After spending the day down by the beach, mostly just eating, we went back to the house and packed for our sleepover at the village. Before we left though we, excluding Mon and Mama, decided to go for a night time swim to cool off. Once we were at the village we got served dinner and watched the show. By show, I mean all the drunk people dancing around. Unlike the last monk ceremony I went to, this one had payed entertainment. There was a huge stage and singers, who were actually friends of Sa's from the university.
It doesn't matter if they have little to no money, when it comes to a ceremony such as this they, Thai people, fork out as much money as possible to boost and show off to other members of the community. Its a big competition as to who can pull off a bigger and better show.
Heres a fact for you: Did you know Asians have the lowest sense of pride out of all other nationalities. That fact proved itself to me last night. I have mentioned before a monk ceremony mainly consists of people getting plastered. Last night girls would go on stage and dance provocatively, guys were leading woman off to their huts, and I had numerous men hit on me. I have come to the conclusion I don't handle drunk people well, when I am a foreigner. I owe Bow and Sa a lot for saving me numerous times. I think I need to learn the phrase "piss off" in thai, since repeating"I do not understand" and "no I don't want to dance" doesn't seem to get the point across. As the night was wrapping up, which was at about twelve, I said to Bow "Isn't it funny that the night before he becomes a monk, which restricts him from touching females, they put a bunch of pretty ladies on a stage." She laughed at me and said "It doesn't matter to him. He is gay."
I don't know if you can get kicked out of being a monk but if you can I have a feeling it will happen to this guy. Or that he will choose to only be a monk for a short period of time. I have an assumption he did this more for his mom than for himself. It's considered a huge honour for a family to have their son become a monk. My impression during the day was that he was just doing this for the attention and show, and that he didn't actually want to be there. But I could always be wrong.In total there was two other groups at the temple today. Already thai music sounds horrible to me but when you get two other bands playing different songs in the mix... Its just not a good combination. Having more parties join you on this day is good luck for the monks since this means they receive more money. After the monks have their new attire and have chanted they come out of the temple where people are waiting to give them a contribution in exchange for good luck. Each person does this for all three monks for triple the luck.
After hours spent at the temple we went back to the village where we loaded up the vehicle with a bunch of kids from the village and went to the waterfall. In total there was fourteen of us in the vehicle and I was the one driving. Ever since I have been back from Taipei Mon has been getting me to drive which I love. She has recently even been asking me to drive in the city, which was a shock considering she won't let me drive the scooter into town or to the market for my own safety.
At the waterfall we saw two monkeys. At first they were situated at the top of a rock but slowly made their way down to the base where everyone was sitting. I was walking over with my camera as they were coming down the fall and due to my careful concentration trying not to slip when I looked up the monkey was standing right in front of me. Three more steps and I would have been able to reached out and touch him. One guy threw them a piece of chicken.
Later he regretted that decision since they stole the rest of his food. The brown one stole the chicken while the orange one rushed him and took the plastic bag which contained potato chips right out of his hand. It was amazing to watch the monkey tear open the bag and scarf down those chips like no tomorrow. The poor man didn't even stand a fighting chance against those monkeys.
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