Piles of chestnut hulls, and firewood piles in the background. Everywhere we went, we had a sense that people were getting ready for winter: in the next set, you’ll see piles of corn laid out to dry in a courtyard , presumably to feed animals for the winter. I love the idea that folks take good enough care to keep the chestnut hulls as kindling for fires: that’s good stewardship of resources, huh?
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Getting Ready for Winter
Village Life North of Beijing
More shots of small villages we passed through. The woman and child were selling small booties or slippers, handknitted with animal patterns on the top. Nola, an engineer from Canada that I’ve hiked with a few times, took this picture after buying booties from the woman. I hope she won’t mind me using the shot, since she used my camera!
With the two kids running in front of the man, look carefully and you’ll see the guy behind is wheeling a whole bunch of kindling and firewood up the slope, presumably to his house. Don’t think this is for romantic fires: as you saw from the chestnut hulls just before, this may be life and death for them when the weather gets colder.
Flowers and Towers – Village Life
Now that I can access the website from online, I’m going to try some new manners of posting, which might lead to better-looking photos. We’ll see how this works!
These two photos show scenes of small villages near the Great Wall that we passed during our hike — with the watchtowers of the Great Wall on the hills in the background. One village was a garrison village, where the company that worked the wall rested during their off days and hours.
Bangkok Skyline
For those who’ve not yet read the long text entry I wrote a few days (which appears further down on the blog), I’ve just (on Saturday the 15th) returned from a week in Bangkok, which was mostly for a seminar with MSF, but I tacked a weekend and another free day to see the city. On my last day, after the class, I was able (thanks to Tony’s car and driver — yay, Tony!) to tour a bit of the city with the teacher from our class, a very interesting French woman of Tunisian ancestry who’s worked with MSF for a while now, currently on this project and previously on Tsunami relief in eastern Sri Lanka among other things. To get a view of an older Bangkok, we rented a small motorboat for an hour’s tour through some of the smaller canals that have not (yet?) been paved over. This shot shows the skyline from the main river, which is a very busy shipping and commercial channel.
Bangkok Waterfront Life
This man was clearly at work on his boat — I’m not sure what his work is, but it’s tied to the river. Please note that he’s in the middle of a metropolis of 8 million people that’s really quite modern and very polluted…but as you’ll see in some of the next shots, the Bangkok of canals and rivers still seems to run at a slightly different pace than the one of the streets and shopping centers.
Spirit Houses
It seems every (Buddhist, at least) home in Thailand has a spirit house just outside. These are to attract good spirits, and keep the unfriendly ones at bay. Of course the stilt houses in the canals are no exception — it’s the mini-temple looking thing in the upper right side of the shot.
Boathouse Detail, Wake Spray
I liked the details on this little boathouse; you can also see the spray from our boat’s wake in the photo, telling you a bit about why the photos’s
blurry. 🙂
Laundry on the Line
Along the canals you see grand and glorious houses, small shacks, and everything in between. They all have in common the laundry hung out to dry. None of that anglo-saxon discomfort with laundry here, nor the waste of energy when the sun dries the clothes much more ecologically!
Festival on the Water
In the water, you will see many things that are NOT pollution. This was a festival — religious, and Chinese focused, I think. The boats with white-clad people in them were all taking off from a nearby temple — not the Church in the background here, but another Buddhist temple slightly upriver. It appeared they were throwing things in the water, and then many young men in small boats were swimming over to retrieve whatever was being thrown in. I believe this was tied to the same festival that brought the dragon dancers out to the river, which you’ll see in the next shot. To my knowledge, dragon dancing is very much a Chinese thing, and not indigenously Thai. Thailand, of course, has a very substantial and influential community that is ethnically Chinese with very long roots in the Kindom of Thailand.
Grand Palace & Emerald Buddha Temple Complex
More about this stunning waterfront complex in the next few shots.
Temple of the Emerald Buddha
In the heart of Bangkok, and also at the heart of Thai Buddhism, is the Temple of the Emerald Buddha/Grand Palace complex. Thai people are largely recognized as very warm and welcoming, and usually playful and fun-loving, people. There are two things they take very seriously and do not joke about: the King, and their religion. The emerald Buddha is a rather small but beautiful statue of unknown antiquity, which resides high up in the main temple here. He resides high up in the temple to emphasize his importance in the religious life of the nation. The king himself changes his seasonal attire: there are different robes for the rainy season, the summer and the winter. In later shots at Ayuthaya, you’ll see that robing statues of the Buddha is a common practice in Thailand, one that I found really quite appealing and — sorry if I offend — almost cute.
Emerald Buddha Temple
If you look at the top left here, you’ll see little wind-chime bells hanging from the roof. They create a steady and constant music as you walk the grounds. They no doubt have a spiritual significance (scare away bad spirits?), but they’re also aurally enjoyable. On the bottom left you’ll see some lions guarding the entrance; a few shots later you’ll see the main temple guardian, a big scary monster kind of guy.
(so much world, so little time....) 