Asalaha Bucha and The Beast Of Lumphini

Today is a full moon and being the eighth lunar month it marks the day that the Lord Buddha gave his first sermon called "Dhamma-cakkappavattana Sutta" or the Discourse on Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion. The day is called Asalaha Bucha and in the Buddhist calendar it is a very sacred day that precedes the Buddhist lent and honors the community of the monks. In Thailand, Asalaha Bucha is a public holiday and people will go to the temples to make merit and abstain from drinking alcohol (well most people at least!). As for me, I have to work today although I do get tomorrow off and I will be leaving Bangkok for a long weekend in Kanchanaburi..

Two Sundays ago, my friend James and I went down to my local park Suan Lumphini to lie down and basically try and recover from a fairly heavy Saturday night. Lumphini park was built during the reign of King Rama IV who apart from making a lovely park also managed to have 80 odd children and 40 something wife's!. Lumphini is without a doubt one of my favorite places to relax and it is home to an amazing selection of wildlife, I enjoy checking out the water lizards and this particular day we spotted a really large beast that I captured on my phone camera (excuse the lack of zoom). I think the lizards are Malayan water monitors (Varanus salvator) and a friend of mine recently saw one struggling for half an hour to eat a terrapin, eventually the lizard just swallowed him down shell and all!