Shrines and Spirit Houses

   One of the joys of living in a foreign country or getting to travel is seeing what the locals experience everyday. Thailand is over 90% Buddhist with Hindu influences and one way most visitors see this devotion right away are the Spirit Houses and Shrines. They are outside most all buildings and businesses, usually where a shadow of the actual building cannot fall on it.
   The Shrine houses a statue of the Buddha and is the larger the two. The smaller Spirit House is there to honor the spirits of the land the house or building is on, kind of like Mother Earth.

   They are always near each other but have separate  places for offerings. These could be flowers, incense and often food and soft drinks. Many times I see people from our building praying and leaving offerings. Even just walking by, they "wai" (bow head with palms together) 

   Most businesses also have a small shrine area inside-we see them in restaurants and stores, all adorned with flowers and food. While I have not been in a private home, I understand they normally have one there also.

   There are several famous larger public Shrines in and around Bangkok, most of which are busy day and night. They often have statues of Hindu Gods, which Thais also worship. Here is a video of Erawan, right in the heart of the hotel/mall center of Bangkok. 

   This Shrine has a famous 4 headed statue of Phra Phrom, the Thai representation of the Hindu God of Creation Lord Brahma. You enter and can purchase offerings, then working  clockwise pray at all 4 directions. People pray for luck, love, health and money. If you want special prayers you can hire the Thai dancers and musicians where you kneel and they will dance behind you. It is very solemn and respectful and once your prayers are answered, you are supposed to return and give thanks.

Never a dull moment in the neighborhood!

   Before moving to Bangkok, we did tons of research.....I mean TONS! Endless YouTubes of street food, studying google earth, hundreds of apartment sites, you name it! We even watched a video of a guy walking from one area of where we were considering moving as he walked to the train station so we could time it for distance!
   Some of what we wanted in our area were: lots of markets, access to a large grocery store, VERY close distance to the BTS sky train and away from the tourists. We wanted to live where regular Thai people lived and really get to be part of the community. One of our main worries was when it pours, they do have flooding in Bangkok and since they get almost 60 inches of rain a year, (compare that to Las Vegas' measly 3.5!) slogging thru dirty water on uneven sidewalks was a real concern.
   We chose the On Nut BTS as it had everything we wanted- a huge Tesco attached to the train station (hardly get wet!), several markets in the side Sois (streets), and the train gives us a quick 15 minute or so trip to the heart of the retail/hotel/restaurant center of Bangkok.
   Imagine our surprise when google earth stopped showing a quite large market and a big square of dirt appeared...what happened? Well, it turns out the right next door they are building a mall/hotel/movie palace- I mean, it is about 12 feet from our building! Now, there are 9 train stops to the center of town I had mentioned and each one has a mall there, with all different vibes. One is Japanese, one is super exclusive, another is world themed...kind of like Las Vegas. We thought our area was a bit far to have its own MALL, but someone felt otherwise.

     The VERVE sign is our building-- so while a little daunting worrying about the extra traffic, we are looking at the bright side of a movie theater next door! I will go into the movie experience in a later blog, but it is not to be missed.

   This is the view from our elevator-we can see daily changes as they work on this almost 24 hours a day. It is scheduled to open in October. It is right next to our pool and headphones are an absolute must due to the building noise. 

   Here is a small list of who will be opening--I am excited about the B2S store, which is as close to an art store as there is..it is pen heaven for any planners out there. Bangkok is ever-changing and pushing out further into the outer edges of town. The big fear I think is gentrification fever which uproots people who can't afford to live in their area anymore and some flavor gets lost. 

                                                                                                      Bye for now!