We got up early to leave the jungle today. Last outdoor meal for a few days but I think I'll miss the jungle for its lush green foliage and birds and bugs ;)
This little fellow joined me in the shower today...walked right over my feet while I was washing my hair...he's about an inch long in the body ;)
We are travelling today with breaks every couple hours to stretch our legs and use the 'happy place' as Perez calls the washrooms here. The service stations that we stop at have a 7 Eleven and a restaurant and usually a couple random stores with shoes or hardware?!! Strange combination but serves it's purpose I guess for those that travel through or live in the area.
This is a couple of the things you'll see in the 7 Eleven...you need to purchase and travel with toilet paper as most public washroomschool don't have that for you to use.
This is a first...cream version of deodorant in a soft pack...
Before we stop at the monastery, we pulled the bus over to a road side stand, typical along all the rural areas in Thailand to sample some field rat...yup!
The ancient Buddhist monastery, the Wat Pa Lelai on the banks of the Suphan River...
Perez is showing us the incense, pure gold leafing and flowers that the Thai people bring or purchase at the Temple.
Flowers are left at the alter or base of the Buddha images/sculptures...incense used to be burned inside the temple, but they don't do that anymore as the confined space makes it difficult to breath and bad for your health!
The gold leaf piece you get can be applied to this sculpture of a Buddha for good luck and fortune...
This Buddha is huge! Can you see why people come here to pay their respects?
As visitors, Perez told us we could take photos in the temple as long as we sat or kneeled. It is a sign of respect to do so, as standing over the Thai people and taking photos is not!
People make offerings in these little posts, with coin, for each of the Buddha images for each of the days of the week...usually for their family...but it looked to me like they covered every single pot.
As we continue north, we made a slight detour for lunch along a river. Had another International Buffet which may or may not be getting a little tired at this point LOL
A few more hours driving and we are making our way into Phitsanulok and our Hotel Topland. There is a small 5 level mall attached to our hotel but nothing too impressive as my Baht stayed in my pocket.
Can you guess what we had for dinner? Another International Buffet you guess? You're right!
To top off the evening we all loaded Ricshaws and were taken around the city by our drivers,with a police escort too! 38 Ricshaws in a row and the police stopping traffic as we passed through intersections.
We stopped in the night market to try some snacks!
Deep fried insects, yup, I tried a couple...silkworms x2 and a giant grasshopper x1....Maria took a video of it and Sally snapped a couple photos. They were surprisingly pretty good...I can see if you lived here and this was your normal, that you would enjoy them as a snack.
We walked through the night market which was mostly food and FRUIT FLIES!!! It was super gross only because of the flies...they were all over the raw and cooked food and as you walked through there were swarms of them...you need to close your lips and breath out through your nose so you don't inhale or eat THEM! Yuck!!!
We had to find our driver, load up again and then we went to a open restaurant? I'm not sure what it was really but it was a drink, snack and show let's say...they cooked 'morning glory' which is a plant or vegetable or root? in the swamps and fry it with oil, broth and garlic...then the guy frying it tosses it through the air and another person catches it.
For fun a bunch of kids got to catch the snack...
Back on the Ricshaw, back to the hotel...goodnight :)
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