10,000 Monks
After much deliberation, we decided to extend our stay in Chiang Mai. The primary reason for this decision was an event called 10,000 monks. This was clearly hyperbole, but the pictures on the posters looked cool, so we decided to see what this was all about.
Monks Accept Offerings in Their Bowls
The idea is simple. 10,000 monks line up and the people of the city donate food and drink to them. There are a few complications:
1. It starts at 6 AM. We have not woken up this early aside from the night we stayed in a hill tribe village and were awoken to the sounds of farm animals.
Farm Animals That Woke Us Up
2. There is a lot of traffic. We had scooters, which normally circumvents this problem, but it was still hard to weave around all of the cars.
3. There is 1 1/2 hours of chanting prayers and various speeches in Thai. We don't speak Thai.
4. Westerners stick out like a sore thumb, especially if they stand up the whole time and have massive cameras around their necks. We had massive cameras around our necks, and we wanted to get a good view of the line of soldiers and monks.
We really enjoyed the whole thing, and the highlight was watching the monks go down the offering line. They were all dressed in amazing robes of various shades of red and orange. We were told that they came from all over, including neighboring countries like Burma and Cambodia. People dressed in white lined up in four rows with offerings, leaving two aisles with red carpets on them. Soldiers them lined up in the middle of the aisles and knelt while the speeches, ect were being made. Then, the monks walked down the inner aisles, came to the end, and walked down the aisles. They held large silver bowls, which the villagers put offerings in. These offerings were then placed in bags that the soldiers held, and more offerings were put in the bowls. The offerings, as well as cash offerings made at booths, were donated to monasteries as well as schools in remote villages.
The Ceremony
The best part of the whole thing was that there were 10,000 monks. It gave us a profound respect for Buddhism and the monks who dovote their lives to it to see them perform this magnificent ceremony.
The Monks!
