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Yesterday was Maka Bucha or Buddha Day in Thailand.
The Kingdom of Thailand ( Head of State is King Bhumibol – Rama IX) has a population of 65 million. 75% are Thai, 11% Chinese and 3.5% Malay. Buddhism is practised by 95% of the people, while 4% are Muslim. We went to another “wat” or Buddha temple yesterday, this time to “Wat Po” with a huge reclining gold Buddha. The worshippers were burning incense candles and bringing flowers. It is also custom to buy and release fish, birds and turtles. The only problem is, that it is illegal to trade with live birds or turtles, since many of them die. According to the newspaper today, several hundred bird and turtle sellers were arrested all over Thailand yesterday.

We spent the afternoon relaxing at the hotel pool ( temperature reaching 95 degrees F).
At night we walked through Bangkok’s Chinatown and visited a Buddha festival. The temple visitors were buying buckets filled with useful gifts ( from toothpaste to flashlights, toys and food items) and placed the buckets in front of a row of monks. The monks in turn past out the gifts to other worshippers, maybe needy people. We could not quite figure it out. We got lost a couple of times, but friendly Thais always came up to us and pointed us in the right direction. Away from the tourist sites, people are very friendly and honest. Most do not speak English, but our map plus our directions back to the hotel are written in English as well as in Thai.
We finished the day with a delicious dinner in a Chinese riverside restaurant. We had walked by numerous sidewalk open-air restaurants, where the food was prepared in big pots and pans, consumed by the customers and the dishes washed by hand in big basins- all of this taking place simultaneously on the sidewalk. Gabi wanted to try one of these local places, but my vast knowledge of disease causing bacteria voted against it. Too bad, it might have been fun and more authentic!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 24th, 2005 at 9:13 am and is filed under Thailand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.