Day 18

ZORB BALL!!!!!!!

We got strapped into a 4m plastic ball by our hands feet and torso and were rolled down a 100m hill into a lake. Once your in the water you get to untie yourself. It is really hard to navigate the ball once its in water, its like a hamster in a wheel, round and round but you go nowhere. Added to this is it gets slippery inside when its wet and there is a fairly large hole you have to dodge as you spin around.

We also watched the bungee jumping, an decided (full of adrenaline post zorbing) that we would have to jump when we get back to Chiang Mai. Don't know how long that conviction will last.

When we got back to our guesthouse, we decided to give the monk chanting another go, so we got in a saengtaw (like a taxi but with a ute and you sit on bench seats running parallel with the tray) after much confusion explained we were heading to Wat Chedi Luang. We ended up on the other side of town at the flower market. Hopefully Luang in Thai means flower or the taxi driver spoke less Thai than we do.

Once we eventually found a new saengtaw driver who could read our actual destination in Thai script (not all can) we found ourselves outside the temple. We headed over to the chanting area but nobody was there so we decided to walk around to the monk chanting and see if we could ask a Monk if there was any chanting this evening. Fortunately we found Phra Tea, the monk we had spent time with the previous week watering the garden. He took us over to the primary school area of the temple grounds, explaining that because they had 70 novice monks for the next 15 days at this temple they were having the evening chanting inside so the novice monks weren't too distracted.

This was one of those situations where having someone who knew what was going on helped. Phra Tea not only got permission for both of us to observe the chanting but he somehow convinced the master monk to allow us to join in!!! As long as Emily didn't go near any of the novice monks. Just can't trust her these days ;-). We also weren't allowed to take any photos or move around. They put one of the temple monks in charge of us called Supat, who was a senior monk of 24 years from a minority Hilltribe in Northern Thailand. Thai was his second language and English was his third language but he understood sarcasm very well. I think he was trying to recruit me. Fortunately in Buddhism if you become a monk it's only for as long as you want to be one. Much more community friendly. There are about 460,000 Monks in Thailand. They don't have much trouble recruiting it seems.

So we sit down at the back of the hall and the 70 odd novice students and a few senior monks begin their eveing prayers followed by chanting in Pali. Pali is the language that existed at the time of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) and hence is held sacred. This went on for about 30 minutes and you could see that the novices were like any bunch of 8-19 year olds getting restless. Many before the evening started had quite cleverly drunk more water than the average bladder could hold so they had an excuse to go outside during the evening. To great effect as half the group seemed to be outside at one stage. There were also the fine tenors among the group who sang so loudly and so out of tune that it was amazing there monkhood didn't end that night. On day two!

The other bizarre part of the evening was the amount of photos senior monks took of Em and I. You'd think we were rock stars or something. Actually after a while I did have to put my sunnies on the flashes were getting so bright. Obviously tourists don't turn up to chanting and meditation very often. And we weren't allowed to take photos so as not to distract the novive monks. Yeah right.

Part two of the initial evening course was meditation. This was probably the only time all 70 students were able to maintain some composure. As explained earlier Vipassana meditation is the main meditative practice and this went for about ten minutes, as the students were not up to concentrating for any longer on day two. They start their day at 4.30am and finish at 10pm at night so it's a bit of a shock to the system to start with. Vipassana meditation is hard at the best of times because of the mind's ability to wander but these kids had to meditate on a concrete floor with no cushion in sight. Em and I had issues for the 40 minutes we were there let alon the 3 1/2 hours they had to do at night. Afterwards Supat took us outside with the rest of the novice monks to have a drink and chat. I think he was really interested to practice his English that he got our email address.

Once we had finished up we did what all good Buddhists monks do and went to Mike's Original Burger Stand in the centre of town. Reputedly the best burger joint outside of the US by expats. It's slogan above the sign is 'Converting Vegetarians (since 1979).' Jono had the double cheeseburger called the double double with fries and a chocalate shake. Em had the triple cheeseburger meal with extra large fries and coke...just kidding she had a chocalate shake though.And she said it was really good. But the best news for those heading to Chiang Mai is that the double double cheeseburger was probably the best burger I've ever eaten. Even beats the burger I had at Lake St Clair after eating packaged food for 5 days on the Overland Track.
It was incredible, and they even let you put your own mixture of sauces and mustard on. Genius. Onion rings were really good too.

What a fine day...Zorbing, chanting and burgers read gorging.