Tuesday, January 1, 2008

travelling

no more posts for a little bit as i'm enroute from koh tao to bangkok to chiang mai, i should arrive the morning of the second. northern thai food pics soon!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Quick Ping - Great postings of late Darren. So Chiang May is on the river 'Ping' and is, according to Wikipedia, 'an important centre...for umbrellas'. I have never visited a city known as a being an 'important centre for umbrellas' so am interested.

Congrats on the license again.

According to Wikipedia Chiang May also features Wat U-Mong - "Wat U-Mong is known for its grotesque concrete fasting Buddha and hundreds of pithy Buddhist proverbs in English and Thai posted on trees throughout its grounds."

This, it would seem to me, and excellent metaphorical segue on your journey out of the island - given that your lens is food/eating and Wat U-Mong is home to a grotesque fasting Buddha.

Best regards for the new year and your travels. Brady

Darren's Travelling Account said...

brady you're the best =P

i'm going to get some pics of that fasting buddah for you when i get back from my hill tribe trek

happy new year

Anonymous said...

So the Buddha statue is apparently about his period as an ex-pat. After the young prince Siddhartha Gautama left his palace to search for enlightenment, he lived as an ascetic for six years. The emaciated Siddharta finally attained enlightenment and became Buddha (The Enlightened One) when he discovered the Four Noble Truths. The statue depicts this part of his life. It's hard to tell from the pictures on Flickr, but it looks to me as if the statue is depicting the emaciated Enlightened One with an open umbrella - likely the reason that Chiang May vies with (and I sh*t you not here) Fujian China for the title of 'umbrella capital'. BTW: which hill tribe are you visiting? . The Akha people apparently prey on endangered species and practice slash-and-burn agriculture that leads to massive soil run off (I'm speculating that's related to the whole umbrella thing). Anyway try for a picture of that if you can as I've never seen massive soil run off or nearing-extinction grilled albino civet cat (of which the Enlightened One apparently did not partake). Happy travels Brady