Monk Chat and Songkran

Songkran is fun...until you actually have to be dry for something. We spent the afternoon throwing water at strangers and having the same done to us. Some water was murky, some freezing from giant blocks of ice in it. Although it has it's negatives, the festival really brings out the most in the culture...everyone is happy and is having fun...with crazy Hawaiian style shirts and giant water guns wielded by groups of people in backs of trucks. Everyone is a good sport. You walk down a street and see foreigners and Thai's all laughing and dancing to loud music together. Occasionally, you'll get a woman who comes up behind you, pulls back your shirt, dumps cold water down your back, and says, "Happy new year!" It's really quite hilarious. Interestingly, there is no police force in evidence whatsoever. That's pretty much the standard for everyday...cops work from 9-5 and leave a skeleton crew to mand the phone until morning. We haven't seen one police car/ambulance/firetruck since we've been here.

Okay...we assumed that when we needed to go out and be dry, the festivities would simply go away for us. We were wrong. Within 30 seconds of snagging a Tuk-tuk behind the sanctuary of a brick wall, we had been ambushed and drenched by four year olds carrying buckets of water. So, our meeting with Nu, our monky friend, was very soggy. He didn't seem to care. The meeting was interesting. One of the monks actually left our conversation because his robe started ringing! And, just as we were beginning our query about the incongruent behaviors we had observed on the street, a very British 'advisor' sat down and became very defensive about the behavior of the monks. We weren't being disrespectful, but we definitely got the 'back-off' vibe from this guy. Page kept poking me under the table to remind me to keep my cool. Thankfully, right as he was starting to get cocky, he had to leave to take care of something. So, we got Nu all to ourselves. He was very sweet, and answered every question we asked, from meditation to karma, why the shaved head, ect... To him, the most important thing in his life was knowledge, and he was enjoying his life as a monk, but would not be surprised if he woke up tomorrow morning, and was called to do something else. He lives in the moment...and cooks for the pack of stray dogs who live at the temple. He doesn't worry about stepping on ants because he does not have the intention of hurting them. It's definitely complicated, but very interesting, and he willingly spent an hour and a half with us discussing his life.

Nu sleeps only three hours a night, but he looked really rested! He took a ten law vow when he became a monk, he could only remember 7 of the vows though...it seemed like the ones he did remember were pretty important; no killing, no lying, no stealing, you get the idea.

(we got some of our interview with him on film, and will post it when we return)