Wondering I: I would have been back in Cali right about now

Fritz picking out some rose apples for me (not normal apples)

After couple days rest in Bangkok after Cambodia I took the night train up to Chang Mai at 10pm Weds. The sleeper car was full so I had to get a second class recliner seat. Fortunately no one was next to me so I was able to curl up onto the two seats and prop my head off the seat onto my back pack and purse and managed to get something close to sleep. Woke up at 6 or 7. I cant recall exactly. All I know is it was too early the next morning. But outside the train was beautiful. We were now going threw jungle hills with little valleys full of rice fields or little banana orchards. At some point we went over a bridge that was too far off the ground without railings for my comfort. Awesome view nonetheless. The train didn’t get to Chang Mai until noonish so I grabbed a somewhat expensive tuktuk (well it was more like he grabbed me I guess I was really trying to avoid getting a tuktuk) into the center of town to look for a guest house. Found a nice one for 400baht, which was splurging because I could have easily found a not as nice of a room for 200. But it was the forth place I looked at and was tired of carrying my load around so I stayed. Walked around the town for a while and LOVED IT. I was in the old part of the city and all the streets are bricked and narrow of the main road. It was beautiful. The weather was much nicer then Bangkok. It was in the 80’s with only a bit of humidity with a breeze which I would consider a relatively comfy amount of hot. I then went back to hang out in my room with the fan and chill for a bit and ended up in a conversation with a guy I had met (Steve) who owns a guesthouse/restaurant in Phenom Phen and he was wondering when I was going to come visit it. He didn’t realize I had already left the country. I said well I can’t I’m in Chang Mai and I’m going back to the US next week. Not so long story short I was offered a mural job in exchange for a free place to stay for a month in Cambodia! I wasn’t sure what to do at first. So I told him I’d think about it. It might look like an obvious decision but I actually felt like I had a lot of things to weigh out. Luckily I was made this offer the day before I headed off to a Buddhist monastery for a few days.

Food frying station

Bangkok train station

The night train

Very full angry river

between trains

My street in Chang Mai

Oh yes. The fixie hipster fad has reached even Chang mai

That night I went out and shopped at the Night Bazaar market and spent what looked like a lot of money on all sorts of this and that. I realllly really wanted a water buffalo skull that was for sale. Only $30! Yet alas I was traveling light with only a backpack so the thought of me lugging around a buffalo scull for a week didn’t seem so fun…but would have been amusing from an outside perspective.….dang it….I should have totally got it.

Its x-mas all year at the NIGHT BAZAAR

I was considering renting a motorbike the next day, to drive out to the monastery but Nissara (my nun connection) suggested against it because it was pretty far. So I took the sung tao to Chomtong which took about an hour because it picks up and drops off people along the way, then got a ride from a motor taxi out to the monastery. The weather was even nicer out there because it was in the country, just orchards and rice fields and jungle. I wasn’t sure what to do when I got there though. There were just a couple people working in the kitchen and they didn’t speck any English and no one else was in sight so I asked for Nissara and someone figured they better go find the people that spoke English (who was Nissara). I arrived around 2 or 3 and it was the time of day when all the nuns are in there cabins minding there own business meditating or what have you. Nissara finally was found and she showed me around and got me my white clothes that the lays are supposed to ware. A lay is someone that have come to stay at a monastery but are not being ordained as monk or nun yet and they only take the first 5 vows. Then I got a cabin room (each nun gets there own room), a mat and a small pillow and a blanket. The mat was really just a thick felt blanket. They don’t sleep on mattresses because it is a luxury to the body and they are to focus on not wanting, because wanting breeds suffering. “If you always want things then you are never happy”. So I got settled in and changed into my lay robes and took off all my jewelry and gradually scratched off my bright blue toe nail polish because I didn’t have any nail polish remover.

A Day in a Monastery

3:30am a bell in is rung and at 4 everyone is in the meditation hall for morning chanting and meditation.

6am sweeping leaves off the paths/whatever else you need to take care of.

8am chanting to contemplate how food is for nourishing the body, not for beauty or pleasure then eating. Monks and Nuns only eat one meal a day of donated food. But lays are allowed to eat again at 11. No eating after 12, drinks are ok.

After breakfast you are free do what you want.

4pm more sweeping/chores

5:30pm the bell is rung and at 6 evening chanting and meditation until 8.

8:30 bedtime

I went to the evening meditation session that day and after the chanting (she gave me a book with Romanized words for the chants but I had no idea where they were 90% of the time). Then Nissara told me the vows I had to follow while there and she gave me a guided meditation to practice. The vows are: no sex, no violence (even to ants), no lies, no stealing, no alcohol or drugs. Pretty basic but not sure I know anyone that isn’t at least guilty of doing one of these things on the regular. Then back to the hall for more chanting.

