So yeah, the Buddhists…. where to begin? First and foremost, it was extremely cool to experience and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. So no matter how much of this post is spent bitching & moaning about being uncomfortable, I really would not have missed this experience for the world. Would I care to repeat it? Let’s find out…
Robert had the quote of the trip, after dinner: “I feel like a real Buddhist Monk: appropriately miserable.”
But there is no denying that the place is very attractive! Here’s our room: the floor is tatami mats, “beds” are very thin sheets draped over the hard mats, and there are also pillowcase-like objects. When you enter the monk pad, you leave your shoes outside and slide around inside on slippery shoe-like substitutes—I guess so they can easily catch you?
Dinner time! You’ll recognize the look of everything, if not the particulars. If anything, we recognized even fewer things at dinner than we did at lunch!
Later we learned that all the food was deliberately toned down, flavors removed, nothing spicy or containing anything at all stimulating. Haven eaten there, I can vouch for that 😀
To make a long story short, we survived the night on the floor! The hour of prayer service first thing in the morning was very interesting but unfortunately photos were not allowed. Basically it was lots of mysterious monotone chanting randomly punctuated with the occasional deep gong or clashing cymbals, perhaps to keep the participants awake?
And here’s breakfast, as mysterious and super-vegan as ever!
Join us in our next post where we return to civilization!
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