Inside my little hut in Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke.

After spending the night in a small little hut, sleeping on the hard wooden floor in absolute darkness, I woke up to a small challenge. Paiboon had some errands to run in downtown Udon Thani, and I was to drive him in a 20 year-old Nissan Sunny.

The 20 year-old Nissan Sunny that belonged to Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke.

I was a little nervous; it’d been a while since I’d driven a manual. This old car had a very stiff clutch and kept stalling while I was practicing in the monastery grounds. Plus, what little I’d seen of traffic in Thailand had already convinced me that driving in Thailand is pretty much insane! It was a real miracle that we managed to go in and out of town without stalling the car at any time.

On the way back we pulled into a side road, and then into another smaller dirt trail. Paiboon wanted to visit another fellow monk, who was living all by himself in the middle of nowhere! I had complete respect for this monk, who was willing to sacrifice everything and endure so much for his training.

Paiboon pointing out the solitary monk’s abode.

Later in the evening of this 3rd day, I went to the canteen to look for some hot water to make my cereal. I hadn’t eaten much the whole day, the monks only have one meal a day and that’s at 7AM in the morning, after 12 noon they’re forbidden to eat any more.

But I was in luck, a few villagers had come for the master, Archan Sa-ad’s 60th birthday celebrations the next day. They were cooking dinner and generously asked me to join them, which I gladly accepted. It wasn’t the first nor would it be the last that I was to enjoy the good graces of my hosts in Thailand.