It hasn't been all sweat and tears. Well, a lot of sweat (this heat is just weird!), but not as many tears.
Last week was buffered with two good weekends and I'm grateful for it. The week itself went off rather quickly and I'm grateful for that too.
I've managed to make friends with a friend of the lady that owns the cafe at my apartment (which we will hereafter refer to as the "cafe downstairs"). Last weekend, when we met at the cafe, she very sweetly offered and took me to a temple by the river Mun - Wat Supattanaram. We saw the temple, bought bread and fed the fish in the river and then spent time just sitting under a tree chatting.
She then took me to Thung Si Mueang to show me the park, the outdoor gym and where all the fitness activities happen. The park has a beautiful golden wax sculpture right in the middle. After that, we visited the temple at Thung Si Mueang and then she took me to a place to buy food - what I didn't realise at the time was that it was an all vegetarian (vegan) place.
The week went off nicely too. One of the Thai teachers took me to the vegetarian place for lunch. Two days in a row! This place is run by the Asoke Buddhist sect. All the food is organically grown by them and tastes soooo amazing. We also had some classes cancelled (which is always a bonus), making it a nice, light week.
The next Sunday, the same teacher took me to the International Forest Monastery
(http://www.watpahnanachat.org/). The teacher had planned to do some charity and asked if I'd like to help with the service. I was happy to do anything at all on the weekend and so readily agreed. Plus, why would I give up the opportunity to experience something new? We left for the place at 7:00 AM and we were there till about 2:00 PM. There were six of us, the teacher, her husband, three students and me. First, we served the food that the teacher had made and brought - it got over sooo quickly. Luckily, she had some extra filling and wrappers and we made more. We only got about a bite each. We then walked around and got ourselves something to eat. There were a few counters that had vegetarian food and I could eat at. In fact, the food we served at our counter was all vegan. We then sat outside and listened to a service (I think some monks were being ordained). Later, we had lunch at the monastery. There were large tables with a buffet with both veg and non-veg food. By the time we went to get food though, a lot of it was empty. I got some rice, greens and fruit. And tea that tasted like kashayam from school. We then met a French person who was there to practice meditation (we met him to discuss other stuff for the school though) and he showed us around the monastery.
After we got back, still buzzing from the two sips of Red Bull I had in the morning (you didn't expect me to stay awake without help in a peaceful place when I'd woken up early, did you?), I walked to Thung Si Muang. When I got there, I found that there was a walking street happening (a sante/flea-market of sorts). Walked around for about an hour, got back, got dinner and a good night's rest.
If only all weekends worked out to be so much fun...
