After the usual wake up and breakfast eating, we decided to go to a meditation retreat while we were waiting for our train to go up to Chiang Mai. It took us a while to find where it was located at, but with the help of the friendly Thai people, we made it to our destination. I've discovered that the best way to get around is to ask human beings, not machines.
The meditation retreat was incredibly intense. It was 3 hours long! That's the longest I've ever meditated before. Our instructor was a Theravada monk named Phra (which means monk) Wathana. He was about 45 years old, and he was extremely friendly. I learned much from him; he seemed very wise. We interchanged between sitting meditation and walking meditation. Every once in a while, Phra Wathana would expound on some principles. He mentioned several times that happiness and peace come not from external conditions, but from internal ones. "Happiness," he said, "comes from inside" as he pointed to his heart.
After the meditation retreat, we made our way to the train station. Initially, we hired a taxi to take us there, but there was a major traffic jam, so the driver said we should probably get off. He told us it was going to be free, but we gave him 20 baht because he drove us almost half of the way there. We walked the rest of the way.
The train was really fun. Sam, Dalton, Blake, and Arrio all stayed in one booth (there is only 4 beds per booth) while I stayed in the next one over. There was a young girl of about 14 and her father in my booth with me. The girl's name was Sylvia. She and her father live in Australia, but she is half Chinese (by way of her father) and half Thai (by way of her mother). Thus, the family speaks 4 languages (Thai, English, Cantonese, and Mandarin). I had a really good conversation with them both about their travels and about my own.
I slept well considering the train was jerking back and forth all night long.
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