It is very hot standing in the sun where it is very crowded. Luckily I am standing in a place where it has less people plus I am standing in the front of those people. The bridge, where I am standing, is made from wood and I am not sure that it will be strong enough for a lot of people like this or not. I am a little scared that it might break and I will fall down into the water. I don’t think I want to swim in the canal with all my clothes on. There is also a boat on the way with a large Buddha image.

One day in October, I went to Bang Phli Yai Nai temple in Samut Prakan to make merit. The reason was because I was feeling like I had no good luck left. Everything was going wrong. For example, the day before I just lost a 1000 baht banknote while I was rushing to go to the post office before it closed.

The other reason I was going to Bang Phli was for an important festival called “rap bua”. So, I thought I would go and kill two birds at the same time and take some pictures for my web site too. If you didn’t know, that is a popular English saying. I am not really going to the temple to kill two birds! I just meant that I am going to do two things in one visit.

I woke up early in the morning and went to meet up with my teacher from my old school. We had no time to have our breakfast so we just went to get the digital camera from the office and double-checked our stuff that we needed to take. After that, we left school as early as we could and went straight to Bang Phli. The traffic on the way was starting to be bad but not too bad for us. From my old school to the temple, it only took us about twenty minutes to drive there. There were lots of people there and the car park was already full up. We drove around looking for somewhere to park the car but it wasn’t that easy to find a parking space. So, we drove out of the temple and went to Big C. We parked the car there and then walked back to the temple. It only took us about five minutes to get there.

I was so sweaty when I arrived at the temple. The sun was strong and it was so crowded. Thousands of people were standing by the canal. I walked across the bridge and was about to go to the other side to take some pictures. While I was on top of the bridge, I saw that there were lots of people sitting in their rented long-tail boats by the side of the canal. I stopped there to take some pictures and before I walked down to the other side, there were some policemen coming up to clear the people from the bridge.

The policemen were saying that the Luang Poh To Buddha image was about to come and no one should be above his head as it goes under the bridge. They told everyone up there to go down from the bridge while people at the back kept pushing and trying to come up. The bridge was made from wood and it is not strong enough for the thousands of people who came. The bridge was starting to creak and was making some groaning noise so everyone at the top started to push their way back. I was there at the top of the steps to the bridge while my teacher was up on the bridge pretending he didn’t understand what the policeman was saying. He was taking some pictures of all of the people until the Buddha image came.

Finally, my teacher had to come down from the top of the bridge when the boat was about to go under it. I tried to take some pictures before it went under the bridge. But it wasn’t that easy to take photos when you are looking towards the sun so some pictures didn’t come out that good. People were trying to come up the bridge again so they could see the Buddha image in the big boat and also to throw some lotus flowers in the boat. There were lotus flowers everywhere in the air and water. Everyone was throwing it onto the boat. But not that many could throw far enough to the boat so there were lots of lotus flowers in the water. There were many small boats around the big boat to pick up the lotuses in the water that didn’t reach the big boat and then they threw it onto the big boat.

After the boat came out from the bridge, people started to go up there to throw the lotus flowers on the boat. I quickly came down from the bridge as I was scared that it was going to collapse. There were lots of lotus flowers flying around and a few of them flew onto my head. I was really annoyed with it. It wasn’t about hurting but it was more about being embarrassed.

Afterwards, there was a parade of boats. I was about to stay there to watch the cute girls who were dressed in Thai style clothes. But, I didn’t stay because I wanted to pay respect to the real Buddha image and make some merit for myself. I can take a look at cute girls anytime but I can’t pay respect to the famous Buddha image during a festival like this. It only happens once a year.

As I arrived at the temple, I stopped to buy some things I needed for making merit. Those objects were three incense sticks, a candle, three gold leaves and some flowers. I paid twenty baht for that. Really there is no settled price for it. You just pay as much as you like but most people I saw there paid twenty baht so I just followed their example.

I went in the temple with those things I bought to make merit. On the way to pay respect to the Buddha image, I saw a board there with the legend of this “Rub Bua Festival” in Thai so I stopped to read. It said …

There were three brothers who were Buddha images floating down the Bang Pakong River and then down different canals. One of them came on the Chao Phraya River and floated towards Bang Phli Yai temple. Some people there saw him in the river so they paid respect to the image and then used a sacred string called “sai sin” to encourage him to come to stay in the temple. Before he had come to this temple, he had floated pass other temples as well but he didn’t want to stay with them. It said on the board that the people at those temples didn’t encourage him in a proper way so he went on until he arrived at the Bang Phli Yai Nai temple.

It was really interesting, I didn’t know before that the Buddha image had brothers the same as human!!! After I finished reading the story, I went to get down on my knees where they paid respect to the Buddha image. I started to light my candle and then lit the incense sticks after. I then began to pray to the Buddha image asking him to bless me and bring back my good luck. After I finished my prayers, I put the incense sticks in a big bowl and then came back to prostrate down on the floor three times. Then I picked up the flowers I had bought and walked to leave them in another bowl by the entrance of the bot. I went inside the bot with those three gold leaves. I walked to put those gold leaves on the Buddha image and came to prostrate on the floor three times again. I had finished what I was doing so I went to meet up with my teacher at the noodle shop outside the temple. We had our brunch and then went back to work at my old school.

I am very happy that I went to make merit that day. I am feeling much better now even though my problems are still the same. Maybe I should go to the temple more often to make merit and relax my brain. Also, I am very happy that I went to the “Rup Bua Festival”. Now I can tell my friends or anyone else, that I have been there already. What about you? Have you been to the “Rub Bua Festival”? If you haven’t, you should find some free time to go there next year. It is very fun and interesting even if it is hot and crowded. Who knows, if you go there next year you might see me there as well. Don’t forget to look for me there next year if you are going to go there, OK?