A visit to Hell

In Vientiane there is a place called Buddha Park which has lots of statues of Buddha but it has other statues that are not so friendly as the Buddha statues. It also has this strange building. Inside the building is Heaven, Earth and Hell.


To get into the building you have to go into the monster's mouth. When you are inside it is dark.


You climb some stairs and there are windows so you can look out on the park.


Eventually you come out at the top. But there is another entrance at the top. This one takes you first to Heaven, then to Earth and then…


...to visit the monsters in Hell.

Quick get me outta here!

Would you dare to visit the monsters in Hell?

There are more pictures of Buddha Park here.

love from Grandpa

Sujata

Once upon a time there was a young, beautiful girl named Sujata who wanted a husband and a son. She was told to go to a banyan tree near the river and pray to the tree god.

Later she married a good man and they had a son. Sujata was very happy and always wanted to serve the tree god to show her appreciation.

Sujata had many cows that gave sweet milk. She used this milk to make sweet rice to give as an offering to the tree god.

One day, Sujata's servant went to clean the area under the tree but was surprised to see someone meditating there. The servant ran back to Sujata and said, 'The tree god is meditating under the tree. Now you will be able to give him rice in person.'

But it was not the tree god. It was Siddhartha Gautama meditating under the banyan tree. He was meditating so that he could become the Buddha.

Sujata took the bowl of rice to Siddhartha and bowed respectfully. She said, 'Please accept this rice from me. May you be as successful in obtaining your wishes as I have been.'

Siddhartha ate the rice. He continued to meditate under that tree and in time became enlightened. He achieved his wishes and became the Buddha.

The End

The sculpture of Siddhartha and Sujata was on the wall of a temple in Vientiane, Laos.

Rich Grandpa

Before I left Thailand, I took some money out of the bank and brought it with me to spend on my travels. In Thailand the money is called baht. If you have an Australian dollar and change it into Thai baht you get about 28 baht or maybe not so much now.

The money was in Thai notes each worth 1,000 baht. (Can you work out how many dollars that is worth?)

When I am in another country I go to the money changer and change my Thai baht for the local money. When I am in Cambodia, I get 130,000 reil for 1,000 baht. Now I am in Laos. Today I went to the money changer with 3,000 baht. I got 780,000 kip. (You can see it all in the picture.) I had another 1,000 baht in my pocket. If I had changed it I would have got over one million kip. I would have been a millionaire.

But unfortunately all that money doesn't buy so much. When I buy my lunch it costs me about 15,000 kip or more. I don't think my million kip will last for a long time.

School for monks

These guys are monks at Wat Xam in Kompong Chhnang. This is a temple with a school for monks. There are over 100 monks who live at the temple. Most of them are there because their parents are very poor and can't afford to send them to school. So they become monks and go to live at the temple. Every morning they walk around the neighbourhood and people give them food. Sometimes they get a lot. Sometimes, not so much. Sometimes they get water in bottles too. Sometimes they don't get enough and they have to drink the water from under the ground. It isn't always clean but it's cleaner than the water from the river.

After the monks finish school here, many will go to Phnom Penh and study at the Buddhist University there. Most will stop being monks after they finish studying. Then they'll have to try to find a job.

I used to teach the monks at this school about four years ago. I visited last week to see if any of my old students were there but they weren't. They must have all moved to Phnom Penh or stopped being monks.