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| AT THE GATE OF THE FOUNDATION WITH SEPPO FROM FINLAND |
New Life Foundation
Thailand, where we’re staying at the moment, is an international community of
people who are recovering from alcohol and/or drug addiction, stress,
depression, burnout, abuse and for people who may be having relation issues and
just need a place to relax and recover.
The centre is in northern Thailand near Chiang Rai. We are here as guests and it is interesting
for us to see how the community can work together to face up to and get help
towards solving their problems.
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| SOME OBJECTIONS ABOUT THIS RESTRICTION IN THE TEMPLE PRECINCT |
There is a weekly trip
arranged and yesterday we joined the crew going to some garden near a royal
palace and then on to some monkey caves.
Really, the Thai language is much too difficult for me to remember never
mind pronounce, but according to the tickets, the garden was called the Mae Fah
Luang Garden. They are named after the Queen Mother. The gardens are beautifully manicured and
everything seems to be arranged just right.
In particular, the hanging baskets and intertwining foliage seemed to be
landscaped beyond the dreams of a Disney movie.
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| ONE OF THE MANY AMAZING SCULPTURES IN THE GARDEN |
On the back of the ticket
is a somewhat peculiar analogy by the Queen Mother.
People are the same as plants. If born with good genes, children will be
healthy and smart. It is up to the
parents then to guide and teach, watch over to remove the bad, while
fertilizing with the good. That child
will grow up to be a healthy and good person, just like these Zinnias.
To get to the garden the
minibus climbed for about half an hour and reached a height that brought us into
the cloud zone. Although the borders
with Laos and Myanmar were within spitting distance, we just couldn’t see them. So here we were in the Golden Triangle, the
second biggest opium producing areas in the world, and not a poppy in sight.
On to the Monkey Caves which
were a bit of a disappointment with troops of aggressive simians attacking anyone
who carried a bunch of bananas touted by young boys wielding bamboo sticks to
ward off the more determined apes. The
place was dirty and even the temple seemed a bit run down. One member, Phil, a kind of tall, speedy
ex-something or other, managed to climb the steps up to the cave at the top of
the hill, offered a banana and was thanked by the monkeys by being attacked and
bitten on the arm and leg. I don’t quite
know why I laughed, but it was probably a schadenfreudian reaction.
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| THIS YOUR CAR? WELL GIVE US THE KEYS! |
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| TWO-MONKEYS |
Back to the centre and we
have another 5-days of peace and meditation before we move on to the chaos of
Bangkok and India.
