. I briefly toyed with the idea of carrying the 3kg, 3000 page unabridged version, but practicality put a stop to this silly idea.

Right now, I'm reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot (cue the silly jokes) in an effort to be all intellectual, and its proving to be a slog. I did think about giving up on the book, but am now starting to enjoy it. My pride wouldn't let me give up on a third book anyway!

Anyway, enough of this fragmented, nonsensical blog. Next time, order as usual will be resumed. I'm currently on the beautiful Koh Chang, with my beautiful girlfriend. On the beach by day, at beach parties drinking tropical cocktails by night - life doesn't get much better!

Hope everyone is well,

Love to all,

Nihal

PS, after Mihir left Chiang Mai, we spent another two days there. Visited a temple, went to Chiang Mai zoo, and met up with Sagar, Ashni, Amar and their two friends. Good fun.

So, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos down, and now to the big one - that traveller's paradise, the Mecca of temples, coconut curries and hedonism that is Thailand..

I got off the 12 hour bus from Vientiene to Bangkok, and was dropped off in the infamous Khao San road - made famous by the film "The Beach", and countless travellers' tales. Task number one was to find a hotel - I was shown several extortionately priced, cockroach infested hellholes, but in the end (bearing in mind that Khilna was arriving was the following day) I settled on a Thai chain-hotel, that was both moderately priced and clean-ish. My task for the day was complete, and I consulted my new guide book (the Time Out guide to Bangkok to see what to do). Walking around, guidebook in hand, I couldn't help but notice that at 8am in the morning, people were still crowded around glasses of Thai whisky and soda - presumably carrying on from the previous night. And no Mum, I didn't join in and have a drink at that hour of the morning!

My week in Bangkok was spent sightseeing and shopping. In my 6 day visit, I must have seen about 12 golden Buddhas, and an equal number of shopping malls! That's not to say that some of those temples weren't magnificent - I saw the very impressive Grand Palace, the solid gold Buddha in Chinatown, and the enormous reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. All were interesting in very different ways, but, as a book I recently read stated, if the Buddha was to come to modern day Thailand, and see the temples adorned with gold, idols, and imagery, he'd be shocked by what had become of the religion. But this is a travel blog, not a spiritual commentary, so I'll stick to the topic at hand.

(the Buddha at Wat Pho - enlarge image to see the full scale)

The real story of Bangkok is probably my hair! After receiving months of comments saying that I looked like everything from Shaggy from Scooby Doo, to Frodo Baggins, to a 1970s Bollywood star(!), I took the unprecedented step of getting my hair dreadlocked!! The whole process took about 2 hours, and initially left my hair looking like Coolio (tight and sticking out at random angles), but after a few days, the dreads started to form. Unfortunately, I chose not to look after the dreads properly, and they hadn't formed correctly, so I had to go and get them redone the other day. I start an office job at a prestigious American firm in a number of weeks, and this is perhaps the last time in my life to do something crazy with my hair. I'll let you guys judge the results for yourselves!

We took a break from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok to visit nearby Kanchanaburi - most famous for its role in 'Bridge over the River Kwai'. I'll be the first to admit that I hadn't heard about the River Kwai, the River Kwai Bridge, or any of its history, but some fellow travellers had recommended Kanchanaburi so we duly followed their advice.

Kanchanaburi itself was another smallish town, which could be traversed in under an hour. Originally intending to spend a couple of days there, we swiftly revised our itinerary to spend only a night there. The day in Kanchanaburi was interesting - we visited a waterfall, and some hot springs, and spent some time at the Hellfire Path and the Death Railway. The latter two monuments with the ominous sounding names, were leftovers from the Japanese occupation of Thailand in World War II. I'll be quite honest when I say that the World Wars are two areas of history in which I am seriously deficient, and it was eye-opening to learn about the attrocities commited by the Japanese against the Allied Prisoners of War whilst they built this railway. I recommend a visit if you're in the area.

Back in Bangkok with a couple of days to spare, we chose to take a tour to the Floating Market. I had previously visited a floating market in Vietnam, and I expected this to be along similar lines - early morning traders selling exotic fruit and fish from boat to boat. This wasn't to be the case, and the floating market turned out to be a complete tourist trap, complete with people hawking the standard tourist rubbish, and the Alton Towers-style candid photo shown to you at the end. I can't stress this enough - don't go there, no matter how good the image of it is in your head.

Ayutthaya was another one of our one day excursions. Named after Ayodhaya in the Ramayana, this was yet another set of ancient temple complexes and ruins. However, having visited Myson in Vietnam, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia, this seemed much less impressive - aside from the Buddha carved into the tree. The highlight of our day was seeing the "elephant panda" (an elephant painted in panda colours) - yet another indication of the lengths that Asians will go to in order to please the tourists!

During the course of all of this business, we were offered the opportunity to feed the elephants - which was quite a cool experience.

I'll be back in Bangkok in a few weeks time, but for now, I had had a great time, although I was ready to escape to the cooler climates of Chiang Mai.


Love to all,

Nihal