The girls and I got up early, and hopped on bikes to ride through the still snoozing Phichit, past the Pad Thai place, over a narrow bridge suspended over chocolatey brown water to the old train station. A ticket that was real-life punched by a man in a conductor's uniform got us to the metropolis that is Phitsanulok. Now, this made tiny Phichit look even smaller. Though it was still early, rows of shops bustled, huge outdoor fruit markets were flooded with customers man handling tiny bunches of bananas and a glittering row of colorful tuk-tuks honked their horns, eager to zoom through traffic to get you to your destination. We hopped into one and rode to the bus station, where a good deal of charades (and showing a few people a string of Thai instructions - or so we were told) got us onto the right bus. It was a sleepy ride out of P-lok. The 3 hours passed quickly, distancing ourselves from the city and passed little hut-like shops on the outskirts of town selling a menagerie of snacks. These faded quickly too and our tired sounding bus trekked higher into incredibly green mountains as passengers got on and off and seemingly random and unplanned stops. Mountain villages were few and far in between and we'd passed into another world but I felt we were getting close to Nai Mueang. Showing our driver the Thai instructions, we were told to get off here so we did.
Apparently, "here" was the split between 2 major freeways; not exactly where I figured the Glass Temple would be. Luckily 2 men were there to negotiate a tuk tuk ride up to the temple. It took some time to negotiate how long we wanted him to wait up at the temple and how much we were willing to play - this gambling game is just that, a total game. Our driver spoke only Thai and unfortunately, the second man wouldn't be coming so we were eager to make our demands clear. Success. We piled into the tuk-tuk, knees bent and humidity curled tendrils whipping across our faces as we made the windy road into the mountain, the tip of the stacked white Buddha Temple peeking between the emerald hills.
And we were there....I knew I'd have a difficult time describing this place and I hate to be one to say "you just have to see it for yourself" but you just have to see it for yourself. We decided to overwhelm ourselves first with the Buddha Temple, first taking off our shoes so our feet could step across the swirling mosaic flooring. As if that wasn't enough detail to take in, the massively stark Buddha's framed against the mountains was something else to take in. I had to tear myself away, being told by the girls that the other temple was way - way - better.
Oh they were right. The circular patterns on the ground, the plates and crushed tea sets set into columns that melted into more intricate swirls, huge pillars, rainbow mosiacs creating a staircase into more tiny and tiled patterns that folded into winding corridors. All of it, every single inch, was covered in hand laid mosaics.
It was mesmerizing.
It was absolutely mesmerizing.
And our pre-negotiated 3 hours seemed more like 30 minutes and we were already well overdue, so we met our agitated tuk-tuk driver and made the ride down the hill where he dropped us off in the middle of an interstate. It was an adventure getting back to Phichit; Apparently the bus we had taken up there was due to come in about 40 minutes, or not at all. We met a man with an empty pickup truck who was willing to take us to to P-lok for about 3 times as much as we had paid for our bus ticket up here. The lack of windows, doors and places to sit made that a tempting offer. Luckily our bus did arrive at the unceremonious interstate stop (the same bus actually, driver and everything) and we all snoozed through a odd Thai film that seemed to straddle the line between horror and comedy. We made the best of our evening in P-lock, taxi'ing over to the crowded walking street to pick up *real* Adidas sweatshirts and all manner of street food. A late night train ride got us back to Phichit where a ride through the dark streets (all while avoid the dogs that keep watch) got us to our school, where we talked, snacked and laughed...and still marveled at the Glass Temple until about 3 AM.
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