Our World

This weekend was loaded with events here in Chiang Mai. Once a year there is a gathering of monks from throughout northern Thailand. In the past it had been billed as 10,000 Monks but this year the ante was upped to 12,600. Thai and non-Thai people rise before dawn to distribute offerings to the monks. Obviously their alm bowls overflow quickly and soldiers are there to collect the excess and transport it back to the temples. Not sure there are more monks every year but there has been a tremendous increase in the public participation.

There is not much live theater here but we are blessed with a wonderful director who had worked in Chicago theater before moving here to teach in one of the secondary schools.
He directs a local theater group in several fine productions a year. This past weekend he presented The Miracle Worker with the students at his school. It was an excellent production that we thoroughly enjoyed.

The “Doggie Wat”, temple where we help care for the dogs, had
two new members this week (pictured below). Fortunately the cute puppies are usually quickly adopted. That’s great though we often miss seeing some of them again.

There was a hot air balloon festival in town along with the semi-annual garden sale (fair/flea market) that raises funds
for charity. All of that and now we begin decorating for Christmas.