two steps behind

Feeling inspired by the idea of “constructing”

To construct something takes researching, understanding, planning, designing, engineering, refining,… the list goes on! To construct anything will definitely take time. Lots of time. However, the end result will definitely pay off nicely. IE, these men are spending days and nights to build a bridge for train tracks. Once the bridge is complete, the train then can go to many more places that it could before because of the river that prevented it.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets: ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it.’” –W.H. Murray, of the Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Dreams… are no different from the trains on tracks moving forward… Never backward.

photo taken during a boat trip at Chachoengsao, Thailand.

C’mon, I’m serious! These are flying foxes.

A one day family trip (about 120 of us!) last week was truly exhausting from simply eating, taking nasp on the bus and taking photos from time to time. For this trip, we went to Chaochoengsao, a city about an hours drive east of Bangkok.

We went to so many places in the city that by the end of the day I thought it was a 5 day trip! As for today’s post, one of the most interesting places that our family visit is at the Temple, Wat Pho because it is where theses flying foxes have resided for years.

I vaguely remember some of this information provided by our tour guide.

Full grown flying foxes can weight up to 800 grams and will fly for miles to find food, particularly fruit.  The legend goes that these flying foxes are really intelligent and sensitive (or so they say that these flying foxes can understand human language) as there was one time that the temple were trying to hold a 9 days festival. The villager kept saying that who would come to this temple with all these flying foxes since their smell is unbearable! For some unexplainable reason, these flying foxes flew away a day before the festival began, allowing the temple to clean up the place and returned to the temple a day after the festival ended. Not one of them was present during the festival time.

Another story is that, the flying foxes are very emotionally sensitive and attached to the abbot of the temple. During and after the funeral of the abbot, these flying foxes start to drop dead without cause. The story was told that the abbot invited these flying foxes to reside here in the temple years ago. So they believe that the cause of death could be… grieving to death.

When I heard that we are going to see the flying foxes, I thought of just a few of them hanging around the tree. But I couldn’t be more wrong, there were hundreds of them! Another interesting phenomena is that, these flying foxes will only reside within the walls of the temple. This place is just so cool!

More info about the city, please visit http://www.chachoengsao.go.th/th/