A little visit to วัดศาลาลอย / Wat Sala Loi today.
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Chop down the old tree? Nope. Never. All you have to do is leave a hole for the tree when you build the roof. |
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Not just the main trunk. The smaller branches too. Let them grow!!! |
I finally got around to showing some love for the Trek bicycles. I had a little washing and waxing session.
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In the photo below, you can see the storm approaching. The wind was blowing and vendors rushed about, battening down the hatches. We had a dream of maybe making it home without any significant rainfall. That didn't happen.
We weren't even a kilometer from the market when the skies opened up. How hard did it rain? Hard enough that pulling into a gas station and waiting it out for thirty minutes seemed like a pretty good idea. With nowhere they have to be most of the time, that's how retirees roll.
Regarding the lack of water in ลำจักราช / Lam Chakkarat, where they have the boat races, that has been addressed at least a bit. It was a hard rain, a good rain. Count me as very grateful for it.
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It just happened. I mean, you take the wildlife you get. And here in นครราชสีมา / Nakhon Ratchasima, we get snails, slugs, and toad frogs in abundance. Of course, that's a buffet for snakes, so we've got those too.
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| "I'm not a slug. I'm just a piece of poop." (Do you believe me?) |
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A month or so after my dear mother crossed over, she appeared to us one day as a beautiful red cardinal. There we were sitting in the car, and there was the cardinal, right near the car, not afraid of us in the least. We spent several minutes together. Then finally she flew away.
Things like that happen after someone passes away. In my most recent case, a family member's mom passed away. I attended her funeral, dressed in black like Mr. Johnny Cash.
That evening, the most beautiful full moon I've ever seen in Thailand lit up the sky. I wasn't surprised. Like I said before, after someone crosses over, you see things.
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I readily admit that I'm just a pretender compared to the real Man in Black, Mr. Johnny Cash. Still, I wear those black clothes for the funerals. People keep passing on. Always have done. Always will, I suppose, including me and you one day...
All the more reason to live life to the fullest each and every day. Despite no direct communication between myself and those who have crossed over, I am confident that is exactly what they would encourage us to do.
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One can never visit พิมาย / Phimai too often. It's still there, and they're still doing their own thing like they have been for the last however many thousands of years. Need some rain up there, though.
ลำจักราช / Lam Chakkarat, a tributary of แม่น้ำมูล / the Mun River that is used for the annual boat races, is lower than I've ever seen it, not that I've seen it all that many times. Still, it could do with a lot more water, especially with the boat races coming up in November. That gives us four months to get more water in there. Should be okay... สาธุ
Disclaimer: It's possible that rather than being a tributary of แม่น้ำมูล / the Mun River, ลำจักราช / Lam Chakkarat might be an irrigation outlet from แม่น้ำมูล / the Mun River to farming areas. I would have to check the direction of flow in order to know for sure. Maybe next trip...
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| ลำจักราช / Lam Chakkarat |
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| ปราสาทหินพิมาย / Phimai Historical Park |
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Amateur archeologist Jerry saw this as an ancient Khmer monument to the rising sun, which comes up directly behind this monument. Wrong as usual, of course. But I still go there at sunrise because there is a nice lady selling early morning treats. And it's near the clock tower. I'm sure we all agree that one must always visit the clock tower in every town in Thailand.  So many of these items are good. Maybe order some of each? |
Driving practice often starts at SUT Lake (Suranaree University of Technology). This lake probably has a real name, but I'm not the one to find it today.
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This is my second rainy season here. I don't remember it being quite this hot last year, but that's irrelevant. A sauna is a sauna regardless of a few degrees temperature differential. Thank Dog for the thunderstorms that bring us some brief respite.
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I guess it was my dream that the air wouldn't get bad until mid-January. I got back right at the end of the rainy season, and the air is...
