Thailand Day 6: Monks and Monkeys

Today was "explore at our own pace because I made no plans" day.  This meant the hippie was in charge of piloting our little Mazda around the island on the wrong side of the road and I had to navigate toward whatever sounded interesting.  We did a little shopping but found not much of note.  By the way, I feel like I didn't fully experience Thai merchandise.  There are big malls with movie theaters in Bangkok but we didn't put them on our itinerary mostly because we were there for sites and not shops.  Most of the merchandise was found in the airports.  We tried hitting a little mall in Phuket but found it lacking charm of any kind.

We went instead up to the peak in Phuket to visit the Big Buddha.  There's a giant Buddha sitting a top one of the mountains and we followed the signs to get there.  On the road we passed a number of elephants, reptile experience joints (hard pass, just say no to snakes), bird places, roadside restaurants, and temples.  At the top we found the Buddha exactly as advertised, but with the typical temple accoutrement such as places to worship, instructions on Buddhism, and monks offering blessings.

There was also "Buddha's handprint" and evil monkeys who fear no humans and chased Mimi and me away from their precious garbage cans.  Have you ever been chased by a pack of monkeys?  Not recommended.  We hauled ass away from them.  You'd think that just seeing wild monkeys would be cool but no, I prefer monkeys in cages where they belong throwing poop at you.  Far too close for comfort.

The monks were cool, though!  For a small change offering you could walk up and kneel in front of the monk who says a blessing.  I'm assuming it was a blessing.  I don't speak Thai.  It could have been a curse or the number to his secret lock box in Switzerland.  But they gave us bracelets.

Then we wandered around the temple and found instructions on seven step meditation.  This temple offered more instruction and a little privacy to enjoy the quiet peace of the place.  I recommend a visit to the Big Buddha.  The hippie's highlight was seeing his favorite book of all time highlighted along with a picture and bio of Steve Jobs, buddhist convert.  I guess the hippie is more up on his Buddhism than I'd realized.  For those interested, it's called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunkyu Suzuki.  I've listened to the audio but find the narrator's voice produces more of a complete zen experience for me (sleep).

I appreciated that this temple made effort to share the tenants of Buddhism so that the kids could know a bit more about the way of life.  It's not dogmatic and opposed to blind faith, but encourages seeking wisdom from a variety of sources.  I very much appreciate that I can supplement their LDS upbringing with Buddhist virtues.  Wherever there is good we seek it.

On our way down the mountain we stopped for, you guess it, Thai food.  The best Thai food ever.  Noticing a theme?  It's all the best thai food ever.  All of it.  While we were waiting for our food Mimi skipped down the road a bit to say hello to an elephant.  Like you do whilst in Thailand.
I have very fond memories of this little adventure.  We were blasting Paul Simon's Graceland, driving on the wrong side of the road, passing elephants and Buddhas, having the time of our lives.

Our next stop was the beach town part of Phuket, Patong Beach.  This part of town feels like a second world Santa Cruz.  There are massage places every other storefront so we did that first.  I loved that they left the curtains open so I could enjoy watching the children get their massages.  I'm willing to pay for them (a whole $7) if they will kindly remember exactly what the massage therapist did and then do the same moves on me when we get home.  Thai massage is great for little growing bodies.  Somebody could make a fortune offering massages for growing pains and shin splints.  The ladies chattered in Thai and very much enjoyed our wails and giggles when they started the bending and pulling part.

After massages we walked down to the beach and the kids spent three hours playing in the water and building sandcastles as the sun set.  I think we probably had Thai food for dinner at some point.  I bet it was delicious.