Ash and Small Bear go on an adventure!

When I give to the beggars, Bangkok blesses me.

 This morning, I took the river taxi a stop too far, and ended up wandering aimlessly through an entire market filled with flower petals. Two square blocks of bags of flowers, up to my waist in gold and pink and red, heads of orchids peeking out between strings of marigolds.  When I stumbled out of the market – undoubtedly trailing a perfume cloud behind me just from breathing there for twenty minutes – the temple I’d initially set off for appeared from behind a wall of tour buses.

 Now, the thing about Bangkok is, the temples are always closed to foreigners, at least until noon, because it’s always a special buddha holiday, and at the very least on normal days you still have to go through the big door marked “Foreigner”, and buy a ticket.

However, this particular morning, I just smiled at the men who said “the temple is closed for buddha holiday”, and kept wandering in the general direction of … around. And found my way through a side door into Wat Pho. The men keeping people away because of “buddha holiday” did a wonderful job! I spent a blissful hour alone with the monks, in the cool shade of concrete pillars, watching the kittens play and letting chanting and incense drift by before a single other tourist made it inside. Finding such peace in the middle of such a chaotic place felt even better than the three showers a day with mint soap it takes to wash off the 95 F and humid city.

Also, I got a hug today!