Sleep, sightseeing and some sunshine!

We're now around 10 km on the northern side of Lopburi and I still can't pick up a signal with the CAT mobile connector so it's yet more time and money spent using an internet shop in order to check our mail and keep the blog updated. After the second rest day yesterday and the benefit of two nights on a proper bed in an air-conditioned room, I feel a lot better today than I did on Saturday when I left Saraburi and we hope to be able to put in some decent milage over the next few days, the weather permitting. Here's a review of the last couple of days:

Saturday, 20 September; Most people would be forgiven for thinking that a temple would be an idyllic spot to get a good night's sleep but we either picked the wrong temple or they can be as busy at night as some of them are during the day. When I got back to the temple Ros had parked up in in Saraburi after finishing the blog on Friday evening, the car park was chocka and there were even a couple of military policemen patrolling the place and controlling the traffic. I woke Ros up to see if she knew what was happening and all I got was "Khun die laew" or "Someone has died" and sure enough, a small army of people in black started to drift from one of the buildings at the back of the temple grounds towards the car park. But judging by the cars (BMs, Audis and the like) and their occupants (3-foot beehives, shiny shoes and tailored clobber), these were from the higher echelons of Saraburi society. Anyway, I had a couple of tinnies and made some bologna sarnies and observed from the back of the car. Once the car park had cleared I settled down for the night but just could not sleep. Temple dogs barking at whatever, motor bikes cutting through the temple grounds, the noise of the traffic from outside; just about as bad as the night before and 2 consecutive nights like that wasn't what was needed.

So, we were up early but couldn't move on until we'd retrieved the DVD player from the repair shop. I had a walk down to see what all the fuss was about the evening before and saw the individual concerned, a female government official by the looks of the white uniform, all boxed up on a stand with her photo next to it and dozens of wreaths against the walls of the chapel. Looks like she was either well-liked or she was well-connected. The guy in the repair shop hadn't called Ros by 10 so we walked down to see him and he was just putting it all back together when we got there. A quick test to see all was well and we were back in business for the princely sum of 300 baht. Back to the car and out to the city limits where I got back onto the hard shoulder and started walking again. It was during this leg that I received my third roadside donation, bringing that total up to 160 baht. Not much, but it does show that some people have been taking notice of the boards on the car whenever Ros pulls up. Progress was slow but I think it would have been asking a lot to keep up a fast pace given the lack of decent sleep over the previous two nights. Some very impressive rock formations on the left that they were obviously mining for commercial use as I heard a number of small explosions from that direction and could see the clouds of dust rising.

I remember at some point mentioning to Ros about looking for a hotel en route so that we had the option of a rest day if we wanted it next day. One particularly long incline to negotiate before it levelled off and I spotted the impressive archway at the entrance to Thamkrabok Monastery; two elephants holding up the earth. Now I didn't know this but this place has got a reputation around the world for it's treatment of addictions, be it drug or alcohol related. It was while Ros was talking to the three ladies that run the shop on the corner of the junction that I remembered seeing a documentary a while back about a temple in Thailand that treated addicts using a potion of herbs and large amounts of water that made them throw up and where there were a large number of foreign monks and foreign patients. It was just before 5, but we decided to go and have a look. An amazing place with some amazing people doing a great job. I now know that there a couple of websites about the place and I'd highly recommend that you visit them and have a look. Even better, if there's anyone reading this who's in Thailand, go and visit the place yourself; it's well worth the effort. One of the foreign monks, Phra Gordon, an American ex-Vietnam vet, gave me a brochure for a new hotel a couple of km down the road if we were looking for something to stay. It was now after 6 and getting dark so we headed off down the road to check the place out. 400 baht a night for a room with a double bed and aircon seemed good to me so we checked in and got cleaned up. Just after we'd checked in, another expat approached me and said something about the sponsored walk. It turned out that his son, who was with him, had done the 8 km leg with St. Andrews on the first day! That seems like a long time ago now! Anyway, a nice meal in the garden restaurant with a couple of beers and I was dead on my feet so I started to get my money's worth out of the bedsheets.

