Today we kept following up the river Ping which goes all the way to Chiang Mai but we won’t be able to cycle next to it everyday. We will leave it at the Dam in the next coming days. This morning we have visited a tiny temple and met the guy who is restoring it. Then we kept on going until we stopped for breakfast. Next to that place there was another temple. Monks offered us to visit their hangar where they store super long competition boats. Finally we decided that it will be our day off today after 8 days cycling.
Map.
As I mentioned previously we are not cycling very far from the water.
This tiny road is parallel to the and it makes all the difference! No traffic and nice view.
This old man entered inside to switch on the light for us. We met someone else who is actually restoring this temple that a King visited a long time ago.
This is one of his retaured paint. Good work :-)
This temple is pretty small but it will be very nice once finished.
That’s a pattern the guy is now painting above the door, inside. It’s not finished yet (I guess) but it’s on the good way.
The pot’s artist!
Goodbye, we continue our trip :-)
We have done only 12km. It’s for breakfast.
Jelly stuff accompanied with sirop and shredded ice. It tastes as weird as it looks haha. I guess you wonder: what are these strange, gluy black and white things inside?
These are actually seedsĀ and it’s called Lemon Basil.
I had to do this short experience. You drop some in water and less than a minute later you can see their transformation. Very surprising! (For a European, at least :-)
During breakfast we met a monk who lives in a temple few seconds walk from here. First he let us having a look and then came with us to explain the details.
Once a year, they participate to a boat race competition. They can fit up to 30 men in certain boat.
Some boat are made with a single piece of wood which is carved. That must be a tough job.
There is also boat for women, they are smaller and can fit up to 15 person.
That’s the decoration.
They have so many boats here and most of them are still functional.
The monk explains that last year they won the competition against their opponent who had to pay 400.000 baht and give their own boat! That’s a high price to pay if you lose! And of course there is always on looser.
Each year they recruit students, strong men from the army and villagers. They bring up the best team they can (naturally) to win this famous event.
What is that huge piece of wood over there?
Thai people must be hard believers. Few years ago, they found this trunk not far from here. One of the monk explained that big trees like this don’t exist anymore in Thailand so this one must have been cut during the second world war when soldiers needed space or something else. They cut it and pushed it in the river.
The trunk has been carried and is now exposed here. People believe this is a female tree (see the dresses attached on the previous picture). That tree brings also luck. Believers come here, put some white powder on it and rub the surface until lotterie number appears. Well, why not!
We spent the rest of the day sleeping under a huge tree until monks showed us a place where to stay tonight. I like this one :-) Many times now I’ve accounted this electronic panels at monk temples. What does it do? It control the 17 fans.
Luckily, this time there is a number which connect the fan with its switch but most of the time there is not! So, you must try each swicht independently until you find the one you want. Or, another solution: turn on one of them randomly and move the tent after :-)
That’s all for today. That was a lazy day and that was a good one haha :-)
The tree story was very interesting.
People are treating trees as very living creature which is very nice.
Chia seeds does same thing as the lemon basil seeds. :-)