Sunday in Chang Mai

We spent Sunday doing religious things, gave alms to the monks in the morning and went to the temple and gave an offering to the monk, Nita and I were chosen from our group. The monks walk the streets every morning taking offerings of food in exchange for blessings. They eat twice a day, morning and lunch and only drink liquids the balance of the day. These offerings are their only source of food unless the grow some themselves. You can be a monk for a day up to a lifetime. Many young boys become monks because of a self interest in Buddhism or their family sees it as a way of seeing to it that they are fed, housed and educated. This also serves to eliminate most of Thailand's homeless problems.

The offering was kind of cool, the monk on duty at the temple that we visited spoke perfect English, asked where we were from and then blessed us and shook holy water on us.

This evening we went to a home dinner and spent the evening with a family of four that were well educated and employed. It gave us an entirely different look at Thai life than we had been seeing.