Now I have very nice story to tell you.
I had very rare opportunity. I was 15 days with Thai monks in national parks, jungles and forests, meditating and walking. We have been in North East Thailand, Chaiyaphum province.
Places we visited ware national parks Tat Ton Waterfall (อุทยานแห่งชาติตาดโตน), Phahuanak (ผาหัวนาค) and various forests and jungles.
This was one of the coolest experiences I ever had.
Every day is mostly the same, except drastic change in scenery.
Here is an example of one day.
Wake up at 5:30 am, morning daily routine, cleaning the tent/net.
Wake up at 5:30 am, morning daily routine, cleaning the tent/net.
At 6:00 am drinking tea/coffee and preparing for merit.
Buddhist monks don't have any way of making money and are not allowed to purchase things directly so they must get food and other necessities through donations/merit from the people.
Buddhist monks don't have any way of making money and are not allowed to purchase things directly so they must get food and other necessities through donations/merit from the people.
After merit they go back to the camp and wait for people to prepare food.
People will prepare food and when all is done they will gather around for chanting.
After chanting, it's time for eating. Monks get food first and people eat after them.
At 10:00 - 10:30 am when everything is finished they will start to prepare for about 10 km long walk to other place. It's little hard because of strong sun and could be bad sunburn if skin is not protected.
I had moderate burns so I decided to ware a t-shirt on my head since I didn't take a hat with me.
After arrival to new place we had 2-3 hours to find place for sleeping and quite often that is not easy task because I had to find place that is without ants, bugs, relatively clean, little as possible wind, soft and most importantly next to water source. Why is water important? Trust me, you want to be clean as possible. Staying 15 nights in same tent sounds like fun but it will get dirty very fast and that is nobody wants in first few nights.
At 4:00 pm evening snack and at 5:00 pm evening meditation and chanting.
Chanting is in Sanskrit and quite powerful. I only have wished it to last longer.
This was average day for me and monks.
I have quite allot of pictures and link to album will be here:
Now to add little extra that will be quite interesting.
While we ware in Tat Ton Waterfall (อุทยานแห่งชาติตาดโตน) I had opportunity to stay after 6 pm.
National park closes after 6 pm so only people left was me and few monks.
Now to the amazing part.
After we finished we went back up to the camp. Sun was quickly gone and in few moments full Moon was up.
We could not meditate there since that was for tourists and that night some kids had excursion.
I was thinking "oh crap, cannot meditate and even sleep because of loud children and music".
Then me and 2 monks decided to go down on waterfall.
Now to the amazing part.
We went across the river to other side, found beautiful place and meditate there.
Full Moon, sound of river, waterfall, crickets and silence. Pure nature.
That night was amazing.
My only regret was that I didn't had my DSLR Canon camera to take some amazing shots since that was 25.Dec.
and full Moon. I did take few crappy shots with my Samsung Galaxy Note 2.
Happy New Year, Dino.
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