There was a puppy at our hotel in Kanchanaburi.
She was brand new.
And really fluffy.
And so very cute.
So Kerri stalked her.
She tried to scare Kerri away by being ferocious.
But Kerri wasn’t scared.
She has petted hungry tigers after all.
So there is no way a little ball of fluff that falls on its back when you push it with your pinkie finger was going to scare her off.
If you have any money left after buying your way out of Hell you can also buy yourself some good luck for this life.
First you drive away evil spirits by donating 1 baht per year of your life (about $1 for us) to your character on the Thai zodiac.
Our Ox was pretty boring. Most of the animals had colourful people riding them.
Then, if you’re feeling left out for not being Buddhist don’t worry! You can give them money no matter what your religion!
This one is for the Christians.
And this one is for the Muslims.
And the Hindus.
And many headed saints from unnamed Chinese religions.
This guy was unlabelled.
If Buddha is your preference there were tons to chose from.
Skinny Buddhas.
Fat Buddhas.
And Buddhas that appeared to be suffering from leprosy.
After you’ve paid them for your god(s) of choice, you can find your Saint and give them more money to be free of suffering for a long period of time.
You determine your saint by walking past them and counting for each year of your life. Boys count from left to right and girls from right to left. If you are old you will have to loop through them more than once.
This was Kerri’s saint, who predicts that she will have success in work, in love and in finding things that get lost. If she is a merchant she will get very rich. She will have a son, be lucky and be very happy in her life.
It is unclear if this still applies because she didn’t put any money in the box.
This is Matt’s saint, who predicts that he cannot attain his wish in love or in luck but he can cover up his ailment.
We assume that is supposed to be apply even though he didn’t put any money in the box.
After escaping Hell you progress to an area with more sculptures, but no English translations.
So I can’t tell you what is going on here.
But I’m pretty sure the dogs don’t like it.
They do not like it at all.
The frog probably is enjoying himself.
But the fish are not.
And George W. Bush is weeding the garden.
Today we visited Buddhist Hell, where you get reborn if you do bad stuff.
It is quite graphic, and only gets worse as we go.
So if you want to stop reading now you can.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Hell does not look pleasant. Given all of the skeletons and blood you would think it would be a short life. But lives in Hell are longer than lives on earth; in some cases longer than the age of the universe.
This is what happens if you tell a lie.
This is what happens if you are a monk or a nun and break the rules.
This is what happens if you steal, cheat or destroy other’s property.
But you may also wind up headless with your face in your torso for those same crimes.
And if you only steal small things you just get your hands chopped off. You don’t even have to go to Hell for that, there are plenty of countries on Earth that do that.
This is what happens if you get drunk. Yep, you pretty much just wind up drunk for a few billion years.
Unless you’re really unlucky, because one drunk guy winds up being force fed something red and apparently unpleasant.
It looks similar to what happens if you poison animals.
If you just drink alcohol but don’t get drunk, you wind up like this. So if you’re going to drink you may as well do it right.
This is the punishment for adultery.
This is what happens if you rape.
This is what happens if you use birth control.
This is what happens if you get an abortion.
This is what happens if you kill your husband and he was a good father. (It does not say what happens if he was not a good father).
And just in case you think you’re still doing OK, this is just for failing to donate money to the monks.
Of course there are boxes everywhere where you can put money to make up for your misdeeds.
Then you will wind up in a world with a tree that has everything you could desire.
Which I would think would make it difficult to give up desire to end suffering and make it to Nirvana. But tree land kind of sounds more fun than Nirvana anyway.
Elephants have big eyes.
And long eyelashes to keep the dust and sand and flies out.
They have swishy tails with hair at the ends to brush away the flies.
And big feet with big toenails.
Sometimes the boys give the girls backrubs. At least that’s what the guide told the young children next to us. This boy is much too young to be giving the girls backrubs, but he tries every day anyway.
The elephants like to scratch against trees.
It appears to be very satisfying.
The younger ones lie down to rest, but most of the elephants in the retirement home don’t because they won’t be able to get back up again.
The elephants spray themselves with dust to use as sunscreen.
It is hard to get everything covered.
This is the only picture of both of us with an elephant.
