Next we jumped on the local bus to Phang Nga. The local bus is a mini van that people hail down (ie there are no fixed stops just a fixed route). This means the journey can take a long or short times depending on how many people want to get on/ off. It also means that there is no guarentee of a seat. This trip took about 3 hours and we had to stand for the first hour hanging onto the rail trying not to fall out of the open door as we sped along. Such are the joys of traveling local style in asia - cramped and uncomfortable but with a real sense of conectedness with our fellow humans. Oh, I forgot that in Thailand they sometimes have a TV on board, usually with Thai karoke so you can sing along!
We hired a scooter and started to explore the many sights. One such sight was the Heaven and Hell caves. There are statues here depicting sences of the heaven and hell realms according to Buddhism (yes - they do exsist within Buddhism as a result of karma). There is also a monastery built amongst the caves. I'm not sure of the significance of the caves themselves but I'm sure they have been used by practioners over the years. When we were there, a monk was reciting some texts in the enterance of the cave.
We ascended some stairs that came to a stupa at the top. Through the ornate decorations there were some beautiful views of surrounding area (below).
To get to the cave we walked through this enormous dragon. It was kind of scary since it was not well lit and it echoed a bit. That's me freaking in the mouth.
And Rob deciding whether to proceed.....
The creepy tunnel. As I walked down I was thinkin of all the good and bad things that I have done. Should I be scared.....?
The dragon finally disappears into the mountain and we continue on to the cave.
The cave was really beautiful and hard to capture on our camera. We had to walk over this bridge. Some parts were a bit dark. I slipped a couple of times and ended up with muddy feet.
Outside we were confronted with scences from 'hell'. They depicted the hell realms as discribed in Buddhist text and were quite disturbing.
We saw a monk feeding monkeys. They all came running which freaked me out a little because some of them were quite big. The monk quietly handed out the food until it was all gone.
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