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| In the morning I went to a neighborhood shop to buy some shoes but it was closed because of the holiday. But out on the street was a Chinese troupe performing for the holiday. Here five young men and boys stood on the shoulders of the ones below them. The young child at the top seemed quite calm about it all, even when the lowest member of the troupe started walking with the others on his shoulders. |
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| The acrobats were part of a procession coming from a wat to the main street. When this pickup truck turned, a mummified monk was visible set in the back of the truck (to the right of the man in the white shirt). After death, sometimes an especially revered monk is mummified and then his body covered with gold leaf and preserved in a special case at the wat. |
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| I went back to the hospital this afternoon to get some results and leave a sample. In the evening, Amy Braun, a Maryknoll lay missioner in Thailand, invited two Notre Dame University students teaching in Bangkok for the summer to participate in the ceremony at the wat, and I accompanied them. Here they buy lotus flowers and candles and incense. |
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| A temple attendant helps them to light their incense. Then the incense and candles and flowers are carried in a procession three times around the wat. Left to right are Gianconda, Amy, and Anita. Amy herself first came to Thailand as a Notre Dame summer student. |
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| After the three trips around the wat, this family placed their candle and incense offerings next to the main gate of the holy area of the wat. |
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| Amy tries to get the candles to stand upright, a difficult tax because it was raining and the water cooled the melted end of the candle before it could hold the candle erect. |
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| One of many Buddha images in this wat. |
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| The crowds were diminished because of the rain, but all the monks of this wat gathered formally with the head monk as he spoke a dharma or sermon to the assembled people. |
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