Day 39: Romyen

What a cool day!

We are up north visiting Andy's friend Kayla who is in the Peace Corps. Today we went and picked soybeans (edamame) with the grandma of her host family. The whole neighborhood of old women was actually out there picking since they all help each other out. We sat with these women, who were covered from head to face to protect themselves from sun, and got teased by them about our lack of long sleeves, whether we want to marry Thai people and beauty for a few hours before going back to the woman's house to eat a special dish her daughter had prepared. I can't remember what it's called but it is a spicy sauce with meat and some sort of vegetable over rice noodles. Normally they put blood cubes in it too but for us vegetarians she omitted it. But not the meat. Oh well! It was quite tasty topped with fried onions and cilantro.

Then she, her son and niece led us by motorbike as we biked to a Buddhist temple (wat). Andy and I had borrowed extremely illfitting, uncomfortable and inefficient bikes so due to our slow pace they all thought we were really tired. It was hot (upper 80s to low 90s I think) but nope, mainly it was because my butt and back were killing me!

Once we got to the wat the mother bought us iced tea and an offering for the monks, who evidently can’t buy their own food or eat past 11am! Then we got other offerings for Buddha and sort of prayed with them, which was interesting as normally upon visiting a wat I just wander in, admire the pretty decorations and wander back out. Then we waited for a monk to come and bless us, which required a chant, splashing us with water, and then each of us got blessed individually and had a string bracelet tied on.
We then went outside, bought candles based on our birth date (I think mine was Tuesday, they are shocked we don't know), and lit them so that we'd have luck.

Very cool experience actually doing something at a wat rather than just viewing it. Then, we biked back home, stopping at Kayla's coworker's home for fanta and snacks midway. Can you imagine just stopping at a friend's place midday to eat their food and refuel? I think we should restart this social aspect. Tomorrow we are off to plant rice and Monday we shall plant some stuff in the hills to prevent erosion! May the fun continue.