Continuing our meander...we went to a tourist attraction called The Bamboo Bridge. It is a very long walking bridge across a valley, then over a river to give access to a temple up on the hill on the other side.
The flags along it are the national Thai flag and the yellow Buddhist flags. Notice the little shrine here on this end of the bridge. You could rent umbrellas for 10 baht as sun screens to use as you walked across. : )
There you can see the hump which is the bridge over the river and a bit of the temple up on the hill.
Martha and Indira walked across. I, happy to say, sat in the shade and had a cold coke. : )
It seems that all the temples have an arduous approach as well as being able to drive right to them. I wonder if the more arduous approach is supposed to give one an opportunity for contemplation as you make you way there...long walks, lots of steps, hiking trails, etc.
We stopped down into a small village and came upon a Thai version of a “quilting bee.” In this case it was a leaf roof panel making. 8 or 10 women gathered in a plaza area, each working on putting together a strip of the leaf roof I’ve been seeing.
We arrived right as they were finishing their lunch and they gladly offered us a bowl. We had some noodles that were lightly flavored and then something that was pretty hot--good, though.
The roofing “panels” are made out of bamboo strips and these leaves.
Each woman was working on a panel, using two leaves for each “shingle” and strips of bamboo as both the stabilizer and the “thread” to connect and attach them.
I got the chance to work on one first hand.
We wandered through the village for a bit...
This wood carving was over the gate into the main plaza.
We came into a museum of sorts that showed the tools used in agriculture. This separated the rice from the hulls.
Indira and Martha being the water buffalo that would pull this yoke and whatever was attached to it.
...it must have been laundry day at the monastery.
We drove on into another little village that Martha had a hankering to go to (Tee had sent her a postcard of a particular scenic view and Martha was pretty sure it was down across the farming land at the end of this village, so she was on the search).
This is a house from the village...good example of the main living area being in the upper part, though plenty of living happens down low and underneath when it is not the rainy season.
So here is the point on our journey where Indira and I were DESERTED by our otherwise kind and caring hosts. : ) Tee followed Martha's directions to go down this little tiny lane (remember we're in a rental car) and we got to the point where it totally wasn't okay to keep going, but you're in the lane and can't really turn around. So Tee went to the folks at a house with a partly open gated area and "asked" an older man who had come outside if we could use his space to turn around. Well, yes, we could apparently, which we started to do. However, then Martha kept saying she wanted to go down to the end of the little lane, so Tee "asked" the man about leaving the car in his property for a few minutes...he agreed, maybe, but the next thing Indira and I knew they were gone and we were left in a car in someone's front yard!
We got out of the car and the little old man kind of gestured to us and the three of us walked to the lane and looked down the way they had gone. They had disappeared. About then we became aware of roosters crowing. I made a hand motion at the sound toward the old man and he escorted us to the back yard where there were a couple of dozen FIGHTING COCKS! Each one under his own woven basket. I was too stunned in the moment to think to take a photo of the restrained roosters in their little houses, but I did notice they were each tethered to a bamboo post pounded into the ground.
Then there were other regular chickens and roosters wandering loose around. We made appropriate (I hope) gestures of appreciation and walked back to the lane looking, once again, for any signs of Martha and Tee.
For something to do, I did take a few photos...this hibiscus was growing at his gate.
This was an especially nice bamboo fence at the house across the lane...
...and this woven bamboo mat was keeping the sun out of the upstairs open area of that house.
The little old man showed back up with a bottle of water and a glass and offered it to us. We thanked him and poured ourselves a drink, although when I opened the bottle, it was not sealed, so was refilled from their source. I just sent up a little prayer that it was clean enough to not create a war on my insides.
He then invited us to sit on this teak "table" on their front porch and to look at a book of photos--all in Thai, of course, but we were good guests and spent time looking through it until Tee and Martha returned...which they finally did. They very pretty excited as they had found the spot of the picture on the postcard. I'm guessing they were gone 15 or 20 minutes, but it felt like a couple of hours. I'm sure our host was hoping we weren't spending the night!
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