Back to Ban Rai

After visiting Jip’s family in the South, Murph and I had time for one more trip before she had to return to the U.S. We took a van up to a small town that I wrote about on hipbelt about 18 months ago. The attractive resort there and its friendly owner haven’t changed. We ate a delicious dinner at treehouse-style tables next to the lodge, and as before the owner refused to me pay for the meal. When we asked about massages, she replied that the town still didn’t have a shop of its own, but that the hospital where she worked during the day offered Thai herbal massage as part of its outpatient therapy. Soon we were on the table. I have no idea what our host listed on the hospital registration forms as our complaints, but the cure was lovely.

I thought Murph would enjoy seeing the monastery in Ban Rai that remains the most unusual religious building I’ve visited in Thailand. Wat Tham Khao Wang looks more like a palace than a temple. For one thing, it’s four stories high. For another, it appears to emerge from a mountainside. Its wooden rooms generally have one side open to the elements. We climbed a series of stairs to the top level, only to find a weird shrine constructed mostly from empty bottles of Red Bull. At the base are pictures of the king and queen, at the top is a Buddha image, and around the edges are various containers for burning incense. I knew some people put lots of faith in energy drinks, but I hadn’t been aware that they were worshiped in this way.