22/3/02 More camping, Thailand Phillip
It's nighttime now, just had another fabulous Thai meal. We have an ongoing joke with the Monk where we call him TPK (techno Phra Katyano) but today it got upgraded to Yoda, followed by ET. It's all in good fun and since he refers to me as Mr. Bean, I think it's okay! Tonight I spent an hour or so talking to TPK about Buddhism and he explained the basics to me. I really think all cultures basically believe the same thing. Granted here they think you have multiple lives (the Monk thinks I was Thai in a past life..) but in the end the concept is the same: be good and you'll be rewarded. I don't think I'll be becoming Buddhist soon (Felicity you can relax) but I do fid their kindness inspiring. I was practicing meditating earlier when we waited to be picked up (broken jeep) and there were wasps crawling all over me. I mean all over me! But I was being told to ignore them and be "like a rock". You can't kill anything, of course, so flicking them off gets annoying. If you can imagine me sitting in a little elevated shrine with wasps crawling up my arm and up my shorts (yikes!) and trying to focus you can imagine how terrible it was! I managed to not flick them off but I didn't exactly relax enough to meditate!
Hopefully we'll be able to head south tomorrow. I've had a great time and I'll miss my new friends but we've been away from civilization for almost a week and really I miss toilets! :)
Tonight we're going on a night safari with the guide. We'll walk into the forest and try and see tigers. Apparently it's very rare to see them when the moon is almost full or full so I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm not quite sure what I'd do if I saw one anyway!
Posted by Admin at March 25, 2002 10:00 PM