Kindness

-


This morning we stopped by our friendly temple and it had been transformed. All of the fruit and decorations had been packed away. We continued to walk and visit other temples, stopping at the market for lunch.
It started to rain whilst we were looking around one temple. Christine was at the back and Darryl was sheltering under the canopy at the front. A little old lady was helping Christine into the temple hall to shelter from the rain. Darryl followed quickly behind. The lady had some relatives in England and she spoke good English. She sat us down on a comfy sofa and continued to interact with the other people in the hall.

We sat quietly waiting for the rain to stop and looked around the hall. The temple monks were reading blessings. We looked at the beautiful pictures and at the coffin. It came as a little surprise but we appeared to be in a funeral! The coffin was then decorated with flowers and carried to a pick up truck by the guests.

A police escort cleared the road as the pick up left the temple. We said a friendly goodbye and left when the rain stopped.


A walk in the opposite direction took us to a number of other temples but they were very quiet. On the way we saw a bunch of older locals huddling around drinking something from a small cart. One of them called us over and started to speak to us. He explained what he was drinking and we thought we should try it too. We sat and enjoyed a free Chinese tea with our coffee/tea mixture in the other glass. Pretty good, though the condensed and evaporated milk gave it a little sweetness too much!

To get to the temple on the hill we had to cross a busy dual carriageway. We then continued along a small narrow street past a Muay Thai boxing ring and the dogs. At the top of the hill the temple had seen better days and was a little overgrown...

It just wasn't to be. The little lady that sold the sugary crispy rice snacks wasn't there today. We didn't fancy the frogs on sticks so we decided to get some fruit!


Yesterday, we did show the young girl selling soya milk and ginger tea our photo of her from a past trip. She looked surprised and spoke in Thai as she speaks no English. However, today when we went to her little stall she seemed to have learnt one English word. The word was "FREE" as she handed us some of her delicious soya milk. Wow, we were knocked back ...

It is always those that have the least that give the most.

Popular posts from this blog

Portsmouth

-
Image
Up at 6.55 to meet our 7am breakfast slot. Breakfast was amazing and we ate the lot from dried fruit to double bacon and eggs. All washed down with posh coffee - awesome. Packing the bikes was easy but it takes a little bit of time ... We started our journey about 8.30. We passed our friend's house, his kids school and his allotment. We got a little lost in Southampton due to road closures but after a little back tracking from the scary dual carriageway, all was good. A lot of our route followed the National Cycle Trail 246, however it kept disappearing into nowhere. We eventually found it again but miles away from where we last saw the signs. We passed over lots of water today, saw lots of boats and had puncture number 2! Fixed, we headed off again. A few diversions, some nice tracks and now we could see the Spinnaker tower in the distance. This added a little motivation to the pedalling. A quick stop in Waitrose to stock up on goodies and we arrived at our destination - Portsmout...
Read more

Travelling south

-
Image
Our alarm woke us early as we have to catch the 8am train, which is about an hour's travel away.  Two friends were due to give us a lift to the bus stop on the back of their motorbikes.  However one overslept so the other asked his brother in law to give us a lift in his car!  Rather than dropping us at the end of the road at the bus stop, he kindly took us to the bus station. A bus was about to leave so we jumped on.  This bus took us back into Kozhikode where it was a short walk to the train station.  On arrival we discovered the train we were going to catch was delayed by 1.5 hours.  However another train, which took longer, was running on time so would get us there half an hour before our original train now would.  We bought our tickets and waited.  The station was filling up fast, which is always worrying when you only have a general ticket, so no allocated seat ...  and the journey is 5.5 hours. The train arrived on time and we jumped in a carriage which was less crowded, alt...
Read more

First Day Explorers

-
Image
After a good night's sleep, we woke early...ish for breakfast. We were hoping for a traditional Indian spicy fair but got a traditional boiled egg, bread and jam. We washed it down with a hot cup of Chai, so all was good. We ventured out in search of a few sites, however were easily distracted by fresh fruit platters, mango lassis and mobile phone cover shops. Next, an ATM stop to test various SBI machines. One small branch failed but the head office one worked. This was near the Mumbai stock exchange, complete with bull outside. We ended up at Horniman circular garden. An interesting name but the garden was being 'refurbished' - dug up. Marine drive is famous amongst the people of Mumbai. A huge boulevard next to the sea for romantic strolls. The stroll today wasn't filled with romance, more noise pollution as the whole sea defence boulevard was being fixed. Almost all of it for mile after mile. We had to walk on the dual carriageway but soon got fed up and headed inla...
Read more