When I got back to my room and turned the light on I saw a spider. LIKE A REAL too big for comfort SPIDER near the ceiling, poised like it was just waiting to snatch up a gecko and suck it dry. So naturally I had a small “Oh shit what am I going to do about this ******* large spider looming over me while I sleep”. I did nottt want to even mess with it. So I decided to be the best Buddhist that I could and said “Alright spider you don’t bother me I won’t bother you and we will both get out of here alive.” So I kept a night light on for a bit, but realized I would never sleep with the light on because I could still see it posted up there ready to strike so I turned off the light hoping that if I just couldn’t see it I wouldn’t have to worry about it. Well, that was a rough night, sleepin on the floor, dreaming about spiders crawling over the back of my neck. Then when it seemed I had finally fallen asleep, a bell, softly at first, then got louder, the most pleasant alarm clock I’ve heard. I was slightly relived that I could get up because I didn’t have to be in the room with the spider but 3:30am is a hard time of day, considering it’s still dark.

After the morning session which was a little shorter that day because most of the people we going to a monk talk somewhere and left I went back to my room. The spider still looming in the same spot but I was able to take a nap until 7 when I went up to the eating hall. Only 3 nuns (including Nissara) had stayed behind from the convention because they had colds. They eat a lot! They each have a large metal bowl which they fill at least half or more full and a plate which they pile with fruits. I could hardly eat enough to last a whole day. I went back to my room and decided I needed to do something about the spider. Who was still poised…in the same spot…so I got a broom and tapped the wall near it. It didn’t move. So it was either a spider that was tricks its victims into coming closer by acting dead…or…..yeah it was dead. Bang my head against the wall. Haha I felt so lame for being paranoid about it all night. Later I found a story in one of the very few English books they had in the monastery library by monk Ajahn Brahm about what fear is.

“Fear is finding fault with the future. If only we could keep in mind how uncertain our future is, then we would never try to predict what could go wrong. Fear ends right there.”

Cha who woulda thought I’d like learn a lesson at a monastery.

By 11 I was still full from breakfast but I ate some anyway because I knew I wouldn’t last all day. Did the usual nun thing and meditated and read in my cabin till 5:30 because well there is really nothing else to do. I really enjoyed it actually it was just what I needed after so much traveling back and forth. Just jungle noises, a nice thunder storm rolled in for like 3 hours. Didn’t listen to my ipod. Just chilled out, took a nap (it was hard not to), drank some cocoa.

Only Nissara and one other monk were at the evening session. So it was more relaxed and Nissara did some of it in English so I could understand what they were doing. Which was a lot of thanking the Buddha for his teachings and focusing on how we should not be attached to worldly pleasures and the beauty of the body is just an illusion because we are all gross guts on the inside and all end up ugly and then die. (she really did put it that way for me). I will admit I was a little surprised because I thought Buddhism was slightly more optimistic like “even death is beautiful” but there philosophy is to rid themselves of want to achieve the greatest happiness (enlightenment), so I guess if you put it that way then it works. There are a few different forms of Buddhism and I’m definitely no expert but all there philosophies are slightly different.

The next day was the same routine. I napped past 11 though so I missed my second meal. Made friends with the monastery cats, meditated, read, contemplated weather I was going to Cambodia or not. By the time I went to sleep I was really missing that second meal. It becomes surprisingly more difficult to fall asleep on the floor when you have an empty stomach. But it was much easier then when the spider was alive in my head.

Woke up the next morning and decided I was going to Cambodia. I figured I know what’s at home, it’s not like I get offered to make art in other countries everyday, its pretty much exactly what I want to do with my life (make art/travel), and I would rather regret doing it then going home and regret not doing it, so why hell not! Took the sung tao back to Chang Mai to catch my train to Bangkok at 5:30. Meet some interesting French characters in the restaurant car and taught them Crazy 8’s. That’s my go to card game if you haven’t noticed, for some reason a lot of people don’t know it. I thought it was like the next step up after learning Go Fish. Didn’t make it back to Fritz’s house till 8:30 and saw him leaving to the dentist on the way home. OH yeah! I have a dentist appointment. So I got to go to the dentist and get a teeth cleaning. The cleaning only took like 10mins because as the doctor said “What no fillings! You have virgin teeth!” I didn’t feel like she gave me my moneys worth of cleaning though. I’ve never had a cleaning that only lasted 10 mins and I haven’t been to the dentist in over a year. I guess my teeth are just that awesome. Thanks mom for never letting me eat candy as a child.