Colouring Out the Lines: market

Day 67: Group templing in the rain

We allotted today to walk around and see the sites around Bangkok, so we started up in the morning and walked to our first stop: the Jade Buddha and the Royal Palace. The grounds of the temple were majestic, and everywhere you looked, there was beautiful traditional architecture to see. Inside the main temple, we saw the Jade Buddha, which is actually called the Emerald Buddha because it was originally thought to be made of emerald instead of its actual jadeite. The Royal Palace was nice, but we weren’t allowed to go inside because a funeral was going on, so we only saw it from the outside. It was raining while we were there – the first time it has rained on our trip when we were doing an activity (we secretly blame Kyung for this, since our luck has been really good so far)!

After this, we walked over to the next temple, where a man suggested we go visit two other temples first. So we took his suggestion and went to see a few other Buddhist temples in town, which were quite nice. One of the temples was quiet and peaceful, without the throngs of tourists, and held a beautiful white marble Buddha, which we were happy to have seen. Our tuktuk driver asked if he could bring us to a few shops for foreigners, where if we purchased something, he would get a commission. We obliged, though we didn’t buy anything so unfortunately, he didn’t get anything either.

On our way back to town, it started pouring heavily, so we sat down for lunch at a restaurant across from our next stop, and had a little break. When the rain subsided a bit, we walked over to a temple with an enormous Reclining Buddha. It was huge and just magnificent. We walked around the temple grounds, where all the inner and outer walls were lined with tons of Buddha statues everywhere. It was quite the sight! So far, the temples in Thailand have been beautiful, especially compared to Bali, mainly because we could actually see the statues!

By the time we were done, the temples had all closed so we walked back to our hotel and tried to plan the rest of our stay here. After a short rest, we walked around the market in our area, had dinner at a restaurant close to our hotel, and just enjoyed being in the centre of all the action.

Statues along the edge of the temple

Jade Buddha

Marble Buddha

Reclining Buddha

Day 42: Our last day

This morning, we got up very sad that this was going to be our last day here. We really wish we had booked at least a few weeks in PNG because we haven’t even scratched the surface of all there is to see here. There is so much beauty and so many things to do that we are really regretting having such a small amount of time here. Sigh.

So we had breakfast at our hotel and then shuttled over to the festival grounds to see more of the performances. We saw some pretty amazing tribal groups perform, including the Goroka Mud Men, the West New Britain tribe, and the East Sepik tribe. The Goroka Mud Men came creeping out of their area, bows and arrows in hand, and large scary clay-mud masks on their head. These Mud Men are known to be extremely stealth as they hunt for their prey! When they had all come out, they showed us how they could make a fire with elements from nature in under 45 seconds!

When they crept out, the West New Britain tribe came out chanting and singing loudly, while the performers did their warrior dance. Apparently, the tribe used to invade nearby villages, kill the rival tribe, and bring them back to their village to feast on – yes, that’s right, the tribes here used to (and some still do) practice cannibalism! They were so coordinated, it was amazing!

Once they had performed a few dances, they left, chanting, and the East Sepik tribe came in singing their traditional songs in colourful outfits with their faces brightly painted in yellow, pink, and orange. This was the first tribe that had men and women performing, and it was beautiful!

The whole event was exactly what we had been waiting to see. It was so spectacular and beautiful and coordinated and intense – we loved every second of it. We had been hoping to sneak in some snorkeling time this morning, but when we saw the tribes beginning to perform, we opted against it.

After the West New Britain tribe performed, we went over to talk to them (we figured we’re not meaty enough to be meal-worthy, haha!) and they were all so excited to befriend us that they dressed us up in some of their traditional pieces and wanted to take pictures with us! They even gave us their phone number and told us to keep in touch! It was so cool – we just made friends with a PNG tribe!

Unfortunately, of the nine tribes that were supposed to perform, those three were the only ones that showed up! So we went back for lunch, and walked over to the market, where sellers sat with their fruits, veggies, and tobacco lined up beautifully along the path. When we went back to the festival grounds, it started raining again! Thankfully, though, the rain subsided a bit, and the same three tribes performed again, along with one more tribe that had arrived during the break. The funniest thing was while our new friends from the West New Britain tribe performed the second time, their tribe leader started waving at us during their performance and pointed to us telling the other tribe members that we were there! After their performance, we went to say bye to them and they wanted to take pictures with us again! They were so nice! We will definitely call them at least once to keep in touch!

Since no other tribes had shown up, the festival wrapped up for the day. So we went back to the resort and had a drink and early dinner with a couple from Los Angeles that we had met and gotten to know in the last few days. Then, the shuttle picked us up to take us to the final event of our trip: the Bainings Fire Dance.

The bus ride took us on a remote road up into the middle of the forest in the pouring rain where one tribe performed the traditional Baining Fire Dance – a sort of coming of age ritual. A large group of men sang and drummed while men dressed in huge masks ran through a huge fire lit in the middle of a small field. It was haunting and mystical to see only what was lit up by the fire, and to watch these masked men run through it with their bare feet. They even carried two huge pythons, which they would then cook and feast on the next day at the festival grounds (we won’t be there for that)!

Once the ritual had almost come to an end, we shuttled back to our hotel, where we were told we had been shifted back to a basic room (not our original room, oddly enough). Boo. We were somewhat disappointed, but we packed our stuff up and went to bed. Early flight out tomorrow. It’s all ending too soon, but we really feel like we created a little family here and we know we will definitely try to come back here as soon as we have the opportunity – and next time, we’ll spend a lot more time!

Boyna Tuna (thank you), Kokopo! Yaoura (see you)!