Even after 20 years in The Land of Smiles certain Thai traditions still catch my attention. One of these is the morning Alms walk that give Buddhist monks the chance to stretch their legs and walk around the local neighbourhood barefooted and collect food offered by local citizens, mainly women who wait around dawn and kneel before the monks to give food and receive a kind blessing from the monk in return.
Officials have recently been receiving a number of complaints abot monks using unorthodox techniques of hanging around mainly busy early morning market areas and effectively begging for contributions.
One morning last week the police went out to check on these unorthodox monks visiting markets in South Pattaya, Central Pattaya and Jomtien. 15 monks were invited to join the officers in their vehicle for a free ride to The Chai Mongkol Temple in South Pattaya for their bone fides to be checked out. While their bone fides were examined by the staff at the temple their urine samples were being examined by police technicians.
Everything checked out fine for the 14 monks - one had disappeared during the process. The Abbot at Chai Mongkol was not happy however with unorthodox monks collection procedures and gave them a stern rebuke before they were returned to their various temples around the area. where they face further disciplinary action and in some cases may even be ejected from the monk hood.
