{"id":3584,"date":"2012-07-16T06:39:12","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T14:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ups.edu\/studyingabroad\/?p=3584"},"modified":"2012-07-16T06:39:12","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T14:39:12","slug":"enlightenment-has-a-paved-access-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/2012\/07\/16\/enlightenment-has-a-paved-access-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Enlightenment Has a Paved Access Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just came from the sprawling greenery of the Pacific Northwest and the hilly deserts of Southern California\u2026Chiang Mai is cramped.\u00a0 I’ve been having feelings of claustrophobia lately, and needed healthy doses of green and silence.\u00a0 My friend Michelle told me about a little Wat up in the woods above Chiang Mai, partway up the hiking trail to Doi Suteph.\u00a0 A little trek outside sounds perfect.<\/em><\/p>\n

I step off my motorbike and onto the trail.\u00a0 Five steps.\u00a0 Its so quiet out here<\/em>.\u00a0 Ten steps. \u00a0L<\/em>ush and green, just what I needed<\/em>.\u00a0 Fifteen steps.\u00a0 “Rawang!” \u00a0 Five men on dirt bikes whiz past me.\u00a0 So much for a quiet escape from the noise of the city<\/em>.\u00a0 They make it about 30 feet ahead of me before they get stopped by some logs.\u00a0 I walk past the men struggling to lift their 300 pound bikes up the hill, and head deeper into the forest and higher up the hill.\u00a0 I walk for about two minutes before I’m completely drenched in my own sweat.\u00a0 Why does the humidity keep surprising me?<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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As I hiked higher up the mountain, I started to see saffron fabric tied around trees. \u00a0It started with just a few, but soon I couldn’t look in any direction without seeing saffron. \u00a0I was later told that these trees were blessed, and the saffron would keep them from being cut down.\u00a0 Being surrounded by saffron draped trees made me feel as though some other-worldly presence was surrounding me as I hiked higher.\u00a0 That presence soon materialized when the dirt bikers tore past me, but they were again stopped.\u00a0 This time by a section of steep rocks.\u00a0 I had a big grin on my face as I strolled past their mountain-conquering machines for the second time.<\/p>\n

This game of leap frog went for about two more rounds before I reached the wat, leaving them behind to overcome a small log crossing over a tiny stream.\u00a0 My sandals handled all of these obstacles juuuuust fine. <\/em>I’m glad I beat them to it so I could wander around the beautiful setting without the whirring of motors.\u00a0 The wat is perched atop a section of rocks and a waterfall.\u00a0 Its definitely one of the most picturesque places in Chiang Mai.\u00a0 There are images of the Buddha everywhere.\u00a0 In the cliffs on the other side of the stream are stone monks forever meditating in a small cave.\u00a0 There are sections of ancient temple still standing, along with a more recently constructed wat.\u00a0 I sat next to a few monks who were praying inside the wat.\u00a0 I was praying that my torrent of sweat would stop in the near future.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was just me, one Thai family praying, the monks, a waterfall, green forest, and a sweeping view of Chiang Mai far below me. \u00a0A much needed separation from city life.\u00a0 That is, until I wandered around a corner to find a newer-looking glass building.\u00a0 And next to the glass building: a road leading up from the city to a parking lot behind the wat, which was filled with Mercedes and motorcycles.\u00a0 All that is missing is an escalator up to the wat.<\/em> My assumption that the only way to reach the temple was by walking up a forest path: paved over.\u00a0 Inside the glass building was a meditation workshop with many farang and a few Thai.\u00a0 Oh well, I shouldn’t have come with so many expectations\u2026it still is a very serene place<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I made my way over to a prayer platform, raised up in the trees above the path.\u00a0 The tinkling of prayer bells and the view were the only things on my mind, but the dirt bikers quickly changed that.\u00a0 As they rumbled up the path, several monks poured out of the wat.\u00a0 The two groups met on the path in front of me and argued in Thai for a little bit.\u00a0 The bikers were eventually sent back down the hill.\u00a0 I’m not sure why they thought they would be able to ride up and do donuts around the Buddha, but they seemed pretty disappointed.\u00a0 As they left, one monk came and sat down next to me.\u00a0 So far, I had been trying really hard to ignore the several mars made to the picture I had painted in my mind of a peaceful Buddhist mountain temple, but this was too much.\u00a0 All I could do was laugh.\u00a0 I really did come into this hike with too many expectations<\/em>.\u00a0 Suddenly I felt much more ridiculous than the monk with the tattoo of Pikachu holding a Jaeggermeister bottle, who sat next to me and enjoyed same view.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just came from the sprawling greenery of the Pacific Northwest and the hilly deserts of Southern California\u2026Chiang Mai is cramped.\u00a0 I’ve been having feelings of claustrophobia lately, and needed healthy doses of green and silence.\u00a0 My friend Michelle told … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-max-honch-12-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}