An Interesting Trip to the Wat

I had a very interesting and somewhat insightful day here in Thailand. Since our arrival in Chiang Mai everyone had been telling Rachel and I that we needed to visit Doi Sutep the Wat (temple) on the hill, one of the most sacred in Thailand. We have both been wanting to see more culture here in Thailand so we decided it would make a nice day trip. We were especially excited when we realized that the Wat is in a national park and there is hiking right in close proximity. We arrive at the place where you catch a Songtao (taxi -like truck) to this temple and of course the driver tried to rip us off even though he has a laminated copy of the fixed prices right in front of him. We argued with him and told him we knew how to do math...finally we goth the fixed price of 40 bhat up, and saw that the fixed price down was 30 (why it is cheaper to get down I do not know).

We arrived at the temple and had a very enjoyable walk around. I couldn't help but feel a little bit dis enlightened by the pure exploitation of Buddhism that seems to be taking place though. Don't get me wrong I am no expert on religion, but how they seem to have capitalized on Buddhism seems to be pretty contradictory to the whole basis of the faith. Around every corner in the Wat you can find a donation box and there is even a money tree. It all felt pretty eerie to me and I don't think it was from any spiritual power, but rather a burning feeling of hypocrisy. OK my religious rant is done, I will move on now....

So after the Wat we decided to go for a hike. So just for the record, people in Thailand don't walk....at all. Asking directions to walk somewhere here is a lost cause because they just look at you like you are nuts. Why would you walk there? "Take motor bike, very, very far". Finally we found our national park and were a little disturbed when we came across a giant pile of burning garbage, and some broken down abandoned trucks. Not quite like Glacier or Arches National Parks. The beginning of the hike felt very strange, the signing was really bad and it felt as if we were going to come across a hill tribe or something. After about 45 minutes of walking we knew all was well because we started seeing the pink confetti that they throw as a trial marker... Phew after we had walked for about 2 1/2 hours we decided we must have missed the waterfalls which were supposed to be a couple kilometers from the starting point. When walking back we realized that the one sign we had seen along the way had been ripped out of the ground pointing tourists in the wrong direction, not towards the waterfalls, but to a hill tribe. Our theory is that it was the doing of the hill tribe to get tourists to their village to buy handcrafts.

Our songtao drive home upset us, the driver ripped us off royally and there was nothing we could do about it. When he honked his horn on the top of the hill for good luck Rach and I turned to each other and shook our heads. He needs a lot more than good luck...karma is going to come and bite him in the ass....or so Buddhism tells us...

In Chiang Mai we had been staying with my friend Heather who is teaching English there. Her apartment building is a little bit dodgy...actually it is practically a brothel. So when we arrived home that night the head hancho woman Pim, who is quite scary was waiting for us in the stairwell, in her pajamas, with her pillow. She was not happy that we were trying to stay with Heather for free. We are assuming she usually gets a cut from visitors...sketchy. Anyways she grabbed a prostitute to translate and basically tried to kick us out, but we promised we would leave the next day and she cut us some slack. I went to bed that night a bit over Thailand. But the next day I went to a beautiful climbing area and had a fantastic day. I guess when you stay long enough in a place you start to see the parts you don't want to. I have a hard time with some of the hypocrisy here and find the sex trade and prostitution revolting, but every place has its pluses and minuses and I guess you have to take it all for what it's worth.