If you receive handwritten letters, you may have already heard about this trip. I put it in many of my recent letters and debated on making a blog post about it, but it's too fascinating to not share and this place is as much a storage container for my memories as it is for other people to read.
For this story, buckle up because we're going all the way back to 2019!
**Graphic images warning**
**We went to a very cool temple but the statues were very... vivid**
**Pictures may not be suitable for young eyes... or sensitive eyes**
It was the very last week before be broke for the winter holidays and everyone was talking about their plans for the holiday. A couple guys in my office were thinking about taking a bike trip south and I butted myself into their conversation ... and then into their trip.Adrian and Joe were going down with their friend, Cal, for his birthday.
On Saturday, we got up bright and early in the morning (5:15am) to make it to Adrian's apartment by 6. After a cup of coffee and a fresh pollution mask, we were on our way!
In total we had four bikes. The three boys all had their large, impressive, motorcycle looking bikes and I had my little zipzip moped. However, since I was the only person with a phone holder (for GPS), I was the head of the pack. Please imagine how funny this must have looked for Amanda and myself on my little zipzip Honda Click to be leading a small pack of motorcycles.
We headed south, stopping occasionally for pit-stops of coffee and bathrooms.
I never realized until I started driving a moped at about 80-120km/hr how physically demanding it is. You really do need to stop about once an hour just to breathe deeply and let your muscles shake.
We made it down to Bang Sean in about 3 hours. Without traffic and stops, it would have been much less, but bikes here are not allowed to drive on the highway. So we have to drive on the service roads that parallel them.
I've included both Bangkok at the top and Pattaya at the bottom of this photo to help orient people less familiar with Thailand.
We arrived and made our first stop: a temple.
**Here is your final graphic images warning before I get started**
Now this temple isn't just any temple. This temple is made of several sculpture gardens. Each of these gardens depicts a different story. The first story we saw was the life story of the Buddha. The third was about the Chinese zodiac.
You were encouraged to leave a baht for every year of your life in the statue of your zodiac. Mine is the year of the cock (ironic AF). I left 27B just to be safe because I was 26 1/2 by this point and I didn't want the ghosts to feel ripped off. ;)
I have no context for this lizard, but he made me happy.
Both of these were insightful and thought-provoking. However, neither of them held a candle to the main event.
I know this because I have a plethora of pictures from only the second garden and a grand total of ... well, I'm currently not finding any of the first and third.
The temple's name is Wang/Wat Saen Suk, or in English: The Hell Garden Temple. It's a story of Buddhist hell, also called "Naraka".
As we walked in, we were greeted by two giant humanoid figures standing over a boiling pot of sinners being stabbed with sticks.
As you can see in the photo directly above, there were also statues of humanoids with animal heads. Each of these heads was symbolic of a different punishment for a crime done on Earth.
All of these were from different crimes on Earth, but at the same time, my biggest question was: "what if I was a real bad person who earned multiple heads?"
Nobody could answer that question ... nor did any of the plaques and I read all of them.
Next we were taken through "the pits". Each of these depicted a punishment for crimes committed during life.
This one was for women using birth control. I couldn't help but notice there wasn't one for ANY male sexual crimes.
Lying got an odd punishment, but I guess everyone looked down at you forever?
Hugging a cactus while a bird pecks out your head...
This was a good example of the animal heads on criminals in the pits. So these were persons who committed the crimes of the snakes being punished by vultures ripping their intestines out for all of eternity.
Doctors who provided women with birth control or abortions... I think that a good slew of American Republicans might want to bring this one back.
Not respecting your parents...
Women speaking back to their husbands. Luckily I'm good here...
Sometimes the signs were only in Thai and it was infuriating... WHY IS SHE BEING MURDERED BY COWS?!
Thieves getting their hands cut off.
Traitors having their hearts cut out of their chests.
This was my favorite. This is the punishment for having an abortion for ANY reason.
This was a special form of hell. This is the punishment for women who don't listen to their husbands and try to leave them. The punisher is her husband.
This is the punishment for disrespectful students.
These really would be the pits if you were stuck there. I continued to have the question of what happens if you committed multiple crimes. For instance, I was once kicked out of choir rehearsal in high school for refusing to put away my math homework when the altos were practicing. (I was a soprano. I saw no problem in working on a worksheet... but my director did...) I've also disobeyed my parents, taken birth control, and several other things that we saw. Where would I have been punished?
From here, we went through people recognizing their sins and making amends. Unfortunately, most of this part was under construction.
This man is feeding his intestines to crows peacefully. I'm not certain how this is any better... but apparently it was?
At the end was a gathering of people who were still alive on Earth praying and donating to the god of death to get their loved ones out of hell.
While this adventure was merely four or five hours of one day of a multi-day trip, it has stayed with me more than any other adventure we've gone on yet in Thailand.
The rest of our trip was lovely. Bang Sean is a gorgeous little Thai vacation spot. The booze was cheap, the company was great, and the food was sublime. The beaches were perfect and the papaya salad was the most edible I've had in Thailand. Even ordering it "mai phet" (no spice) it was almost inedibly spicy.
I also flexed my baby Thai when I flagged down a Thai woman on the beach selling fried shrimp. I asked her how much they were and how many we would get with one order. She laughed and said "no English". Pointing to my mouth, I said "mai mai mai! chan pasa Thai" (no no no! I'm speaking Thai). I tried again and she understood me this time. We got six breaded and fried giant shrimp with a delicious sweet chili sauce for about a dollar!
The boys had headed back to Bangkok by this point and Amanda and I stopped for a quick coffee before hitting the road. We had seen an adorable little spot and it had just "soft opened" that weekend.
We got their specialty drinks that were entirely in Thai, so I can't tell you what I was drinking. It was really good though!
Then we headed back to Bangkok. We wanted to take the scenic route as we had the entire afternoon to get back. I won't lie, I had a vague direction that I knew I needed to head and other than that, I was following the Pokestops along the sea.
The Pokestops wove down the coast until I realized we were going up a very large hill - and there was an incredible amount of oncoming traffic. So I began to weave between SUVs until in front of me, there was a monkey in the middle of the road!
There wasn't just one monkey on this road; they were worse than deer on Minnesota roads after harvest season at sundown!
At the top of this hill, I realized why everyone was heading to the top: the view.
I did what the cars couldn't: I pulled into the ditch and Amanda and I got off the bike.
The view was worth the drive. The pictures do not do it justice.
After passing the viewpoint, the monkeys were less prevalent and we were able to glide down the mountain and back onto the road. We followed a twisting and winding road that took us through small towns and skirted the water.
The best part was a long bridge that skirted the outside of ChonBuri proper. When I say "bridge", I'm lying to you. I just Google Mapped the distance of this large highway that drifted over the sea and it's 6km long. It was beautiful. To our left (and we were in the leftmost left lane as slow traffic) was just expansive blue sea and blue skies. It smelled like salt and sea breeze. It was the best part of the ride back.
After this, we had to return to more major roads. We turned onto the highway and made an exhausting 2 hour trek on the horrific pavement back to our apartment.
