Wat. Temple.

It’s 5:30am. I don’t realize until I think back about it later how comfortably cool the air is. Today is the full moon (indicating a Bhuddist holiday) and as I zip towards the market on the back of my host aunt’s motor bike I spot something; a monk it seems… but dressed in white… so it cannot be a monk. What is it? I crane my neck as we pass and realize that it is a woman, her white robe glowing in the early morning moonlight. Though I have heard of female monks (meshi) I have never seen one until today.

At the market we buy food; five different plastic bags containing soup or stir fried vegetables, five fruit desserts (ka-nam), two flowers, incense and candles. When we get home I help my host Aunt fill a silver offering bowl with rice. We put all of our food, flowers, candles and incense into a picnic basket and leave the house. Opening the gate to our driveway all we have to do is cross the street and we are at a temple.

Removing our shoes we step up the few cool, white stone steps and into a large open room. The room has pillars and a few rows of chairs in the back. At the front there is a thin raised platform, on the floor there are soft mats. To one side is a Bhudda figure on a high platform, in front of it is a shallow wooden boat which is laden with fruit and in front of that is a round tray full of candles burning at different rates and beside that a similar tray full of incense… this is where the wonderful aroma that fills my nostrils as soon as I enter is coming from. There are plants placed around the room and directly across from the Bhudda figure is a long table running the length of the room.

The table is already laden with food when we arrive. People mill around and fill small cream colored metal bowls with food placing them on one of fifteen or so different round trays. At one end of the table there is a group of raised offering bowls, I take one scoop of rice from our offering bowl and place it in the first bowl, then the second, then the third… After dividing the rice between all the bowls we begin to unpack our other food offerings. We put the contents of each plastic bag in a cream colored metal bowl and I stack them on top of other bowls making sure to spread out our offerings rather than concentrate them all on one tray.

Next we go to place our flowers, candles and incense with the others. We sit on our knees and wai to the Bhudda image and then place our flowers on the offering tray that is already loaded with flowers of all colors and types. We use the flames from other already burning candles to light ours, melting the bottom a bit I stand my candle amongst the others. Then, using our candles to light our incense we wai three times to the Bhudda, between each wai we place our foreheads on the floor, when we finish this we place our incense with the others, standing up in a pot of sand.

When we are finished we go and sit on the mat.

I wonder what we are waiting for but soon my question is answered. A row of monks, fifteen or so, ranging from as old my dad to younger than ten years old walk in. They sit in a row from oldest to youngest on the raised platform at the front of the room. They chant and wai to the Bhudda image before turning to face the room and the rows of people seated on the mats before them.

Before they can eat they chant, then men take the trays of food and offering bowls of rice and place them in front of the monks. The men lift the trays a bit off the platform and the monks placing their hands on the other side of the tray help set it down. They do the same with the rice offering bowls until between every pair of monks there is rice and tray laden with the cream colored metal bowls containing all sorts of foods and deserts.  

The oldest monk begins to chant now and the others repeat what he says. The chanting changes and now all the monks are chanting together and everyone in the room is repeating after them. I realize that my hands are in a wai position at my chest and I am automatically bringing them to my forehead as the other people in the room do at certain intervals during the chant. The chant seems to last forever. I try to repeat the words when everyone else does and I succeed a few times but mostly just sit silently with my hands at my chest in wai listening to the soft hum of all the voices chanting something that I do not understand. It’s beautiful. I’ve never heard anything like it before.  The chanting ends and now just the oldest monk speaks. His voice carries throughout the room, strong and never wavering. I don’t understand what he says except one phrase “fon mai dok” which means “rain won’t fall”. I’m not sure what he was talking about, but I’m fairly certain the entire thing wasn’t just about the weather… :) The entire time he speaks everyone sits in silence with their hands at their chests in a wai, periodically bowing their heads and meeting their forehead with their hands. An hour later the ceremony is over, though I don’t understand what the monks were speaking about, I’m so glad to have been able to go and listen.

Later my host family went to Bangkok to see a large, very famous temple called Wat Pra Kaow. It was massive and absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous. Words cannot describe the golden spires, the thousands of tiny sparkling jewels covering the outsides of the buildings, the hundreds of golden statues, the aging paintings on the walls and ceilings so here are some photos…

Even the walls, inside and out, are extremely detailed.

The wall 

Yak. Giant.