From 16 to 21 November 2009, I was sent to Hua Hin, Thailand, for the Symposium on Consecrated Life organised by the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC). I was the only lay person around at the event, and was there to present a talk to the delegates comprising Major Superiors of various religious orders, congregations and societies in Asia.

Hua Hin is a famous beach resort town in Thailand, in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula, some 200 km south of Bangkok. As you will see in my pictures in a while, Hua Hin has a historically close association with the Thai royalty even until this day.

The best description for Hua Hin would be found in its very own slogan: "City of pure gold, delectable coconuts and pineapples, delightful beaches, mountain and caves, land of spiritual beauty". The place has a tropical climate with high humidity and occasional rain. The weather there is quite pleasant.

Unfortunately, I have only a very limited selection of photographs taken at Hua Hin, since my time there was taken up by my participation in the Symposium. But I'll share what I have.

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Obviously, the first thing anyone should notice about Hua Hin is its beaches, since it's a beach resort town. Tourists from both the East and West visit Hua Hin in order to enjoy its windy and sandy beaches. They do all sorts of things at the beach: gliding, boating, horse riding, building sand castles, or maybe just nothing at all.

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To be sure, what you're seeing in this picture are not houses. They're just little shades found at the retreat centre where my Symposium was held. But I thought they were interesting because they were very reflective of typical Thai architecture. Thai architecture reflects its rich cultural and religious heritage, and it is common to see religious places as well as residential houses having roofs like the ones shown in this picture.

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This is another not-to-be-missed spot of Hua Hin: its night market. Of course, if you're Malaysian, you'd immediately recognise it as a replica of our very own Petaling Street in Kuala Lumpur. Well, that's exactly what it is.

When you visit the night market, you'll see countless numbers of stalls lined along two or three streets selling a variety of things. Many of these stalls actually sell the same thing. The prices of these things vary and there is often no standard price for a particular commodity. The price that you get for something would very much depend on your bargaining skills (and honestly, the colour of your skin too - if they recognised you to be from outside of Asia, well, you're a prime profit target!)

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This is Dr Chatsumarn Kabilsingh (left), a former successful academic scholar, who had established a monastery for the training of Buddhist nuns in Thailand. What is peculiar about her is that she is an "ordained nun" in Thailand, where they'd never had a tradition of fully-ordained nuns (bhikkhuni). On February 28, 2003, Kabilsingh received full bhikkhuni (nun) ordination in Sri Lanka. Now known as Bhikkhuni Dhammananda, she is abbess of the only temple in Thailand where there are fully ordained nuns.

At our Symposium, she shared about how she struggled in order to receive ordination and acceptance in the Buddhist world in Thailand. Acceptance of ordained nuns in Thailand is still lacking today.

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The King of Thailand loves his subjects very much. Likewise, his subjects loves him because he cares very much for them. We were told that the people of Thailand would be most willing to die for their King if the occasion called for it.

As an example of his love for his subjects, we were taken to a farm where the King had begun a sustainable project to help the poor people out of their state of poverty. On this farm, families were given cows to rear, who would then sell their milk to a nearby milk processing plant. Purchase of their milk were guaranteed regardless of demand from the market. There were times when there was an oversupply of milk and milk had to be poured away. Even so, it was the policy that all the cow's milk sold by those families under this scheme had to be purchased.

The above three pictures show the plant on the inside. Don't understand what you're looking at? Neither do I. During the plant tour, explanations were made on what each machine did for the process; but it was way beyond me, so I just took up my camera and snapped away while they rattled off.

We were each served a cup of fresh cow milk. It tasted... cowey.

The King was very concerned that the children of Thailand did not like to drink cow milk, as they did not like its taste (like I said, it tasted cowey). He wanted them to drink cow milk, as it was good for their health. He therefore invented pure milk tablets, like sweets, nicely packed like this for the children. Since then, the children of Thailand began taking cow milk tablets. I could love a king like that.

I bought 20 packets of cow milk tablets back to Malaysia for my niece and nephew. They disappeared within a couple of days.

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I had a brief stopover at Bangkok before flying back to Malaysia. It was already the weekend, and so I fulfilled my day of obligation at the Church of Holy Redeemer, which was just a couple of minutes' walk from the simple cottage hotel where I put up. The Church of the Holy Redeemer is run by the Redemptotists (C.Ss.R).

As you can see, the architecture of the church is very inculturated. So is the inside of the church, at the area of the sanctuary and that altar. It also has a strikingly beautiful stations of the cross as part of its wall structure. An intriguing end to an interesting visit to Thailand.

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