Mornings With The Monks

It's morning here in Thailand... which means you are fast asleep! When you look at the globe, you can see that I'm on the other side of the world - which means that when the moon is out and you're dreaming, the sun is out here, and I'm awake.



Every morning when I wake up, I go for a run, and I see some pretty interesting things! There are people here called monks... they're like priests at church, rabbis at temple or mullahs in the mosque. The monks are Buddhist, bald and barefoot! Here, even kids can be monks (as long as they're boys and at least 10 years old).

The monks all wear bright orange robes (which are like dresses), and early every morning they walk down the street holding big bowls. The monks are hungry! At first their bowls are empty, but there are lots of other people on the street who want to feed them breakfast. When you feed a monk, it's called "making merit" which means doing something really nice. And when people are nice to the monks, the monks are very happy--which makes the people happy, too!

Men and women stand on the street and fill the monks' bowls with foods like orange juice, water, sticky rice and sweet fruits. Monks only eat one meal a day, so they are very grateful for this food! After receiving the food, the monks say "thank you" by saying a prayer as the people kneel on the street.

People also give the monks flowers - specifically lotus flowers. The lotus flower is a very beautiful white flower that grows in water. It's hard to believe that before the lotus becomes such a gorgeous flower sitting on top of the water, it is growing out of yucky, goopy mud. The monks believe people should be more like lotus flowers--and rise above the muck. I took a picture of this lotus flower while I was exercising on the "playground" at Chiang Mai University.