Sunday, 21 September; We both felt better for the comfy bed, aircon and hot shower and decided to have a look around rather than spend all day in the hotel but not too much walking. One of the waitresses had let it slip the evening before that the hotel offered a free breakfast between 7 and 10 so we went down to the restaurant to check it out at just before 9. There was nothing left! Well, some coffee and a bit of rice soup. But nothing else. Lots of our Chinese-Thai friends sitting around chewing the fat but nothing left for us. Decided there and then that we would get up much earlier today.

There's a temple in Saraburi province on the way to Lopburi called Wat Ngampoo that we decided to visit in the morning. It's well-known across Thailand because a monk opened a place in the temple grounds to treat people suffering from AIDS when other monks elsewhere across the country were shunning them. In the past, it was a place where people simply went to die with a bit of dignity but now, thanks to the drugs that are available and the donations that the project has received over the years that allows the temple to be able to afford them, people live much longer and some of those suffering from AIDS or HIV can actually stay there in small hut-like houses. I have to say however, that it has become very commercial with bus-loads of tourists wandering around gawping at the patients and the preserved bodies and body parts of some of those who have lost their fight against the disease over the years that are on display. Don't think I've ever seen an ATM machine in a temple's grounds before either or a convenience store; doubt that they were put there for the benefit of the patients though. There was a gift shop come bookshop and you can't help but notice the construction going on at the back of the place. A big Buddha image, maybe? Some school kids were being entertained by a katoey cabaret troupe in one of the buildings. I'm assuming that the artistes are patients as I saw a couple of others wandering around the grounds. Don't know whether the show is for entertainment or educational purposes but the kids seemed to be having a good time.

I read an interesting article, in English, in one of the display rooms that seemed to mirror my own thoughts about the place. If there's so much money coming in to the place, why does the main ward look like an overcrowded government hospital ward? Everything seemed to be geared for visitors and not for the patients and their families. Surely, if places such as these are open to members of the public then the emphasis should be on education and any exhibits should have an educational value rather than anything else. What's the purpose of exhibiting severed body parts, including male genitals, in jars? And whose body parts were they? That's my opinion anyway and Wat Ngampoo joins a long and growing list of Thai-run projects that I suspect have become more about making money, that doesn't need to be accounted for, ( surely a monk wouldn't misappropriate donations, right?) rather than on the worthy cause itself and its beneficiaries. When I read that English-language article earlier, I was reminded of the old Thai song which goes something like "Half for the temple; half for the temple committee." Only half for the committee?

After lunch, we headed back towards the hotel and stopped off at Saraburi Home for Girls, a government-run establishment looking after some 150 girls from across the country. One of the nicer such establishments with staff who were considerably friendlier than I've experienced at similar places such as Banglamung Boys' Home and a couple in Chiang mai and Chiang Rai. When I visit these places, government or Foundation-run, I look at how they're laid out and if there's anything we can learn from them in terms of the best use of space should we one day be in a position to build a place of our own. This one had quite a lot of open spaces with buildings dotted across the back and by the footpaths. The kids we met seemed happy enough and were at least clean, unlike in other places I've visited. We didn't go into any of the buildings but the young lady we met who worked there told us that the two-storey accomodation blocks each housed up to 5o girls and their "house parents" and that there were some 20-odd members of staff, all employed at the home by the government full-time.

Had time to head back to the monastery for another hour or so. Met Gordon again and we were fortunate enough to be able to tag on to a group of kids from Udonthani who were involved in a drugs-related project with the local authority up there and had come down to visit Thamkrabok. I watched some of the patients do a question and answer session with them and the kids witnessed some of the patients take their medicine with water and its subsequent effects! We also had the chance to speak to a couple of the other foreign monks, both of whom had first come to the monastery and stayed on to work with those who were going through what they had gone through before and a couple of the Western patients. We had a look at one of the caves at the site and took some more pictures for the blog and said our goodbyes and then headed back to the hotel for dinner.