Travel Day 1092 – Hua Hin to Suan Mokkh by Chaiya, THAILAND
After visiting the many temples in Phetchaburi yesterday, I jumped on a local bus down to the beach town Hua Hin by the later afternoon…
Hua Hin Beach after the Rain, Thailand
Initially my idea had been to spend some time on the beach before I would carry on towards Wat Suan Mokkh, but yesterday I arrived too late for the beach and this morning it was unfortunately raining cats and dogs. So instead of going to the beach, I spent my morning at the local market, sampling some good food and looking at all the different products that were on sale. Some fruits and sea creatures seemed actually quite interesting and I had definitely never seen a couple of them before…
Once the rain had stopped, I even managed to walk down to the beach and sit on a rock for a while, listening to the waves. Unfortunately this was all the time I had at the beach and I promised myself that as soon as the retreat at Wat Suan Mokkh was over, I would make sure to cross over to KohTao Island and spend some lazy days in the white sand or the clear water…
Views while travelling to Suan Mokkh
After enjoying the Royal Hua Hin Train Station, which had been built extra nicely to welcome the king on his way to his close by summer residence, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the cabin of the express train to Surat Thani while enjoying the palm tree landscapes that were flying by the window. Actually in order to reach Wat Suan Mokkh I had to get off at Chaiya, one stop before Surat Thani, and then catch a bus towards the monastery. But unfortunately the “express” train was running almost two hours late which put me in the position of arriving in Chaiya after the local buses had terminated their service for the day…
While we were approaching 6pm and the sun was going down, we ended up having to take an expensive 80 baht motorcycle taxi to Suan Mokkh Monastery. On the internet it was stated very clearly that we had to arrive before darkness and we literally just made it off the highway and into the monastery compound before it got completely dark. Once I had signed-in at the reception and was trying to find the men’s dormitory building in the middle of the forest monastery, I all of a sudden understood why we should arrive early: It was getting really, really dark…
Suan Mokkh Straw Mat and Wood Pillow
After getting lost in the dark forest, I finally found the dormitory with the help of one of the monks. The accommodation for the night was free of charge and as basic as it gets: One straw mat, one wooden block as pillow and one mosquito net! Great, I arranged my “bed”, took a bucket shower at a concrete pit in the forest and without having any dinner I was ready to sleep on my rock hard mat by 8pm. Besides me, three other troopers had decided to arrive one day early and so we were all sharing the dorm under the conditions that awaited us during our 10 day Vipassana retreat…
As I was lying hungrily but not even tired on my straw mat in the darkness, listening to the amazingly noisy jungle, I couldn’t help but think that this retreat at Wat Suan Mokkh was going to be quite a challenge. In comparison, my stay at Kopan Monastery in Nepal seemed already like a real vacation. But whatever the next 10 days of the retreat would throw at me, I felt as ready as I could possibly be and I was almost a little bit excited to find out what was going to happen next…
Find all Hua Hin Photos here.
What a strange preparation for a retreat: no dinner, concrete floor, wooden pillow but surely unusual noises in the jungle. Look forward to more Details.
Of course Gudrun, the visit at Suan Mokkh Monastery was in many ways a really interesting and unusual one…