Amulets and Altars

The Bangkok Amulet Market isn’t on the street corners outside the Tha Chang boat pier, it’s further down the street – though there is a thriving business along the sidewalks – and this is the amulet making supply district. If you want your completed amulets – or statues or any variety of iconographic items for your home altar, you’ll find them in this neighborhood.

I bought three things – an actual amulet for protection and two hammered metal pieces that are just the prettiest things and have prayers or some kind of text scrawled around the images. I have NO idea what they say or what they are for and because this part of the city is not a touristy area, very few people are available to translate or explain.

The monks are the serious shoppers here, they are carrying eyepieces for close inspection of the goods, checking to see if the stones are real, perhaps, or if the image of the monk is the right one or who knows what… It’s a fascinating scene and we squandered more than enough time along the sidewalks and in the back alleys making amulet deals and watching others do the same. Note to self? Read up on the amulet market upon return home. Hell, you could Google it for me and then tell me about it later.

I gave away my Boddhisatva card to one of our fellow travelers who’d lost some stuff at the Cambodia/Thai border and in doing so may have jinxed my luck. I’ve been down for about 24 hours with a Very Bad Gut. My comrades have gone off to see the Royal Palace, I’m stuck close to our hotel because of my unpredictable insides. Like the broken camera, it could be worse. We fly out tomorrow, late morning, so today I have time for the antibiotics to kick in and to, um, let the situation pass. It’s a shame to miss a day out in Bangkok, but hey, things could be worse.

We’re back stateside tomrrow evening. Things will seem quiet and spacious and probably really boring by comparison. Oh, and cold as hell, I’m sure.