A bicycle ride to a local temple provides the perfect respite from modern day annoyances for Alex.

I have a friend who is a practicing Buddhist. It has helped her through some traumatic times and she shares the benefits, techniques and insights of shamatha with me and a few others in a weekly meditation class. I love it. I find the style of meditation too prescriptive sometimes, but to spend 2 hours every week consciously coming back to oneself, focusing on the breathe, the senses or emotions before allowing the mind some freedom to just be is simply liberating. I have yet to encounter one of those life changing insights and feel a long way from enlightenment but I really believe in the therapeutic benefits of meditation and mindfulness. 

 

When we first met we agreed we would head off on our bikes to explore a local temple. Of course life takes over and the months went by and then suddenly opportunity presented itself and off we headed. We came out of our Moobaan and snuck through a little entrance, carrying our bikes along a mud path scattered with litter alongside an algae and no doubt mosquito-infested swamp with wooden and corrugated iron roofed shacks perched on its banks. I knew this was going to be fun.

 

 You see living as we do in a gated community alongside other Farang and the more affluent of Thai society with housekeeper and driver assisting to our daily needs it is easy to forget the real side of Thailand. As we cycled along the path alongside the stinking Klong (canal) you cannot escape it. And I love that. It makes life here so much more real. Because for the vast majority in Thailand life is dirty, gritty and hard. Many people even in Bangkok live in small wooden huts some on stilts others alongside main roads, under over-passes, alongside the waterways. You cannot escape their lives as you pass: 3 generations hunched over noodle soup on wooden stools having their lunch with the TV blaring. 

In other homes, women swing in their hammocks and nod or cheerfully say ‘Sawadee’ with bare-footed children scampering at their feet. Because that’s the other thing, the Thais are extremely friendly and very non judgemental. They are fascinated, especially the kids, to see 2 Farang on their bikes, teetering along the narrow path alongside the Klong. Seeing the waterway underneath swimming with plastic bottles and other rubbish it crossed my mind that we are only months away from what is being forecast as the wettest rainy season in decades. How many of these homes resting so precariously close to the water’s edge would be washed away in the floods? It is ironic, that the country is in the depths of drought and on the back of the hottest summer for years, and this monsoon season people’s livesare likely to be destroyed by the water they so badly desire.

 

As we came off the path and cycled along the back streets, the houses became more substantial, some were concrete rather than wood. There were even cars parked outside some and gardens. And it is obvious the pride people have in their homes keeping despite the poverty. We cycled through a Muslim area and passed the school which was based in the mosque. We cycled further along the Klong, carrying our bikes up the steps and over the bridges until we came to the temple complex.

 

Thai temples are ornate and spectacular and this was no exception. We walked clockwise around the complex – three times – bringing good luck. We ventured into the Ordination Hall where seven monks were leading some kind of devotion whilst worshippers ate their lunch, sitting on the floor feet tucked away from the saffron robed monks.

One of the monks approached us to say hello and tell us about a 3 day festival celebrating the re-gilding of the Buddha. He escorted us outside to see the actually Buddha which would be restored to its golden glory and then took us to the back corner of the complex where women were preparing food, eating and also loading wood into the kiln to keep a sauna going which the monks and nuns use daily.

It was fascinating: the monk’s openness and willingness to share insights into their daily lives and rituals; seeing the nuns in their white robes and shaved heads which previously I hadn’t seen; and being privy to the real sense of community within the temple’s complex. It was such a serene and calm place that my previous slightly frustrated mood evaporated eased. It was the kind of serenity and soul the popular tourist temples somehow fail to deliver. But then without a sea of selfie sticks and hoards of noisy tourists it is no wonder really. 

 

We cycled home mostly through the back streets hoping the threatened downpour would evade us at least until we were close by. We emerged on a different approach to our moonbaan perhaps reflective of the different approach we would be embracing during the afternoon: one of gratitude, serenity and inner calm as so often a journey off the beaten track induces.